Category: Our Team

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Our Team

Meet Jane | Parent Coach

Meet Jane | Rooted Life Adventure Parent Coach

Jane’s dedication to family communications, learning styles, and her passion for facilitating workshops make her an invaluable resource for parents seeking positive transformations in their relationships with their children.

Austin Rogers, RLA Founder

In an effort to constantly be reviewing and improving our Wellness Adventure program, Rooted Life Adventures is now introducing Parent Coaching with the expert guidance of Jane Samuel, MA, CPC. This will keep us aligned with our ultimate mission of giving top tier support to students and families.

With the experience of our first program under our belts, we believe giving parents further support is necessary to align our holistic approach. Three (3) sessions at the beginning of the program, and three (3) sessions at the end, will be given to prepare families to aid in students adjusting to program life and during reintegration back home.

Meet Our Parent Coach

Career Achievements

Jane Samuel, MA, CPC

Bachelor of Science, Weber State University
Master of Arts, Brigham Young University

• 50+ years in educational settings, including public school
• 5 therapeutic settings including therapeutic boards and young adult transitional programs

Trained in:
• parent coaching

Specializes in:
• family communication systems
• learning styles
• adoption
• learning styles

A life-long educator and counselor, Jane Samuel, MA, CPC brings a lifetime of experience working with children, teen, young adults (spanning ages 8 to 25) and their families. She has served as an Admission Director, Program Director and Executive Director in 5 therapeutic settings.

In addition to her undergraduate and graduate work, she has college course work in family communications systems, working with learning issues and styles. 

Parent coaching supports parents in developing the knowledge, skills, and strategies necessary for effective parenting. It involves working with a trained and certified parent coach or counselor who provides guidance, education, and support to parents as they navigate the challenges and complexities of raising children.

Jane loves creating and facilitating workshops for parents. She co-led family wilderness expeditions for young adults and their parents for 8 years, focusing on helping parents and young adults redefine their relationships for the future.

Today, Jane continues to offer Parent Coaching to families with children, teen and young adults in specialized settings. She is also a member of the International Coaching Federation.

Benefits of a Parent Coach

Key aspects of parent coaching include:

  1. Education: Parent coaches provide parents with information and resources related to child development, behavior, and parenting techniques. They help parents understand the developmental stages of their children and provide insights into age-appropriate expectations.
  2. Skill-building: Acquire and refine your communication skills, discipline strategies, problem-solving techniques, and conflict resolution methods.
  3. Personalized Support: Parent coaching is tailored to the specific needs and circumstances of each family. Coaches work with parents to identify their unique challenges and goals and develop strategies to address them.
  4. Empowerment: Make informed decisions and take an active role in your child’s life. Coaches encourage parents to trust their instincts and build confidence in their parenting abilities.
  5. Conflict Resolution: Learn how to manage and resolve conflicts within the family, including sibling rivalry, behavioral issues, and parent-child conflicts.
  6. Stress Reduction: Learn how to manage stress and find healthy ways to cope with the demands of parenting.
  7. Positive Parenting: Approach the most important job in the world with positivity. A parent coach will emphasize the importance of building strong, healthy relationships with children based on trust, respect, and open communication.
  8. Goal Setting: Set specific parenting goals and develop action plans to achieve them. This can be particularly helpful for addressing long-term parenting challenges.
  9. Accountability: Stay accountable to your parenting goals and commitments with your parent coach providing ongoing support and encouragement.

Wrap Around Care

Our team will continue to facilitate students remaining in contact with their support system while on program, including their at-home therapist. Our on-site Field Wellness Director Amalia Gamboa, who works alongside students 24/7, will continue to provide in-the-moment coaching, and report back to each student’s at-home therapist about challenges, gains, and skills they are focusing on.

#WellnessAdventures #SupportedGap #MentalHealthSupport #ParentCoaching

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Our Team

Meet Amalia | Field Wellness Director

amalia gamboa field wellness director

Getting to learn about Costa Rica from a local is an incredible advantage – both culturally and linguistically. Amalia brings so much value to our program including high level outdoor acumen and aptitude for therapeutic engagement with students while in adventure settings like white water rafting or repelling down a waterfall. Amalia embodies the heart of Pura Vida and students will feel that and be inspired to open up to a global perspective.

Austin Rogers
Career Achievements Badge

Amalia Gamboa, CSW

Bachelor of Ecotourism, Universidad de Costa Rica
Utah State University, Master of Social Work, CMSW

Trained in:
• Cognitive Behavior Therapy
• Narrative Therapy
• Experiential Therapy
• AEGIS Crisis De-escalation
• First Aid CPR AED
• Technical Rope Rescue

Specializes in:
Trauma / Substance Use Disorders / Family Systems / Attachment / Lack of Motivation / Risk-Taking Behaviors / Self-Esteem Issues / Depression / Anxiety / Mood Disorders / Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)

Pura Vida Costa Rica

Amalia’s love for playing tour guide in her home country of Costa Rica began at a young age. As a teenager, when her family hosted visitors from the U.S.A., Amalia was fascinated with the language and interactions between her and her family.

I was just a kid but I got a rush of adrenaline showing them things that were unique to my culture. I knew then I needed to follow that path.

Amalia Gamboa, CSW
Cultural Immersion is one of Rooted Life Adventures' core components. We work with local organizations to curate intentional cultural immersion activities where students can learn about diverse values, world views, skills, and life habits. Through this, students expand their worldview and enjoy a global perspective and new lens to view their lives at home. Click here to learn more.

With Costa Rica known for it’s tourism industry, Amalia pursued her bachelor’s degree in eco-tourism and began working at Outward Bound Costa Rica as an instructor. During this time, she explored her adventurous side with white water rafting, waterfall rappelling, and backpacking.

This opened the door for Amalia to work at Pure Life as a field guide and then a field director. Amalia’s responsibilities included always remaining vigilant in the oversight of the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of students, as well as ensuring policies and procedures were understood and implemented in every part of field operations. Amalia also was responsible for responding to and attending any emergency situation and providing medical care (WFR, AEGIS).

Certified Social Worker

Amalia loves showing students how to live a more simplistic lifestyle. Seeing how much the outdoors and therapy together can achieve inspired her to pursue and successfully earn a Masters in Social Work in Utah.

Rooted Life Adventures Supported Gap Year

After completing her MSW, Amalia was snapped up by pioneer of wilderness adventure therapy Aspiro Adventure Therapy. As field director, Amalia was charged with providing clinical services to students and their families, as well as leading therapeutic groups.

From adventure therapy to wilderness therapy, Amalia has worked with students from various backgrounds, particularly teens and young adults who struggle with risk-taking behaviors, defiance, and substance abuse. 

In March 2023, Amalia presented on The value of multicultural group dynamics. “Opening the doors to cultural interchange: Leveraging international diversity in wilderness therapy” at the Wilderness Therapy Symposium in North Carolina.

Amalia uses a mix of different modalities tailored to the needs of both the student and family. These include motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy, experiential therapy, and narrative therapy. Therapeutic coaching is available to RLA student’s on program 24/7. This is a unique offering as part of our supported gap year wellness adventures program.

I find narrative therapy can be particularly beneficial for helping students analyze and change the stories they tell themselves about the world. From my experience, I’ve seen first-hand how this type of therapy can benefit people who experience mood disorders, or learned helplessness, during their early adulthood.

Amalia Gamboa, CSW
Rooted Life Adventures Support Gap Year

Amalia finds joy in seeing students overcome their struggles and create lasting change in their lives. She is fluent in English and Spanish. Amalia is comfortable working with students in either language.

Amalia is our Field Wellness Director for our Costa Rica 10-Week Fall Program for Young Adults All Genders (ages 18-24) from September 21 – November 29, 2023.

#RLACostaRica #RLALife #TeamRLA

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Our Team

Meet Sharon | Wellness Gap Year Operations Director

Meet Sharon Therapeutic Gap Year Operations Director

Sharon has 30 years of experience in building and launching therapeutic programs for adolescents and young adults; guaranteeing excellence and the highest standards in the industry. As a nationally recognised expert in residential, therapeutic, mental health, and experiential programs, Sharon is dedicated to helping students get what they need, when they need it, with the absolute best care.

Austin Rogers

Operations Powerhouse

Sharon Laney is an operations powerhouse. She’s worked with 26 programs in 11 states during her career, always staying close to her core mission of keeping students at the heart of every program; a perfect fit for our new wellness gap year model.

EXPLORE OUR MODEL

That drive and determination grew from firsthand experience, not just in her work, but in her personal life. As an aunt, Sharon experienced watching her nephew struggle, and the transformative effects therapeutic gap year adventure programming can have.

At the beginning of my career, I ran a family court system and got tired of seeing kids getting locked up and coming out worse rather than better. I’m continually impressed with seeing the change in students that therapeutic gap year adventure programming helps to facilitate. Programming like Rooted Life Adventures is the future of our industry.

Sharon Laney

Industry Leader

Now, a nationally known industry expert who has been actively involved in all aspects of programming, Sharon’s list of past positions held speaks to her passion and knowledge she brings to the industry.

For over 20 years, Sharon was COO of a large mental health/ therapeutic company serving youth in wilderness, residential, therapeutic boarding and transitional settings. She has also demonstrated effective leadership on a national level as the Vice President and President of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP).

Throughout all of her work experiences, Sharon has always kept her love for helping families – and a firm advocacy for ethical, effective treatment strategies – as priorities in her work. She received NATSAP’s Leadership Award in 2010.

What is a Wellness Gap Year?

Rooted Life Adventures is the perfect hybrid programming option for today’s student. This therapeutic gap year model has adventure, without being too “hardcore”, and therapeutic support – without being too clinical – to enable on-the-spot interventions in a timely manner. It’s an ideal program for individuals who would benefit from an adventure program with mental health support, or have completed treatment and are looking for a stepping stone with more opportunity for independence while in a supported and sober environment.

EXPLORE OUR PROGRAMS

Sharon is also a trained auditor with a national accreditation organization and has conducted various trainings at national conference related to the child care/mental health industry. Previous program involvement includes Auldern Academy, Three Springs, Lakehouse Academy, and Sedona Sky Academy.  Sharon will ensure excellence and the highest standards in Rooted Life Adventures’ new therapeutic gap year programming.

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Our Team

Meet Christy | Mental Health + Wellness Director

Christy is an exceptionally passionate advocate for the transformative abilities of adventure therapy in improving individual and collective well-being of adolescents and young adults. She came highly recommended from Dr. Maurie Lung, a legend in the adventure therapy and experiential education world.

Austin Rogers

Christy joins Rooted Life Adventures as our Mental Health and Wellness Director. Her background comes stacked with firsthand experience working with children and families as a social worker for almost 20 years. She is trained in Child Development and Mental Health, working with children as young as 8, to emerging adults around age 25. Christy has been running New Adventures, her own adventure therapy counseling center, for 5 years.

I use a client-centered approach to my work with folks, as no one knows you better than you know yourself. My hope is to help you see your strengths, and to thrive in them. 

Christy Brock

As our clinical support leader at HQ, you’ll first meet Christy when going through our application process. Her insight will ensure the integrity of our program is upheld, and every student accepted is a fit for our group dynamics. Christy will also support Elise – our field wellness director – while on program, and you may see her on location from time-to-time.

EXPLORE OUR PROGRAMS

Certified Clinical Adventure Therapist

As an Association of Experiential Education (AEE) Certified Clinical Adventure Therapist (CCAT), Christy has received specialized training in adventure therapy and been recognized for her knowledge, skills, competencies and experience. She is currently serving as the Vice Chair for the Therapeutic Adventure Professional Group, a subgroup of The Association for Experiential Education.

The practice of Adventure Therapy is the prescriptive use of adventure experiences provided by mental health professionals, often conducted in natural settings, that kinesthetically engage individuals, families and groups on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels (Gass, et al, 2020).

Independently Licensed Social Worker

Christy is an Independently Licensed Social Worker, with a supervision designation, from the state of Ohio. She received her Master’s Degree in Social Work specializing in Children and Families, from The University of Cincinnati, in 2008. Christy also spent two years at Capital University, in Bexley, Ohio, earning her Bachelor of Social Work Degree in 2006.

In her spare time Christy loves indulging in the therapeutic effects the simple pleasures in life hold. You’ll find her sitting around a campfire, swinging in a hammock, hiking, playing board games, reading a book, or stargazing with her family and friends.

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Our Team

Meet Elise | Field Wellness Director

Elise is fun! She’s kind and soft and down to earth with unanimous praise for her work.
She has an incredible presence our students will love and feel comfortable opening up to.

– Austin Rogers, Founder of Rooted Life Adventures
Career Achievements Badge

Elise Scribner, LCSW

Master of Social Work, Portland State University
Bachelor of Social Justice, Quest University Canada

Trained in:
• Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (Coping Skills)
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• Attachment Family Therapy
• Self Management and Recovery Training (SMART)
• Art Therapy
• Motivational Interviewing
• LGBTQ+ Safe Zone Certification

Advocate for Therapeutic Adventure

Elise believes in the profound positive impact that therapeutic adventure can have on student’s mental health and overall wellbeing. She’s seen, firsthand, the transformative outcomes; the culmination of combining adventure, time in nature, positive peer group culture, mentoring, and therapeutic support.

A lot of the time, at the end of a student’s stay, they will start, without prompting, reflecting on how they felt when they first came in to the program. The fact that they are so willing to give feedback really shows me that they’re ready to take the next step. You really see an excitement – a glow – in the students. That’s one of my top favourite things to see.

Elise Scribner, LCSW

First-Hand Experience

Elise was already aware of this impact on herself. Her passion for adventures and being outdoors started early, living on a sailboat with her family at the age of two. She has since fallen in love with rock climbing, snowboarding, summiting mountains, foraging, and jumping into cold rivers and lakes with friends. She has spent three summers in the Alaska commercial fishing industry, exploring stunning coasts, and is always interested in seeking out new places to travel to and explore.

elise - our therapeutic adventure field wellness director - conquering a climb

Elise’s work in the industry began in 2015 at Aspiro Adventure Therapy, the pioneer of wilderness adventure therapy. As a field guide, she was in awe of the profound impact this model had on the students she worked with. Wanting to do more, Elise was inspired to further her education and earn a degree in social work. She moved back to her hometown of Portland, Oregon, to attend graduate school at Portland State University.

In 2020, after earning her Masters of Social Work, as well as becoming a Licensed School Social Worker, Elise returned to Aspiro – now as a Wildness Therapist. She also created and facilitated a Wellness Curriculum for her students including psychoeducation on the dimensions of wellness, group discussions, coping skills, mindfulness practices, and art therapy. Additionally, Elise’s Bachelor’s degree in Social Justice that she received from Quest University Canada in Squamish, British Columbia, helped provide a strong foundation for her focus on equity, enabling her to lead anti-oppression workshops at a variety of different programs.

Everyone deserves to live a life worth living. Therapy is one step that can help young people move toward achieving their goals.

Elise Scribner, LCSW

Survivor & Thriver

As a brain cancer survivor and thriver, Elise loves to discuss concepts such as radical acceptance, self-empowerment, helpful humor, and the importance of connectedness. 

Elise’s therapeutic approach is strengths-based, student-centered, and trauma-informed. She integrates Motivational Interviewing, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy while maintaining an equity lens with her students. Elise has used this approach while working with children in the foster care system and with teens in academic settings who struggled with challenges such as early trauma, depression, anxiety, and identity development.

Elise came highly recommended with unanimous high praise for her ability to integrate wellness and adventure and therapy. She’s known for her masterful approach to tricky cases, especially those she took on in her time as a Wilderness Therapist at Aspiro. She has seen – and done – all of the hard stuff with both adolescents and young adults.

Elise will be onsite 24/7 living with our Rooted Life Adventures students in Costa Rica.

Rooted Life Adventures is NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for our Costa Rica 6-Week Summer Program for Girls Ages 15-17 from June 28 to August 5, 2023.

more info

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#RLALife #RLACostaRica #TeamRLA