AMSJ – PRACTITIONER TRAINING

Mission statement:
We utilise nature and the natural environment as a learning tool so that Practitioners can deliver nature based self discovery programs for groups and individuals so that they can heal and recover appropriately, partially or wholly from unresolved trauma issues.

Vision
We believe every individual has the ability to connect with their inner self in order to enhance harmony within their life’s journey and to self heal partially or wholly from unresolved trauma issues.

“I am a ray of Sunlight;
I am the breath of Life;
I am the whisper in the wind:
Yet I know not myself”.
           anon– circa 1650

We are non political and non discriminatory practitioners

Training activities:
Participants are asked to bring with them the following items which will play a significant role in the training process:-

An early baby photo (one that does not indicate that it is you)

An old favourite childhood (small) toy or something that represents such a toy

Some clothes that represent who you are or what you do in life [these will not be returning with you so ensue that their loss is acceptable]

A photo of yourself that you do not like and would be happy for it not to exist

These items will be used to demonstrate how you can use them in your work in helping clients look at the past, identify barriers that are preventing them from moving forward with their lives in a positive and productive manner, and to address internalised unresolved trauma issues which may be the cause of a wide variety of mental health and well being issues.

In addition, on the week long workshops you will experience at first hand how Journey Sticks can be used to record individual feelings and emotions, how you can use Nature to tell life stories in order to highlight the negative aspects of ones life, and how finding spirituality (non religious) within the natural environment can affect positive change.

Because the Training Journey will be essential a Journey through Nature, you are asked NOT to bring the following items on the workshop with you although they may be brought and left in a safe place until the end of the session:

Mobile phone
Pocket computer
Watches
GP’s
Lap tops
Radios
Personal cd players or any other technological items that may detract from living with Nature whilst travelling through it.

All participants will be expected to accord unconditional respect for Nature, the Natural Environment and each other.

Your learning will start when you have registered for a place on one of our training workshops when you will be sent a questionnaire before coming on the workshop. This questionnaire will identify your current daily Driver Behaviour mechanisms [Transactional Analysis], and your preferred Learning Style.

The Driver Behaviour questionnaire help you understand what internal Drivers you have developed during your early childhood, refined during your adolescence and adulthood, and, which ‘drive’ you to do what you do, react and respond the way you do in order to get through your daily life routine.

There are both positive as well as negative aspects to your Driver Behaviours and an understanding of these will help you assess and evaluate aspects of your current and past life experiences with a view to changing how you react and respond in the future, if this is your chosen aim. With this individual knowledge, you will see how this can be transposed to your own clients in order to assist them in any desired internal search they may have in trying to understand themselves as an individual human being.

This exercise is done individually and the results will not be shared with anyone else as they only relate to your own responses to the 25 questions asked.

The Learning Style questionnaire will help you see (if you do not already know) how best you learn. In turn, when aligned with Driver Behaviour with clients, a more holistic insight is gained which then will assist individuals to better understand themselves with a view to making informed positive choices about making life style changes.

In addition, during the workshop, we shall make attempts to undertake some if not all of the following working approaches:-

• Using Trees to connect with the inner self.
• Using string (with/without trees) to define connectedness with others and the self.
• How writing yourself a letter can act as a motivator.
• Using the Natural Environment to represent your understanding of your own life story.
• Ancient Rite of Passage – a symbolic ritual of self-discovery for change using Nature’s
        Johari’s Doorway.
• Viewing your life, past, present and future through Nature’s Johari window.
• Story telling using metaphors and reality during camp fire sessions.
• Re-inventing the new you - (photos and old clothes ceremony)
• Re-connecting to a magical and special awareness - (toy or toy representation)
• Journey memory sticks.
• Toon cards – giving and taking to/from self and others.
• Self portrait in poetry.
• Walking your internal life’s schema through nature’s external labyrinth.
• Using rituals and symbols to effect therapeutic well being.
• Vision Quest Solo within a Rite of Passage construct.

NOTE:
On the Hungary workshops we also explore woodcraft skills as well as the philosophy and ethical dilemma of using the wilderness to effect therapeutic change.
 
Of course, we will be interacting continually with Nature and the Natural Environment and will be using many aspects of this as we Journey through it in order to participate in many aspects of the above programme content.our solo bivvySolo

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2009:
The planned canadian canoe river expedition may be either in Alaska or the Yukon. Currently this trip has attracted several practitioners already as this will be a unique opportunity to do some training among a group of peers in a fantastic wilderness setting.

Have you checked out TOP-SIG [Therapeutic Outdoor Practitioner Special Interest Group of the IOL (Institute for Outdoor learning!)] I convene this group but we have been inactive this past year. We usually organize non profit making training weekends in Wales, Scotland and the Lakes.

There is also a professionals group which meets four or five times a year (only set up last November) but I have not been able to make it to any of their meetings. Can find the contact address if you wish.

If there is anything I can be of assistance or help with, please do not hesitate to contact me. My head is full of information which I am always happy to share with colleagues in the field.

I have attached some files of articles I have written which you may find useful.

Kind regards
‘floating stone’
k/a frank grant
cumbria