How Do We Help and Who Do We Help?
We provide financial assistance to Northwest families for their children in-crisis so they may receive care and healing through wilderness therapy programs. Our grants are designed to help families with financial need so that their child may benefit from the programs and services of our partnering wilderness therapy programs.These are young people ages 9-26 who are struggling with mental, emotional and behavioral challenges. Our program partners will match our grants 100% for those families that demonstrate financial need and as funds are available. Our goals are to promote the proven effectiveness of wilderness therapy, highlight programs that meet highest standards of quality in the field, advocate for mental health awareness and suicide prevention and to create a supportive community that encourages a healthful lifestyle and connection with nature.

What is Wilderness Therapy?
Wilderness therapy or more formally termed--Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare--is a highly comprehensive therapeutic treatment that uses individual therapy, group therapy, adventure therapy, and a family involved approach with immersion in nature as the setting for supportive healing. It is proven highly effective in the immediate, short and longer term, it is turning young lives around and helping our young and their families heal using newly learned tools and coping strategies that promote self care, self confidence and hope. It is saving lives, saving families and saving our communities, one child at a time.

Why is Wilderness Therapy Needed?
There is a crisis in our communities within our young population that we must come together to help solve. Families need real support to help their children. Current data (see www.obhcenter.org) shows an alarming number of kids are suffering from underlying feelings of depression and anxiety at not-seen-before levels. There are many reasons for this, and here are the most compelling you have undoubtedly seen on the news, heard about in your community, or experienced in your own family. Our young are being exposed to very powerful substances that have become widely available and many are self-medicating with these dangerous and addictive street drugs and too-easily-obtained prescription medications. Many kids isolate alone in front of a computer for hours playing highly addictive and numbing video games while their families watch them withdrawal from social connections and activities they used to enjoy. Our kids are attempting to self-soothe with destructive behaviors such as cutting and other forms of self harm. Our teens may be struggling with gender identity. They may be acting out in response to the torment of being bullied. Or they may become the bully as a way to hide their pain of feeling powerless. They may be having difficulty staying in school, not able to maintain a job or are facing related problems with the legal system. Many are trapped in addictive behaviors without access to tools and effective support to overcome. And they are dying by overdose. The opioid crisis is real. And sadly, research shows, that the risk of suicide in young people is higher when addiction is involved. What you hear on the news is not an exaggeration. And it affects us all.

What’s More?
Our kids may even be suffering the adverse and frightening mental health symptoms from undiagnosed traumatic brain injury caused by concussion while perhaps playing for years the sports they love while we parents innocently watched on. And we all know, too, the overachievers, the straight A students, the star athletes, the life of the party, the empaths, or everyone’s best friend who may be hiding their struggle because of stigma and shame. Perhaps most heartbreaking of all is the tragic suicide death of young people in our own communities. These are our kids who need our collective support to overcome their heavy challenges so they can prosper in life.

Why did we begin Wilderness4Life?
Our son Parker is one of those bright lights among us who battled for his life against depression, anxiety, mental health challenges, substance abuse, addiction and the probable damage of multiple sports concussion injuries. He took his own life to find relief from his suffering at the young age of 23. But in the devastating wake of his death and our profound grief, we are inspired to honor Parker’s legacy and deepest wish by helping other struggling young people and their families--so they may find healing and hope. It was in his heart to always want to help others. Upon his graduation from an excellent wilderness therapy program, he proclaimed that “...every kid graduating from high school should go to Wilderness.” He went on to say that “...even adults should go!” Then he said, “It saved my life.” We believe it gave us 5 more years with our son that we would not have had. Wilderness gave him 5 more years of hope. During one of our last family Sunday dinners, he said, “Wouldn’t it be ‘tight’ to send just one kid a year to Wilderness?”...“Let’s do this--let’s start a foundation.” And so we did.