WILD: Bush Adventure Therapy

WILD is a Bush Adventure Therapy (BAT) service within EACH, and offers people a safe space to discover who they are and encourages their personal development by connecting them to their surrounding environment.

The program supports participants to develop healthy relationships with self, others and the environment, to be able to make positive changes through bush adventure therapy.

The WILD Bush Adventure Therapy team have witnessed positive mental health outcomes in participants for many years. They wanted to be able to document the mechanisms behind these significant outcomes, to be able to understand exactly how this alternative therapeutic approach is so effective.

In 2018, the EACH Health Promotion Team embarked on a research journey together with Deakin University to discover how it works. The findings of this research strongly point to the fact that the success of BAT stems from a complex interplay of positive human relationships taking place outdoors. Healing begins with the positive relationship with staff, which flows onto the relationship with peers and then to the relationship with self.

The full evaluation report can be accessed below.

Website: WILD: Bush Adventure Therapy

Report: Evaluating WILD: A Bush Adventure Therapy Program 2018