
Nature-Based Therapy: (re)Discovering the Power of Play and Awe
Note: This workshop had to be rescheduled due to facilitator illness.
NEW Date: Friday October 31, 2025
Time: 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM CDT
Location: Richardson Nature Center – 8737 East Bush Lake Rd, Bloomington, MN 55438
Facilitators: Kari Kleven, LICSW and Annie Bunio, LGSW
Engage your playful side and explore the therapeutic potential of wonder, imagination, and joyful spontaneity in nature. This workshop highlights how awe and play awaken vitality and open new pathways for connection and healing.
Registration is through Eventbrite here.
(re)Discovering the Power of Play and Awe Registration
(Sorry about the eventbrite fees.! Feel free to reach out if you would like to register and pay a different way). Also free to email Kari with any questions. kari@naturebased.care or if you would like to be on a list to receive notifications of any future trainings.
Note that Decolonizing Nature-Based Therapy will be offered in 2026.

See what else is being offered by other providers in the community.
List of past events offered by nature-based folks in the area.
Being and Belonging: A Community Care Retreat for Therapists and Healers
Dates: October 23–26, 2025, Maple, Wisconsin (near Duluth)
A weekend of deep community building on the shores of Lake Superior. Time to rest. Time to be in nature.
Hosted by: Sarah Lazarewicz, with support from Arielle Johnson
More info: https://www.laztherapy.com/events
Somatic Work in Nature-Based Therapy
Date: Monday, July 28, 2025
Time: 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM CDT
Location: Crosby Farm Regional Park – 2595 Crosby Farm Rd, St. Paul, MN 5511
Facilitators: Becky Krenz, LMFT and Kari Kleven, LICSW.
Register: Somatic Work in Nature-Based Therapy registration
Discover how nature supports somatic approaches to healing. Learn tools to help clients reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous systems, and find grounded presence through movement and sensory awareness in natural spaces.
Create and Renew Retreat
Dates: September 18–21, 2025, Pequot Lakes, MN
A weekend of art and nature to help you reconnect to your intuition through creativity, play, and mindfulness.
Hosted by: Madelyn Steen and Maddie Johnson
More info: https://madelynsteen.com/create-and-renew
Parenting Informed by a Relationship with Nature. july 12-13 and 19, 2025.
Join Becca Manthe and Sarah Bowman as they facilitate a beautiful offering through the city or Lakeville-Parenting Informed by a Relationship with Nature. Check back here soon for the link to register!
Virtual CEU event through MAMFT. Monday, June 16, 2025 9-12, Bursting the Bubble: How MFT Practices can contain the Environmental, Political and Cultural Distress of Climate Change within the Polycrisis.
Join Becca Manthe and Becky Krenz for a virtual CEU event through MAMFT.
https://www.mamft.net/event-6160663
This session will be focused on addressing clinical issues related to climate change and modernity with clients from an experiential and systemic perspective.
Outdoor Ecotherapy in Practice. Friday, May 30, 2025. 9:30 - 3:30.
Becky Krenz offered this annual workshop designed for therapists and students (psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, or professional counselors) to improve their competency moving their therapy sessions outdoors from an ecotherapy perspective. A portion of this workshop also directly addressed ethical issues and barriers to bringing therapy sessions outdoors and included several experiential ecotherapy-based interventions to utilize with clients..
CEU credits were provided.
Ecotherapy Lunch and Learn. Friday, April 4, 2025. 12-1.
Tara Burns is presenting a Lunch and Learn about ecotherapy to members of Minnesota Womxn in Psychology. Here's the link to sign up to be a member, and here's a direct link to register for her presentation.
Fall Sacred Sites Tour. Friday, Oct 25, 2024, 12:30 - 4:40 pm in sites around St. Paul.
Join a group of local mental health professionals, coaches, naturalists and other folks who work with clients outside in nature on a Sacred Sites Tour of important, sacred places for the Native community in St. Paul. The tour is part of Healing Minnesota Stories, sponsored by the Minnesota Council of Churches (MCC), an effort to create understanding and healing between Native American and non-Native people. Generations of Native people have suffered deep trauma from loss of land, language, and culture, and all who call Minnesota home are the lesser for it. The tour offers an opportunity to learn about Minnesota history from a Native perspective through storytelling and experiencing the sites in silence/meditation/reflection. Tours are led by Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs (Mohican). Registration here. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fall-sacred-sites-tour-with-healing-stories-minnesota-tickets-976588922757?aff=oddtdtcreator
Nature-Based Therapy: Lessons from the Field (Fall). Friday, September 27, 2024. 9:00 - 12:30.
This half-day workshop is. being offered entirely outside by Minneapolis Nature-Based Therapy clinicians Kari Kleven, MSW, LICSE and Annie Bunio, MSW, LGSW. We can focus on work with children, families and/or adults, depending on the needs of those who register. Location is near Lake Hiawatha in South Minneapolis.
Read more at this eventbrite registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nature-based-therapy-lessons-from-the-field-tickets-976806453397
Nature-Based Therapy: Lessons from the Field (Spring). Friday, May 3, 2024. 9:00 - 12:30.
Read more at this eventbrite registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nature-based-therapy-lessons-from-the-field-tickets-860281243357
Introduction to Outdoor Ecotherapy for Mental Health Professionals. June 7, 2024. 9:30 - 3:30.
This full day outdoors workshop will be facilitated by Becky Krenz-Roe, MA, LMFT. The workshop will focus on working outside with adults. Location is at RecuperAcres, a private, outdoor, nature based facility used for therapeutic purposes, in Watertown, MN.
Read more about Becky and the event at this registration link: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.recuperacres.com_events&d=DwMFaQ&c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&r=jyk-aOi0iP7b5lSF4Sojs7N5IMTSYx27FUGSBeLIy3w&m=b40qpw4YMi-KGL-V3r-qu6YT8f2x89x199Pmrb9alb1q1tcHyrQhRXx5Q2IFOCSQ&s=ey8Hbwtg7nz9FUnzgJIBONnjFfNsBSfq3Ej1DtwFmys&e=
FOR THERAPISTS: an upcoming workshop!
Nature-Based Therapy: (re)Discovering the Power of Play and Awe
NEW Date: Friday, Oct 31, 2025, 9:00 - 12:30.
Registration: (re)Discovering the Power of Play and Awe Registration
FOR FOLKS LOOKING FOR THERAPY: We are sorry to share that our wait list is currently closed. While we recognize the significant needs in our community, our caseloads and capacity to properly support new clients at this time is currently full. We will update the website when this changes, hopefully in early 2026. In the meantime, keep looking for the support you need.