Outdoor Adventure Interventions - Young People and Adversity: A Literature Review

Berry Street commissioned Adventure Works Ltd to undertake a literature review of outdoor adventure interventions for disadvantaged young people. This literature review is one component of a yearlong formative evaluation of Berry Street’s Gippsland Wilderness Program (GWP), an expedition-style outdoor adventure intervention for high-risk young people living in Eastern Victoria, Australia.

Outdoor adventures are used around the world as a form of intervention, and tend to involve small groups of people in out-of-doors adventures for therapeutic benefits. Within this report, these services are called ‘outdoor adventure interventions’ (OAI).

The purpose of this report is to help guide GWP program development, and provide information for other organisations choosing to use outdoor adventures as an intervention with this target group. It offers a synthesis and summary of Australian and international literature on uses of outdoor adventures as an intervention with young people aged 13 to 18 who have experienced adversities, including potential or known trauma.