Best Practices: Introduction *DRAFT*
TAPG has been engaged in formal efforts to produce a statement of Best Practice for adventure therapy since 2001. The intent of this effort is to produce a statement of best practice that identifies appropriate practices and establishes standards for the field. This statement will reside on the TAPG website as information designed to evolve as the field grows in knowledge and understanding.
The website is currently in draft form and we are seeking feedback from you about what you see. The only developed content at this time is the Treatment Applications section. If you have feedback or are interested in being part of this project, please contact:
Kim Sacksteder
Best Practices Steering Committee Chair
The purpose of this website is to outline theory and therapeutic processes that guide best practice in adventure and wilderness therapy and aid in the development of AT as a recognized (or legitimized) discipline/ profession. It is not the purpose of this manual to be exhaustive, dogmatic, limiting or enforceable regarding AT practices or practitioners in any way. Rather, a working group of leading practitioners and researchers in the field of adventure and wilderness therapy will regularly convene to share insights, knowledge, experiences and critical research. The output of these meetings will be a set of clearly specified strategies, activities, or approaches which can be in turn empirically evaluated using established scientific processes.
Best practices are based on the best knowledge currently available to the field. It is important to follow up this process with research that will establish an empirically validated treatment that can be termed adventure therapy (AT). This in turn can inform practitioners, consumers, and policy makers on theory, process, and outcomes guiding AT.
It is proposed that this template for “best practices” could integrate the various approaches known as AT into a common body of knowledge that can then be presented as “best practices” to the Association of Experiential Education (AEE) and it’s associated professional group, the Therapeutic Adventure Professional Group (TAPG), as well as the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Industry Council (OBHIC), the National Association of Therapeutic Wilderness Camps (NATWC), the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP) and others.
Best practices are the elements and activities of intervention design, planning, and implementation that are recommended based on the best knowledge available. The following is to be considered a “working document” in its attempt to provide programming standards and minimum levels of competence for the administration of adventure and wilderness therapy programs.
