Graham Pringle

Graham has experience in residential and foster care, outdoor education, adventure- based youth work and adult training. He is the Youth Flourish Outdoors Trainer and a casual academic with Charles Sturt University. Graham has spent over 20 years pursuing adventure as therapy for adolescents and has submitted a Doctoral thesis at Griffith University. The topic of the thesis is adventure therapy as a treatment for adolescents with complex trauma.

Adventure as therapy is effective due to its holistic and dynamic ecology. Adventure is an enriched ecological setting, with rapid and repetitive cycling through the three layers of healing. These layers involve deep, lived and engaging experiences that provide affordances for positive and developmentally based growth. This is an ideal ecology for healing complex trauma, including dissociation, as it can be a restorative lived experience of a decent and accommodating society.

Having worked outdoors with young people since 1985, Graham has studied widely and holds post graduate and undergraduate qualifications in adventure-based youth work, teaching and psychology. Graham has published a range of texts for practitioners involved with therapeutic programs and teaches a short course with over 1000 graduates to date. He and his wife live in Queensland and enjoy using their camper van on trips away. His favourite outdoor pursuits are bushwalking and canoeing.