Art of Mentoring for 1st-Time Participants

The Art of Mentoring is an experiential training for parents, mentors, grandparents, aunties, uncles, teachers, environmental educators, healers, community members and leaders, naturalists, peacemakers, ecological designers, and many more.  The weeklong workshop offers tools to deepen and enrich your relationships with yourself, nature, family, and community.

Guided by a team of experienced facilitators from throughout the Northeast, participants come together to experience and co-create a joyful, engaged learning community. You will walk away with tools and embodied practices of regenerative community design, mentoring techniques, deep nature connection, and an amplified passion for learning. Our hope is to activate and inspire you to create healthy nature-based communities right in your own backyard!

The course is taught through experiential exercises, lectures, storytelling, music, nature exploration, and group activities. We will be both indoors and outdoors throughout the week.

The skills and practices you will learn at the Art of Mentoring have been honed and put into practice by thousands of families, neighborhoods, and mentoring initiatives throughout our international network of over 300 affiliated schools and programs.  These tools have also been powerfully incorporated in many other community and professional settings, including public and private schools, universities, at-risk youth programs, businesses, mental health practices, and more.

Essentials of Mentoring

The Essentials of Mentoring option is for those seeking to launch and improve programs using the Art of Mentoring principles and practices as soon as possible. Fundamentally, these are learned through practice, role modeling, and dialogue with mentors, but we find that the journey can be accelerated through focused storytelling and lectures. This learning journey is a cycle of introducing a practice or set of principles, going out with a small group of adults to work with that practice or principles, then returning to reflect together and with the facilitators. If the primary “eyes” that you’ll be coming to the Art of Mentoring with are those of an educator, social worker, teacher, facilitator, mentor, or similar – then this option is for you.

Village Immersion

The Village Immersion option is for those seeking to sink in to the experience of being together in a nature-connected “village” for a week. The structure is similar to the first option; small groups of adults coming together to practice principles of nature connection, but the content is different. There will be less lectures, explanations, or meta-conversations (where we verbally break down the principles of the Art of Mentoring) and a more emphasis on experiential, community-centered, self-organized, and nature-immersion activities. If your interest in coming to the Art of Mentoring is more connected to being with family, community, or nature and less about absorbing mentoring practices and principles – then this option is for you. ”

Presenters & Facilitators

• Amy Hyatt
• Miriam Dror
• Connor Stedman
• Walker Korby
• & more

Here’s what last year’s participants said:

“Like no experience before it, the Art of Mentoring sent me home feeling grounded, renewed, inspired, and motivated to create cultural change. I wish everyone could have this experience.”

“I loved the land. I loved where we slept. I loved getting to share this with my family. We are already planning for next year!”

“The Vermont Art of Mentoring is a powerful, life-altering experience, somehow wrapped into one short week.”

“There are no words to express my profound gratitude.”

Programs for Returning Adult Participants

We offer multiple advanced programs during the Art of Mentoring week for returning participants to dive deeper into nature connection, cultural mentoring, and village building. Click the links below to learn more about each program for returning participants.

• Nature Immersion Week
• Earth Skills Week