Adventure therapy — using outdoor and nature-based experiences for therapeutic purposes — is a growing field in New Zealand. The country's outdoor environment provides a natural context for therapeutic experiences addressing mental health, youth at risk, trauma, and rehabilitation. This guide covers the key funding sources.
Adventure therapy uses outdoor activities as therapeutic tools:
- Wilderness therapy: Multi-day outdoor journeys as therapeutic experience
- Ropes courses: Challenge-based therapeutic group experiences
- Marine therapy: Surfing, kayaking, and sea-based therapeutic programmes
- Nature-based therapy: Horticultural, ecological, and nature connection
- Therapeutic recreation: Structured outdoor activity programmes
The outdoor environment provides powerful contexts for learning, challenge, and therapeutic change.
ACC funds adventure therapy in some contexts:
- Rehabilitation: Outdoor programmes as part of physical and psychological rehabilitation
- Sensitive claims: Trauma treatment including nature-based approaches
- Vocational rehabilitation: Outdoor programmes supporting return to work
Te Whatu Ora for therapeutic nature-based programmes:
- Mental health: Alternative mental health interventions including nature-based
- Youth mental health: Adventure and outdoor approaches for young people
- Rehabilitation: Physical rehabilitation in outdoor contexts
MSD and Oranga Tamariki for at-risk youth:
- Youth justice: Outdoor programmes for young offenders — alternatives to custody
- Child protection: Therapeutic programmes for children in care
- Youth development: Adventure-based youth development
Gaming trusts fund adventure therapy and outdoor therapeutic programmes:
- Four Winds Foundation: Outdoor therapeutic and youth at-risk programmes
- Grassroots Trust: Community outdoor and therapeutic recreation
- Pub Charity: Youth outdoor and therapeutic programmes
- Lion Foundation: Community outdoor and wellbeing programmes
Gaming trust adventure therapy applications:
- Equipment for outdoor therapeutic programmes (kayaks, ropes courses, camping gear)
- Programme facilitation costs
- Transport to outdoor environments
- Training for outdoor therapeutic practitioners
- Outdoor therapeutic programmes for specific populations (youth, trauma survivors, people with mental illness)
Lottery Community Wellbeing: Therapeutic recreation and outdoor wellbeing programmes.
DOC and nature-based wellbeing:
- DOC: Community access to conservation areas for therapeutic purposes
- Green prescriptions: GPs prescribing outdoor activity for health
- Eco-therapy: Nature connection as therapeutic tool
Young people and adventure therapy:
- At-risk youth: Alternative outdoor programmes reducing reoffending
- School refusal: Outdoor learning for school-disengaged students
- Mental health: Adventure therapy for youth mental health
- Residential programmes: Outdoor therapeutic residential programmes
Animal-based therapeutic programmes (often funded alongside adventure therapy):
- Equine-assisted: Horse-based therapy
- Dog therapy: Therapy dogs in clinical and community settings
- Farming therapy: Therapeutic farm programmes
Cultural connection to environment:
- Kaitiakitanga: Environmental guardianship as therapeutic
- Land connection: Māori connection to ancestral land
- Awa and moana: River and ocean environments in Māori therapeutic practice
- Marae and whenua: Land-based therapeutic programmes
Strong applications demonstrate:
- Therapeutic outcomes: Mental health, social, or functional improvements
- Evidence: Research evidence for the therapeutic approach used
- Safety: Rigorous outdoor safety and risk management
- Qualified practitioners: Qualified adventure therapy practitioners
- Target populations: Clear focus on populations with identified therapeutic need
- Integration: Part of broader therapeutic support, not standalone
- Access: Making outdoor therapeutic experiences available to those who need them most
- Cultural: Culturally safe outdoor therapy for Māori and Pacific participants
Tahua's grants management platform helps adventure therapy and outdoor wellbeing organisations manage grant applications across ACC, gaming trusts, Lottery, and community foundations, tracking therapeutic outcomes, participation, and wellbeing results.