Author ORCID Identifier:
Date of Graduation
5-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Counselor Education (PhD)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Counseling, Leadership, and Research Methods
Advisor/Mentor
Christian, David
Committee Member
Popejoy, Erin
Second Committee Member
Higgins, Kristin
Third Committee Member
Lundeen, Lindsay
Keywords
Adolescence; Adventure Therapy; Counseling; Low-Income
Abstract
Adventure therapy is a creative, transtheoretical group-based model of counseling that utilizes kinesthetic activities coupled with metaphors and processing modalities, alongside experiences outdoors, to facilitate insight and motivate healthy communication between group members. Through intentional sequencing and guidance of activities, facilitators aim to improve participants' communication skills, group engagement, and ability to tolerate discomfort and risk while strategically solving problems. In addition, the integration of nature and the outdoors has been demonstrated to improve mental health and well-being, generating a sense of connectedness to the environment and to the group. Adolescence is a time of rapid developmental change characterized by the nascence of social skills, the formation of a network outside of one’s familial unit, and an increased propensity for risk taking coupled with a still-developing capacity for emotional regulation and decision making. When adolescents develop social skills and meet developmental milestones, their world expands with opportunities to thrive through new connections and bonds. However, factors such as racial discrimination, exposure to community or familial violence, disorganized or chaotic attachments to parents and caregivers, poverty, trauma, and underfunded schools can lead to increased isolation and dependence on drugs and alcohol as a replacement for positive peer and peer-mentor relationships, thus creating barriers to healthy development. The creative modality of adventure therapy has the potential to build resilience in inner-city youths so that they may overcome these deleterious factors and develop the relational connectedness to move past many obstacles in their lives. The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of the Chicago Voyagers’ adventure therapy interventions on participants’ sense of relatedness and group development in inner-city youths who were primarily youths of color and lower-socioeconomic status. Participants included eight 7th grade boys, (n= 5 control; n = 3 intervention) and 16 girls (n = 8 control; n = 8 intervention). Due to low sample size and inconsistency in programming, the boys’ groups were unable to be compared to the girls’ groups and were instead analyzed using descriptive statistics and visual analyses. For the statistical analyses for the girls’ groups, results indicated no statistically significant differences on within-subjects effects on measures of overall sense of relatedness, the subscales of trust, comfort, support, and tolerance, or the group climate outcomes of engagement, avoidance, and conflict. However, between-subjects analyses revealed statistically significant between-subjects effects on measures of total sense of relatedness, trust, comfort, and support, indicating that the girls’ control groups were statistically significantly higher than the girls’ intervention groups.
Citation
Bellegarde, N. (2026). Understanding the Effects of Adventure Therapy on Inner City Youths' Sense of Relatedness. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/6298
