New Shoots for the 4Roots in 2022!

Nature transforms us!

When children and teens share nature-based experiences with skilled, caring adults and each other, the positive value for their development is clear. From the resilience it imparts to the stress it relieves from hearts and minds, nature transforms us in healthy ways.

Whether through Camp Donner Summit Summer Camps, Sierra Experience School Field Trips, our Youth Wellness Center, or the Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies therapeutic mentoring program, we are ever energized in delivering the 4Roots to young people from all backgrounds! 

In 2022, with awareness of nature’s power to nurture and heal young people rapidly growing, we’ve expanded our partnerships and have grown by leaps and bounds to serve over 1500 students. What an extraordinary year!

Here’s an overview of our activities by program, with our eye on the horizon for 2023.

We hope you will join us in imparting the firm footing of the 4Roots to more youth in need in the coming year. Let’s all do our part in improving young people’s access to the benefits of nature!

Camp Donner Summit and Sierra Experience School Field Trips Now 15 Years Strong + New YEA! Camps

We have come a long way from the moment that we first recognized how youth in our outdoor adventure programming experienced significant improvement in their balance skills and their kinetic expression—moving with a “pep-in-their-step” and embodied confidence—and how this physical transformation corresponds to healthy changes in behavior.

Summer Adventure, Rock Climbing and Mountain Biking Camps on Donner Summit are “prevention work” for the youth who attend, a break from too much time at the screen or after a year of rigorous study. This summer, kids from 4 to 18 built resilience and developed their social-emotional skills, to create a buffer for the stressors of life. Revenues earned from these camps provide crucial support for the programs we will deliver to hundreds of high-need youth throughout 2023. 

Sierra Experience Custom School Field Trips delivered environmental education curricula and social and emotional learning to more future citizens and leaders — for the younger generation, both are essential! From our Donner Summit field site students had a rich hands-on experience of forest ecology, snow science and hydrology and the vital role that meadows and wetlands serve, with rich reflections on how each of us can change to reduce our impact on our home planet. We urge everyone to support children in becoming informed, responsible environmental stewards — their future depends on it! 

Newer among our line-up of camps is Youth Ecology and Adventure (YEA!) Camp. Only two years in the offering, these ongoing weekend adventure day trips were already happening year round in 2022, thanks to support from the Tahoe Fund, the Tahoe Conservancy, Eldorado Community Foundation Women’s Fund, and the City of South Lake Tahoe. Young people from under-resourced families, largely from the local Latinx community, enjoyed the bountiful recreation resources that our region is world famous for. We climbed, kayaked, camped and hiked, while building healing connections that go deep. We are excited that some past participants are signing up for intern leadership positions for next summer’s YEA! Camp.

4Roots Youth Wellness Center — Meeting Deep Needs and Delivering Lifelines

Where no win is too small!

That’s our motto at the Center, where we see and celebrate young people’s daily wins and have fun along the way.

Fun, educational, life-affirming and emotionally connected, the dynamic range of ongoing activities and programs at the Youth Wellness Center continues to reach and engage kids in a safe and supportive space. Art making, outdoor adventures, relaxation on our mindfulness parcourse, and mindful listening circles, among other activities, are held at the Center during drop-in hours, from 12:30 to 6pm on weekdays. Often collaborating with members of the local community, Youth Wellness Center programming also responds to emergent needs and events impacting young people in the Tahoe/Truckee area.

As in years past, Center staff also facilitated off-site engagements in the broader community in conjunction with wellness days at local schools and continuing education workshops for teachers—one to give a leg-up in starting the school year and another to restore once the year is over! 

Grief Support: Teens, agency partners and others came together in the safe gathering space of the center following the tragic passing of Kiely Rodni. From late summer into early fall, we sat in close community to mourn her loss and honor her impact on our lives.

Harm Reduction Programs & NARCAN Training: Partnering with Nevada County Public Health to prevent dangerous substance use and tragic overdose incidents within our community, we distribute Narcan / Naloxone and Fentanyl test strips and training during weekdays. Inspired by outdoor preparedness skills and gear, students in our maker-space in turn created “cool” waist satchels that can be tied into a belt—just like a snow beacon, so that youth never have to go out without the ability to save a life.

Mindfulness-Based Substance Use Treatment (MBSAT): Somatic psychology, embodied movement and healing practices are provided on an ongoing basis as an adjunct to recovery or harm reduction.

Natural High Retreats — For Young People in Recovery and Now Also for Prevention

A path for supporting others

For participants with deep lived experience, Natural High Retreats also offer an important track to become Certified Peer Recovery Specialists. Research shows that the ability of peer leaders to authentically connect enhances the efficacy of treatment and recovery programs. We are thrilled to be facilitating avenues for young people in helping others heal.

An innovative combination of Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment (MBSAT) curriculum, nature-sensory activities and mountain adventures, Natural High Retreats deepen participants’ connection with nature, self and nervous system in support of personal healing in community. The retreats are alive with the absolute JOY of reclaiming our innocence and finding new possibilities. 

Successful in serving local youth in 2021, this year’s expanded capacity allowed us to serve participants from regions much farther afield, namely from Glen and Butte Counties behavioral health, probation and foster care departments, as well from Legacy Alliance Outreach, a youth-serving partner in Stanislaus County. 

Starting in early 2023, Natural High Retreats will also be geared toward prevention and early intervention, to provide extra support before debilitation from mental illness, substance use, or involvement with the justice system occurs. They will be customized for schools or community groups who understand the pressing need for proactive education and early intervention.

We urge youth-serving organizations of all types to consider Natural High Retreats as a foundational component in strengthening the developmental health, self-awareness and relational life skills that are essential for preventing substance use disorders.

We are grateful for ongoing partnership with Continuity Consulting and for the support from the Department of Health Care Services Opioid Response Fund in making these retreats happen. A 3-year grant from Elevate Youth, with Cannabis Tax funds, will allow us to provide prevention and early intervention programming for greater numbers of youth from throughout Northern California.

Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies — More Momentum for Moving Out of the Clinic and Into the Woods

Access to immediate care

Young people in distress wait too long to receive therapeutic support, and often go without receiving any at all. It’s time for this to change, and WHMB offers a viable model for that to happen. We are committed to timely and equitable access to mental health care for youth.

As federal, state and local institutions and governments grasp the need for systems change and seek truly viable and equitable avenues for youth mental health care, broad-based support for WHMB’s therapeutic mentoring program continues to grow.

Increasing accessibility to our sustainable method to meet the pressing needs of youth from all backgrounds, however, comes with the major challenges of organizational growth. Several change initiatives are underway. We are also planning for others and continue to seek partners and financial support to accelerate access to young people in need.

With this year’s re-certification as a Medi-Cal provider in both Placer and Nevada Counties and positive county audits of our records, we remain affirmed in our longstanding contracts to deliver care. The request for our services also continues to grow, this year with an increase of 12% over last year and a total of 1,627 client-contact hours.

In 2023, the capacity for delivering care through WHMB is set to expand significantly — in part through the creation of a new intake process to decrease the amount of time a young person waits for initial care, and in part through increasing staff, implementing retention incentives and resources to support staff wellness. 

On the immediate horizon we will be hiring a new group coordinator as well as a bilingual case manager. We are also building a certification pathway, so mental health students, interns, and peers can gain valuable hours toward licensure as peer support specialists. It is a giant evolutionary step that will enable us to increase the number of available mentors; continue to strengthen collaboration with residential care programs, not only locally but also in regions beyond the Sierra; and to better engage and serve greater numbers of high-need young people who are at risk of otherwise going without support.

Why the 4Roots Are So Effective — Ongoing Scientific Validation and Policy Change Efforts

In the video above, learn about the neuroscience that supports the Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies 4Roots approach and the proven therapeutic and economic advantages of moving “out of the clinic and into the woods” to address the mental health crisis among our youth.

This past year, at the February 2022 ACEs Aware Learning Network, “Nature as a Stressbuster” teleconference, Founder and Executive Director Peter Mayfield spoke about the efficacy of our Whole Hearts, Minds & Bodies program in treating youth suffering from serious emotional disturbance and complex trauma. We are grateful to have shared our methods and data, which we continue to collect and study in collaboration with research scientists.

We are especially grateful for our ongoing partnership with Kathleen Tebb PhD and her team at the UCSF Division for Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine. This summer, with the supervision of Tebb, Aaron Patterson, a neuroscience major from Howard University, UCSF intern and Can-Do Scholar, conducted research with us. Aaron created and tested a scoring system to assess gait, balance and flow as students proceed through a vestibular challenge course. He also developed a behavioral indicator questionnaire to assess levels of depression, anxiety and resilience. He presented his results to UCSF this August to positive reception, prompting us to apply for an IRB with UCSF to launch this research in earnest. 

In policy-related news, we are co-authoring a brief on nature-based therapy by the California Children’s Trust with the goal of improving access to quality care, especially for the underserved and youth of color. This collaborative effort is focused on shifting the system of mental health care away from the medical model and overcoming the limits to care that are currently in place.