MAY 2023 NEWSLETTER Monthly newsletter of the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
Mental Health Awareness Month has been observed in the U.S. since 1949. Each year, millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental health condition. In May, NAMI joins the national movement to raise awareness about mental health. Each year, we fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for policies that support people with mental illness and their families.
Mental Health Awareness Month provides a perfect opportunity for the NAMI Alliance to shine a spotlight on spreading helpful mental health resources and information on local programs or initiatives and content to specific populations (for example, caregivers, youth and young adults, underrepresented communities). It is also a chance to encourage people to take action.
FREE ETHICS OF ECOTHERAPY COURSE!
In our ongoing effort to improve the quality of the courses we offer, we will be applying to the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) to be able to provide LIVE continuing education opportunities in addition to our online offerings.
As part of this process we will be offering a FREE two-hour course on Ethics of Ecotherapy on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time!
This course will cover some ethics issues common to the practice of ecotherapy.
Participants will receive a coupon code good for $25 off any course offered by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC!
Course Description
Ecotherapy usually includes doing therapy outdoors. Therapy in non-traditional settings presents unique ethical challenges. These ethical issues are usually not covered in therapy graduate school programs. In this course we will discuss how to address some common ethical issues for therapists and counselors that are unique to the process of ecotherapy.
Course Objectives
After taking this course the student will be able to:
This is a LIVE course that will be offered on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time. An email reminder containing the Zoom code to access the course will be sent the day before the conference.
The conference will be presented on Zoom. You need to be present for the duration of the course to get course credit.
The course will be two hours on Zoom. At the end of the course you will have access to a link for the final exam. Upon successful completion of the exam you will receive a Certificate of Completion in pdf format, and you will be emailed a coupon code good for $25 off any course offered by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC. The coupon will be good until December 31, 2023.
You may register for this FREE course any time prior to June 19, 2023. If you do not pre-register before the date, we cannot guarantee a seat for the course, so please register as early as possible! Seating is limited to the first one hundred students!
NOW AVAILABLE! STARTING AN ECOTHERAPY PRACTICE
TARGET AUDIENCE: MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
NBCC APPROVAL: YES (NBCC ACEP # 7022)
CONTINUING EDUCATION HOURS: 6 (SIX)
$99.99
Consultants charge an average of $150 to $200 an hour to help you set up a business. In this course you get six hours of continuing education and expertise on starting your own practice!
Charlton Hall started his Family Therapy career in 2008 by creating and running the Family Therapy Teaching Clinic at the Upstate Family Resources Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina while still in graduate school. He served as the Clinical Services Director, then went on to start several successful Family Therapy private practices. His last job prior to becoming the Director of the Mindful Ecotherapy Center was Chair of Behavioral Health for a major medical clinic in South Carolina.
In this course Dr. Hall shares his expertise and experience in starting a private practice therapy clinic. In this course we will cover:
? Is private practice right for you?
? Types of business entity
? Taxes and licenses needed for each type of business entity
? Learn the basics of getting on insurance panels and the process of billing
? How to get on EAPs and HMOs
? Professional Organizations: Should you join them?
? Advertising and Branding
? Marketing your ecotherapy business
This course also includes special considerations specific to an ecotherapy practice!
MINDFULNESS-BASED ECOTHERAPY
FACILITATOR CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
50 HOURS OF ONLINE CONTINUING EDUCATION
APPROVED BY THE NATIONAL BOARD FOR CERTIFIED COUNSELORS (NBCC)
$329.99
Target Audience: Mental Health Professionals
50 hours of online continuing education approved by the
National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC)
Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC NBCC ACEP # 7022
The Mindful Ecotherapy Center's most popular course is our Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Facilitator Certification Program. The handbook that accompanies this course, The Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Workbook, was originally published in 2016. This new version of the course was completed in January of 2022 to reflect the most recent research in the fields of mindfulness and ecotherapy.
The new program that accompanies the course is available entirely online and is self-paced, meaning that you can start at any time and complete the program at any time you like. You have up to a year to complete the courses once started.
NEW MBE CERTIFICATION COMING IN 2025
The Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC has been providing continuing education in mindfulness and ecotherapy since 2007. During all of that time, students of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy have continually expressed a desire for an organization that specifically caters to the educational needs of counselors and therapists who practice Mindful Ecotherapy.
With these needs in mind, the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC will be creating a new two-year certification in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy. This new certification will train and certify counselors and therapists specifically in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy.
This will be an intensive two-year certification process, including up-to-date training in the latest techniques, research, and education in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy.
Certification will require renewal every three years, and will have a continuing education requirement during each renewal period, so that MBE practitioners are up-to-date on the latest techniques and interventions. It will also require case presentations and supervision for certification.
领英推荐
This will be a different and much more intensive certification than our current Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Facilitator Certification training. Trainees who complete the two-year training would be certified Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapists (MBE).
NEW Ecospirituality Program
The current Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Facilitator Certification course will be replaced in 2025 with the Ecospirituality Program, which will expand to include a more spiritual element to the training and to the program.
Somewhere between 90% and 95% of people on Earth practice some sort of spirituality. Obviously, spirituality must be pretty important. Studies tend to back this up. What the studies show is that the type of spirituality doesn’t really matter. Whether you’re Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu or Pagan, or even agnostic or atheist, practicing some sort of spiritual path yields benefits.
Since the particular type of spirituality is secondary to the benefits gained (in other words, since all spiritual paths lead to a better quality of life for those who practice them properly), what is it about spirituality that allows it to work its magic?
Suppose you could take all the spiritual paths practiced worldwide, put them into a cauldron, and boil them down to their essence. What would remain? I believe that the common thread to all spiritual practices is a feeling of connection. Connection to others, or connection to the divine, or simply connection to nature and to ourselves. In short: Spirituality = Connectedness!
If you think back on the spiritual experiences you’ve had in your lifetime, do recall feeling connected on some level? Many describe spiritual experiences as a sense of ‘oneness.’ Oneness implies connection to something outside ourselves. In this sense, even an agnostic or an atheist could achieve spirituality through connection.
The new Ecospirituality Program scheduled for release in 2025 will incorporate elements of this connectedness!
MBE Board Members Wanted
The Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC is now opening a dialog with interested parties who would like to serve on the MBE Certification Board or otherwise help in making this long-awaited vision a reality. If you would be interested in joining the discussion as we move forward, please visit the forum by clicking or tapping here.
As we move forward with the two-year Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapist certification, we are currently seeking board members to help facilitate the process. If you are interested in serving on the board, click here for a board member application.
Ecoplay Course ON SALE!
Regular $99.99 ON SALE for $79.99
Ecoplay: Re-Introducing Your Children to Nature
The course, a regular $99.99 value, will be on sale for $79.99 until May 31, 2023!
What is Ecoplay?
Ecoplay is an 8-week filial play program that trains parents to be ecoplay ‘therapists’ for their own children. It is also a theoretical framework and approach to therapy that allows children to express themselves in play, their natural language. Ecoplay allows this expressive play to happen in healthy natural environments.
Ecoplay is founded on four core principles: Mindfulness, ecotherapy, family resilience and play therapy.
This online course teaches mental health professionals to be facilitators of the Ecoplay program, teaching parents and clients how to use the eight-week program to re-connect their children to nature.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness, at its core, simply means paying attention to the present moment. Children live in the “now” of existence when at play. The tools and skills of mindfulness allow children to let go of the past and the future and to focus on their immediate experience.
Ecotherapy
Ecotherapy is simply therapy that takes place outdoors. Play in natural environments has been linked with a wide variety of positive outcomes, including better focus and concentration, a greater sense of self-efficacy and well-being, and enhanced learning and retention.
Family Resilience
All families go through crises from time to time. While a crisis can bring some families closer together, it can also tear some families apart. What makes the difference in those families that are able to weather a crisis are family resilience factors.
Multiple studies have identified these factors of family resilience. They have been condensed into the 7Cs of Ecoplay. These seven family resilience factors in Ecoplay are: Compassion, communication, control, choices, consequences, consistency and confidence. Ecoplay covers what these factors mean to you and your family and how to implement them as strengths.
Play Therapy
Children, especially children under 12, lack the vocabulary to discuss complex emotional issues; but they are able to express their emotions during play. Play is a child’s natural emotional language, and play therapy allows children to express themselves in ways that make sense to them.
Ecoplay uses all of the approaches listed above to help your child to live a fuller, richer and more meaningful existence.
MINDFUL MOMENTS SERIES Episode 29: Wise Mind
Wise ?Mind ?is ?a ?stable ?balance ?between ?Emotional Mind and Rational Mind.
Compassion comes from Wise Mind. It is the ability to temper Emotional Mind with reason, and to inform Rational Mind with emotion. Compassion is also the ability to be non-judgmental with others. It can also be the ability to be non-judgmental with yourself. The ultimate in compassion is to be able to be non-judgmental even with people we may not like very much.
To be informed when new episodes of Mindful Moments are available, subscribe to the Mindful Ecotherapy Center's Youtube channel.
You may also subscribe to the newsletter. Future episodes will be announced in the newsletter as they become available.
FREE COURSE!
Suicide Risk Assessment and Prevention
As a service to the mental health community, the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC is offering this FREE course for mental health professionals.
Target Audience: Mental Health Professionals
Online Continuing Education Hours: 2.75
Approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) ACEP #7022
Suicide is an epidemic in the United States. In this course we will discuss recent suicide statistics, demographic data and its impact on suicide assessment and prevention, and how to use this information when conducting a suicide risk assessment.
We will also discuss some common myths concerning suicide and suicide prevention, learn how to conduct a basic suicide risk assessment, and prepare a No Harm Action Plan.
Finally we will discuss and describe some de-escalation strategies and discuss how to do a preventative Safety Plan.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The Mindful Ecotherapy Center at mindfulecotherapy.org is approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP), ACEP #7022. Programs that qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified with the NBCC logo. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The Mindful Ecotherapy Center is solely responsible for all course content and for all aspects of the programs offered.
f a participant or potential participant would like to express a concern about his/her experience with the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, NBCC ACEP #7022, he/she may call or e-mail by clicking here or by using the contact form at the bottom of this page. Although we do not guarantee a particular outcome, the individual can expect us to consider the complaint, make any necessary decisions and respond within 24 to 48 hours.
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We're always looking for suggestions for improvement for the Mindful Ecotherapy Center. Please send us your suggestions, comments and feedback on the website at https://mindfulecotherapy.org/contact/