Groupwork Skills for Ecotherapy (four-week forum course) (with Sam Lewis)

This is a month-long online course starting on 22nd June 2026. In this group, we will be exploring groupwork skills for ecotherapy practitioners.

How it works: when you sign up, you will get access to a private forum (details to be shared within the week before it starts). During the four weeks that the course runs, you are given five exercises each week, accompanied by a little theory about groupwork to read (posted in the forum in written text posts). The exercises are delivered in written posts which you can access and read whenever you like. We ask that you post a response to each exercise when you have completed the exercise that you are asked to do.

You complete an exercise each day Monday-Friday and share all about your experiences in the forum. The course tutor, Sam Lewis, will respond to your posts and guide you through the course.

The exercises are all about exploring your own experience of groups and your thoughts about how you might, in theory, set up a group experience. Most of them suggest going outdoors for a walk whilst you reflect. This is valuable because it contextualises your thinking and learning in the outdoors, even if you are thinking about things you have done in the past or might do in the future.

We will be a group of a sort and we will have some kind of online process as we go through the four weeks. There will be an invitation to reflect on this as we go through the programme.

Please note that although this event is part of the Ten Directions training course for ecotherapy practitioners, anybody can book and take part in this public online event! If you are interested, please do buy a ticket.

If you have any questions before booking, feel free to contact stephen@tarikitrust.org

This course counts as 20 hours credits for Ten Directions students.

About Sam Lewis

About Sam Lewis: Sam originally studied Fine and Applied Art at Belfast Art College and followed by a MA in Art Psychotherapy (1st) from Crawford College, Cork. English by birth she returned home from Ireland to the New Forest in 2012 where she manages an art therapy private practice and a working studio.

Cultivating her own nature-connection art-making has informed her understanding of the healing ability of nature and the wild spaces.

Meeting Caroline Brazier and attending the Ten Directions training programme brought many threads together and enabled Sam’s approach to working therapeutically to shift and refocus. She works creatively with clients in both indoor and outdoor settings and has trained as a Shinrin Yoku practitioner.

Find her online at www.arttherapyhampshire.co.uk