Expert Nature-Based Therapist for Children!

The ConTiGO Approach was authored and developed by pediatric occupational therapist Dr. Laura Park Figueroa, with input from the team at her private practice, Outdoor Kids OT. The approach is based on Laura's PhD studies, plus therapists' lived experience providing nature-based pediatric therapy services. Laura teaches all of the core modules in the course.

We have officially registered ConTiGO Certified® as a certification mark with the US Patent and Trade Office! When you take the ConTiGO course and pass all quizzes with 80% or greater, you're eligible to register as ConTiGO Certified®. You'll get a digital badge to put on your website and marketing materials, as well as a profile listing in our ConTiGO Certfied® directory of nature-based pediatric therapists. There is a small yearly fee to cover our administrative costs to maintain the accuracy of the directory. 

While our approach was developed in nature-based occupational therapy sessions, the training materials are applicable to many therapeutic practitioners who work with children, including but not limited to:

• Occupational therapists and OT assistants
• Speech therapists and SLP assistants
• Physical therapists  and PT assistants
• Mental health practitioners
• Counselors
• Social workers
• Psychologists

There are 4 types of pediatric therapists who benefit most from this course:

1. You work as an employee and you want to step into leadership by incorporating nature-based therapy at your place of employment.
2. You work as an employee, but you want to start your own side-gig providing nature-based therapy camps or after-school services to impact more lives in your community.
3. You currently run your own private practice and want to add nature-based therapy programming to offer a unique and highly-valuable service that also provides an alternative revenue stream in your business.
4. You want to start your own nature-based therapy practice and want to be equipped from the start as an expert in this emerging niche.

This course is intermediate-advanced level content for licensed pediatric professionals, as it involves research analysis and clinical reasoning for application to practice. Professionals using the ConTiGO Approach must understand basic age-appropriateness of different therapy activities and be able to modify activities as needed for the child's age or developmental needs. 

One thing to note: The ConTiGO Approach was developed for children with ADHD, autism, sensory processing challenges, and dyspraxia/developmental coordination disorder, so we will focus mainly on these populations during the training. The approach was not developed based on work with children who have more significant cognitive or motor challenges or severe language impairments, though some elements of the approach could still be applied. We HAVE had therapists who focus on working with these populations take the course, and they reported the course was still very helpful to their work.

Feel free to contact [email protected] if you’re unsure the training will be a good fit for your professional goals.

At your request, we will provide a certificate of completion for 6.0 hours if you complete all of the core modules in the course and pass all quizzes with 80%. (Skills sessions and bonus content are NOT required or included in the CEU calculation.)

You are responsible to do the research regarding licensure requirements for your profession. Some states do not require CEUs to be from "approved" providers. In that case, this course would likely qualify.

For example: 

If you are a California-licensed occupational therapist, the California Board of Occupational Therapy does not certify continuing education courses.

1 PDU = 1 hour training. 24 PDUs are required per renewal cycle.

Here is the information from the California Board of OT website:

“A list of activities that qualify can be found in the CCR Section 4161.

One half (1/2) of the required number of PDUs must be directly related to the delivery of occupational therapy services. The remaining units can be in other areas related to your practice. The Board does not require that you take courses from approved providers. You are also allowed to take online or home study courses, as long as a course completion certificate is provided.

If you earn more than the required number of PDUs within your renewal period, a maximum of six (6) PDUs may be carried to the next renewal period.

Exemptions from the continued competency requirements can be found in the CCR Section 4163.”

For NBCOT renewal, it is unclear if this course will qualify.  It might qualify under #14 on the list at the link below.  We have contacted NBCOT to inquire but have received no reply.  You can access the list of continuing education activities here: https://www.nbcot.org/-/media/NBCOT/PDFs/Renewal_Activity_Chart.ashx

We are in the process of submitting the course to be AOTA approved for CEUs and will update here when we get our approval!

FOR LIFE! As long as we offer it online- and we have no plans of stopping anytime soon! We've decided to give every enrollee lifetime access to the content, WITH updates, for the life of the online course.

Part of the ConTiGO Approach is based on the idea of the therapeutic benefits of “immersive” nature settings. Sessions using the approach usually take place in uncultivated natural areas where one can experience the feeling of being “away” in nature. That being said, there are elements of the approach that may be implemented in any outdoor space in work with children. 

At Outdoor Kids OT, we mainly serve 3-10 year old children with autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorders, mental health challenges, learning disabilities, and dyspraxia/developmental coordination disorder. The approach was developed with these children in mind. 

The approach was not developed based on work with children who have more significant cognitive or motor challenges or severe language impairments, though some elements of the approach could still be applied. We HAVE had therapists who focus on working with these populations take the course, and they reported the course was still very helpful to their work.

Feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have questions about if the training is right for the population you work with in your practice.

Of course! Many therapists are doing this all over the world and we love it! But the ConTiGO Approach has been developed with input from a variety of experts and is informed by research and theories from multiple disciplines. To the author’s knowledge (and she’s spent a TON of time in the literature for her PhD), it is the ONLY operationalized, systematized, evidence-based approach to nature-based therapy that was specifically designed to be applied in practice across different disciplines. It takes a long time, a lot of hard work, and research to develop a practice model and specific approach such as this.

Taking the course provides a strong foundation for you to build your own nature-based practice. As we mentioned before, you can use as little or as much of the ConTiGO Approach as you want after you complete the course. You’ll have the videos, rubric, workbook, and printable resources forever to support your nature-based therapy work.

The registration fee includes access for one person to attend Zoom calls and access course content. 

After the course, you may use the course content and training materials to implement the ConTiGO Approach in your own business or practice setting. This includes using the rubric or other materials to train your own employees or staff. In fact, the rubric was specifically designed to give you and your employees or staff a “shared mental model” for consistent implementation of the approach.

However, you may NOT share the materials with other therapists outside of your practice or setting.

This includes allowing them to watch videos, giving them digital or paper copies of the workbook, rubric, or other resources for use in their own practices. In other words: if they do not work for your practice or in your program and didn’t take the course, they shouldn’t have the ConTiGO Approach Online Course resources. 

Please encourage interested therapists to take the course! That way they have access to all the ongoing support to help them implement what they have learned.

Under trademark law, you may not take the ConTiGO Approach content and begin training other people in a similar approach that you call your own. 

Feel free to talk with us if you have any questions about if the training is right for you due to the copyright and trademark laws protecting the content you will learn. Email [email protected] 

The entire course is self-paced, so how quickly you finish the content is entirely up to you.

The 4 core modules include 2.5 hours of video content, plus workbook exercises, supplemental articles, a literature review, and the ConTiGO Rubric.

There are 5 optional quizzes to assess your learning. (Quizzes are only required if you are requesting a certificate of completion for the course. See FAQ on this topic for further details.)

To complete all of the core content and quizzes, we estimate you will spend a minimum of 6 hours of time.

In addition, the 4 outdoor skills videos include 1 hour of video lessons covering fire building, tree swings, whittling, and fort building, plus extra content and resources provided in the workbook to help you confidently use these fun and engaging activities in your nature-based sessions with children.

The additional bonuses (trainings on Land Use and Insurance Billing, curated reference list, goal bank, and all the other done-for-you resources) add another several hours of content to the course that you can consume at your own pace, whenever needed.

The course includes video trainings accompanied by workbook content to apply learning from videos, as well as supplemental reading materials and printable resources to support your nature-based therapy work with children. ConTiGO Mentoring Calls are hosted on Zoom on a quarterly basis for interaction & discussion with other nature-based therapists; replays of calls are recorded and uploaded to the platform for all to access.

Our Refund Policy: "Do the work. Get results. Guaranteed." means that prior to 90 days after purchase, all products are subject to a money-back guarantee, minus a 5% administrative fee. The purchaser must email [email protected] with the reason for the refund request and demonstrate proof that significant attempts were made to use the complete course content in your practice. Refund requests will require you to give us specific feedback to help us make the content more helpful for others. NO RETURNS WILL BE ACCEPTED 90 DAYS AFTER PURCHASE.

We do not offer refunds for cancellation, since this is an online course with lifetime access. You may enroll at any time when you’re ready and complete the content at your own pace

We ensure accessibility of learning content and the environment by: providing closed captioning on videos, providing audio, video and chat box text files of live calls content, and using a learning platform that is easy to navigate. Learners with special needs can make requests for accommodations by emailing [email protected]

Speakers are informed of these policies in writing within their contract before starting to serve in any role in the program. 

Disclosures for Laura Park Figueroa

FINANCIAL: 

Laura is the owner of Outdoor Kids OT (OKOT) and receives a salary. In OKOT programs, various supports and supplies for nature-based therapists are mentioned or recommended, including other programs offered by OKOT. Various supports for business owners may be mentioned or recommended. Laura/OKOT is an affiliate for Amazon and receives a small portion of proceeds (at no additional cost to buyer) if registrants choose to use affiliate links offered in the program materials. Affiliate links are always clearly marked as such in the program materials and are never mandatory for participation in the program.

NON-FINANCIAL: 

Laura has friends and colleagues who are nature-based business owners and therapists.

Disclosures for OKOT employees who serve as course instructors:

FINANCIAL: 

Course instructors are OKOT employees and are paid their hourly rate for time spent in the course. OKOT employees are also paid a small referral bonus for referring interested colleagues to OKOT courses.

NON-FINANCIAL: 

OKOT employees have friends and colleagues who are nature-based business owners and therapists. 

Disclosures for course instructors from outside of OKOT:

FINANCIAL: 

Course instructors from outside of OKOT are paid as independent contractors for their time spent contributing to the course. Course instructors from outside of OKOT run their own nature-based businesses and receive a salary from those businesses. 

NON-FINANCIAL: 

Course instructors from outside of OKOT have friends and colleagues who are nature-based business owners and therapists. 

1. Learners will examine research evidence and theories informing nature-based occupational therapy practice. 

2. Learners will apply inquiry-based learning to effectively support children’s play during nature-based therapy sessions.

3. Learners will choose appropriate strategies for nature-based occupational therapy treatment in alignment with current evidence.

4. Learners will assess qualities of outdoor environments for appropriateness for nature-based occupational therapy practice.