Certificate in Nature-based Practice
Gain the skills and confidence you
need to take your practice outdoors
This course is led by experienced health and education nature practitioners
The Certificate in Nature-based Practice is relevant for anyone who wants to gain the confidence and competence in working with groups in a range of outdoor settings.
Why take this course
“Stepping out into nature from our traditional indoor setting, frees my clients from the constraints of eye contact which helps them to relax and facilitates trust and conversations.”
Nature connection is a powerful therapeutic tool for supporting people living with a wide range of mental and physical health conditions. If you are thinking about taking people, young and old, outdoors, either on a one to one basis or in groups, then this course is the best place to start.
This training brings together best practice and theory from nature connection, eco-psychology, embodiment, resilience, mental health and neuroscience to enable working with individuals and groups of all ages.
How and what you will learn
Through a combination of experiential learning, webinars and online resources, you’ll gain the confidence and competence to work with people in a range of outdoor settings.
- A therapeutic nature-based model that meets your clients’ whole health: mind, body, social and environmental relationships
- Nature connection, neuroscience and supporting mental health
- Practical outdoor nature-based skills and activities
- Adapting activities to a range of green spaces
- How to be a reflective practitioner
- Practical skills to minimise risks associated with taking groups in your care outdoors
- Ways of embodying your own nature based relationships in order to stimulate and balance clients brain body relationships
Pricing and next available course dates
Individual fee: £980
4 or more places booked: £720 per person
See below for bursary information.
October 2024 Course:
Part 1 in the woods: Wednesday October 16th – Friday 18th 2024, 9.00am – 5.00pm
Webinar 1: Monday October 28th 2024, 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Webinar 2: Monday November 11th 2024, 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Webinar 3: Monday January 13th 2025, 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Webinar 4: Monday January 27th 2025, 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Part 2 in the woods: Friday February 14th 2025, 9.00am – 4.00pm
Research dissemination event: May 21st 2025
June 2025 Course:
Part 1 in the woods: Monday June 30th – Wednesday July 2nd 2025, 9.00am – 5.00pm
Webinar 1: Monday 7th July 2025 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Webinar 2: Monday 14th July 2025 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Webinar 3: Tuesday 26th August 2025 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Webinar 4: Monday 8th September 2025 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Part 2 in the woods: Friday 19th September 2025, 9.00am – 4.00pm
First Aid
All practitioners working remotely outside with clients, must hold the 16 hour Outdoor First Aid Certificate which is valid for 3 years. ELST delivers our Outdoor First Aid Training on our behalf. All the details and booking can be found here.
Bursary information
If you are granted a bursary of £300, you would pay a total of £680.00. If you need a payment plan, we would expect a minimum deposit of £200.00 to secure your place. Please get in touch with any further questions.
Who is Nature-based Practice Training for?
The course is suited to professionals who support children, young people and adults, including:
- Psychiatrists
- Psychotherapists or psychologists
- Health professionals
- Mental health, social or youth workers
- Teachers
- Occupational therapists
- Art, drama or play therapists
- Creative practitioners
- Family, support, time & recovery workers
“Nature is our great untapped resource for our a mentally healthy future.”
Not ready to book but want to stay informed about Nature-based Practice Training?
Join our interested or waiting list for Nature-based Practice Training by entering your details below.
Has Covid prompted you to consider taking your work into the outdoors?
The pandemic has led many to accept Green social prescribing, interventions and greencare programmes as a pathway to health and wellbeing.
CLR and our trainers deliver the breadth of experience across educational and therapeutic nature-based programmes.
We aim to be as inclusive as possible. The tools and techniques will equip you with the confidence and competence to add nature-practice to work.
Further information
By the end of this nature-based practice training programme, you’ll be able to:
Learning Objectives 1: Place | Locate a suitable place
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Learning Objective 2: People | Your clients
- Understand the equipment required to undertake activity in a woodland/greenspace site
- Understand how to engage staff, groups, parents, teams, volunteer helpers and the wider community
- Be able to develop routines for going outdoors through safety, inspiring games and activities
- Understand how the partnership model supports the values and approach that underpins this model: co-production and participation
- Recognise how ‘the relationship heals’: to self, other, nature
- Be able to employ effective communication, therapeutic skills and strategies
Learning Objective 3: Practice & practical | How to set up and facilitate nature-based programmes
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Learning outcome 4: The Practitioner
This module explores:
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Testimonials
The trainers made a really fun and engaging introduction to the concepts of nature based work for mental health. It felt like a truly authentic and heartfelt delivery of ideas that the instructors were so passionate about.
The range of activities was excellent. There was a good balance of theory to practical, and plenty of opportunity to discuss our role as psychiatrists in nature based practice. The individual activities themselves were very enjoyable, and there is nothing like such first hand experience to demonstrate how important this kind of work is for mental wellbeing.
This course was an amazing demonstration of how to run nature-based workshops, with fantastic sensory and body-based exercises, engendered great sense of nature-connectedness, plenty of opportunity to bond with group members, amazing framework of culture/history/poetry/neuroscience all intertwined.
You created a beautifully nourishing, creative, open, non judgemental atmosphere, that felt completely different and more impactful than other learning environments. You helped everyone connect with their bodies and the woods and each other in a very restorative way. You shared deep experience and skills and the wisdom you shared about people, land and mental health offered a fresh and different perspective. Thank you
Excellent facilitation, well held, great experiential and skills learning sessions. It was very heartening to be among a group of such inspiring professionals! A great opportunity to really experience and engage with the kinds of nature-based woodland activities that clients might be referred to, in a connected and embodied way. Really enjoyed learning new skills!
How the Certificate in Nature-based Practice works
Practical outdoor nature-based work
We’ll explore experiential activities outside in nature, including core practical outdoor skills and nature/social connection activities, emergency planning, risk-benefit assessment & health & safety, core routines and outdoor activities. Also, an introduction to environmental management and leave no trace principles. And model therapeutic sessions.
The role of nature in mental health
We will explore how nature aids recovery. In particular, the links between the rise of mental health problems and our separation from nature in Western culture. Also, the benefits of sensory experiences for our wellbeing, including sensory processing dysfunctions and sensory integration as per Ayres (1989), supported by neuroscience of body-based, bottom-up, and top-down strategies for regulating our emotions. We will introduce nature-centric models, where we link our development to broader natural cycles.
Therapeutic skills and effective communication
We’ll explore theoretical and therapeutic research efficacy and value of nature-based work, such as green intervention and nature activities. We will underpin our practice with theory, including the person-centred approach, habitat theory, biophilia, emotional literacy, mind, brain, body relationships with trauma and the polyvagal theory.
Personal development & reflection
We’ll champion the need to be a reflective practitioner and lifelong learner. We will explore the limits of our constructs and invite participants to have their own experience of nature, connection and relationship with the more-than-human world.
Course details
Watch our webinar about this course
| Number of units | 4 |
| How long will it take? |
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Course Features
- Four days direct training: (2 parts: 3 days; 1 day (post-delivery)
- Plan and deliver three sessions in a green space
- Comprehensive nature-based practitioner manual
- 4 webinars
Access to The Outdoor Teacher’s Forest School Activities Online Training Course taught by Circle of Life Rediscovery founder, author, and trainer Marina Robb. This includes:
- 100 videos and resources and step by step instructions
- A bumper pack of additional inspiring activities and ideas to use in your forest school sessions
- Core nature and forest skills underpinned by safe and person-led practice
- Access to an online portal for additional resources
- Group supervision for delivery of sessions and your specific field of practice
- Reflective diary: showing evidence of reflections during the course and home-based study
The Webinars
Marina Robb & Jon Cree: Health & safety in the outdoors
Helen Fairest: Creating safe enough containers through a consent based approach. Consent in Action: Crafting Safe enough and Supportive Group Spaces
Dylan Walker: Reconnecting with Nature: Practical Ways Humans Can Give Back to Their Local Green Spaces
Marina Robb & Jon Cree: Nature-centric models & human development
Your Nature-based Practice training team
Course Director & Lead Facilitator: Marina Robb (MS, MSc, PGCE, Author)
Marina is a national expert in nature-based educational and therapeutic interventions. Marina also has extensive experience in the development of the Forest School movement, and is an endorsed trainer for the Forest School Association.
Elsewhere, Marina co-authored the popular, ‘Learning with Nature: A how-to guide to inspiring children through outdoor games and activities’ and ‘The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy’ (with Jon Cree)
Jon Cree
Lead Facilitator
Helen Fairest
Webinar Speaker
Dylan Walker
Webinar Speaker
Our Track Record
Since 2009 CLR has offered green care programmes to a wide range of service users.
We have pioneered green interventions working in partnership with NHS departments – CAMHS, FISS CAMHS, Early Psychosis, Dementia, LACAMHS and more.
Find out more about our green interventions work.
Since 2004, we’ve raised over £500,000 to support groups to access nature freely.
As a team we have worked within education since 1980.
Why get certified?
The contemporary industrial model for social and economic development has a fatal impact on our ecosystems and a detrimental effect on human mental health and psychological wellbeing.
Indeed Covid has highlighted the need for more nature-based nature-based approaches to mental health interventions.
Nature-based training is a preventative and early intervention model that supports practitioners to work outdoors in partnership with clients and groups.
When developing the model, we weaved together findings from neuroscience, forwarded a systemic understanding in a trauma-sensitive way, and built trust and safety to thrive in relationship with other humans and the non-human world.
At the same time, we minimised any risks of nature-based practice while leveraging its potential benefits.
Why learn with Circle of Life Rediscovery?
Circle of Life Rediscovery CIC is committed to transforming education, health and family and supporting people to reach their potential through nature.
We have over 25 years of experience in training professionals and inspiring thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds into the outdoors in both the UK, Ireland, Portugal and SE Asia.
We are a leading organisation in nature connection and personal development. As such, we’ve received many grants and awards for our work with groups across different ages and backgrounds.