Engaging, Immersive, Unforgettable
Rooted Life Adventures utilizes a dynamic range of outdoor adventure excursions, cultural immersion, volunteer service learning, psychoeducational curriculum and wrap-around mental health support to empower young people to develop a core sense of self, belonging, capability, and purpose.
Adolescents ages 14-17 & Young Adults ages 17-24:
Throughout history, adolescence and young adulthood has been a time of exploration, identity seeking, and finding belonging. However, today’s young people are met with unprecedented challenges that exacerbate these needs, including the development of addictive technology, and a worldwide pandemic that robbed many youth of critical mental, emotional, and social development.
Our goal is to serve young people who are ready to try something new to work through their current challenges, whether that be increased anxiety, symptoms of depression, loneliness, social challenges, loss of motivation, or feelings of being “stuck” in their life. By adjusting their environment and building skills to manage emotional overload, young people in our program can build resilience and find belonging through the authentic connections they create with us.
Our program combines outdoor adventure experiences, group living, problem solving, and therapeutic framework in a safe and empathetic environment for personal growth.
Participating in various outdoor adventure experiences directly, and indirectly, increases participant’s self-efficacy. It is an experiential way to teach participants to overcome fears and challenges while working to be solution-focused. In this setting, participants are able to increase feelings of social connectedness, self-esteem, and self compassion, resulting in a therapeutic experience that can be generalised when they return home.
Rooted Life Adventures is a small group adventure travel abroad program with mental health support. We have a therapeutic coach on site 24/7 to facilitate group cohesion and deliver psychoeducational core curriculum and wellness workshops.
We are the first and only program to date that includes specific, protected time for our participants to meet weekly with their at-home therapist. In this way, they can receive support on achieving weekly goals and skill building objectives. By doing this, participants will have a cohesive experience ultimately resulting in seamless continuity of care and supported transition to and from program.
We do not have rolling admissions, instead we have specific program dates so that all students start and end together, grow together, and spend the full 6/8/10 weeks living in community. This model allows them to build meaningful, long-lasting friendships.
We offer diverse, experiential opportunities each week, including cultural immersion, internship, volunteer service learning, home stewardship, and adventure.
-Andre Gide
Meet the Founder
Austin Rogers
Executive Director,
Founder
Austin comes from a background of Gap Year adventure and experiential learning programs. After years of working with outdoor educational programs for young adults all over the world, she recognised an increasing number of adolescents suffering from mental health challenges and the growing need for increased mental health support in programs. In addition, Gen Z students have demonstrated a craving for learning about emotional intelligence, social justice, identity, and empathy with an acute attention to their mental and emotional wellbeing like never before.
With the growing need of mental health support in students she went into a research deep dive and it became clear that there were no programs holding the space between Gap Year and full on Adventure Therapy, which can be overwhelming and with a price tag out of reach for most families.
After several white board concept meetings, we found that most families had already spent intentional time finding a therapist they trusted. Instead of replacing this resource, we created a psychoeducational adventure program that partners virtually with student's own therapists creating a forward-thinking, holistic alternative to traditional adventure therapy programming tailor made for the post- pandemic Gen Z student.
Interested in joining the movement?
We are always looking for talented, bright, enthusiastic people to join our team. If you feel like you would make a great addition to Rooted Life Adventures, please reach out! We are always looking for field instructors and Therapeutic coaches ready to make a difference.
© 2023 Rooted Life Adventures Ltd. All Rights Reserved
NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS!
New Zealand Young Adults
Ages 17-24 • All Genders
10-Week | February 8 - April 17, 2024
6-Week | March 7 - April 17, 2024