Therapeutic Program
Individual and Family Therapy are integrated into the 3Trees practice to encourage personal acceptance and foster social connectedness.
Individual Therapy
Individual therapy is centred around trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy which has been shown to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder and symptoms of depression and anxiety.
It provides a safe, trusted space to process the trauma and identify related thoughts and feelings (e.g., shame, blame, guilt). In addition, we will offer aspects of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (e.g., skills) as this has been shown to help young people understand intense emotions and provide alternatives to coping through high-risk behaviours.
Critically, throughout our program, we will be using various expressive modalities (e.g., art, sand tray) tailored to the individual needs of each young person.
Family Therapy
Family therapy, in our program, is based on the processes developed by the “Mother of Family Therapy,” Virginia Satir.
The intention of these processes is to have each member of the family fully accept themselves, get in touch with their rich internal resources that they bring to the family system and to develop the sense of freedom and safety to connect with each other. Starting with the parent/caregivers workshop focusing on raising parents’ individual self-esteem and harnessing personal resources and resilience to cope in times of stress, the stage is set for healthy integration of the youth in the family systems work which follows.
The intention of the work with our families is positively directional; focusing on health, possibilities, growth and accessing resources rather than focusing on pathology and problem solving.
Group Activities
Group activities are meant to foster social connectedness and be fun – “camp style”!
Each young person can select from a range of elective activities (e.g., music, arts, woodwork, rock climbing, kayaking, etc). There are also daily social activities which are structured by the young people themselves and/or team leaders (e.g., bonfire nights, morning coffee meet-ups, kayak trips, performances, game nights, wilderness activities, yoga).
Once a week, we will also leave the camp as a group for local activities (e.g., equine connections, boxing lessons, visit to local waterfall and interpretative centre). To become part of something also means contributing to it. For that reason, young people are asked to engage in daily community activities such as cooking, cleaning, or helping in the kitchen or camp.