ADHD Group Coaching
“I’m actually afraid of the water but I forgot about that while I was sailing”
– 16 years old female with Inattentive Type ADHD
HOW IT STARTED
In June 2016, two friends, Fiel John Meria and Julienne Nido, decided to act upon the need to bring the idea of nature, “back to basics” to teens and young adults who had various neurodevelopmental and mental health concerns.
Aside from just focusing on ADHD group coaching and classical clinical work such as occupational therapy that we were familiar with, we recognized that evidence was ripe with studies that proved how traveling dealt with this with programs such as surfing, hiking and the like getting the nod from peer reviewed studies on attention, socialization and mental health.
So we thought, “why not?” And so we started with 17 students and went on a Trip to Taal Lake. Feedback was awesome – they formed friendships they otherwise would not have been able to do so on their own, found a love outside of our gadget-impaired world and found more of themselves during their identity formation years. As of 2023, the Dungeons & Dragons group they formed still exists.
And so we did it again, and again until we served close to 60 different participants across 9 different trips from June 2016 to April 2019. We thought it would be fun to document them, and so we put them up in our gallery (with their permission of course). We took a break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but by God’s grace, we hope to do it again by late 2023-2024 and offer other services such as adjacent training programs, support groups, working with women and ADHD Group Coaching.
Project Pond Outdoor Program Gallery
All photos displayed in gallery used with permission. Project Pond (People Overcoming Neurodevelopmental Difficulties) is a trade name registered under Neurodivergent Development Corporation OPC – Find an ADHD Coach!
