About Us
Our Approach
The Forest Therapy School is a boutique school that delivers comprehensive, high quality, student-focused training in a co-created learning space that allows for greater depth and personal growth.
When you study with us, you will learn how to offer forest therapy to your community, integrate it into your existing wellness practice, and gain clarity on your professional direction as we walk with you every step of the way.
Forest therapy is a form of ecotherapy that focuses on the therapeutic benefits of being among the trees. Backed by 40 years of scientific research, it is a growing global wellness movement, similar to where yoga was thirty years ago.
At The Forest Therapy School, we teach forest therapy as a mindful practice of being in nature for our own well-being and that of the planet’s, inviting connection to all of life. It is a waking up to our wholeness, to our belonging to the Earth, and to our place in a vast universe.
“Many students come thinking they are learning how to become a forest therapy guide and leave learning how to live a better life.”
— Regan Stacey, Owner at The Forest Therapy School
Regan Stacey - Owner & Lead Instructor
The Forest Therapy School
Our Story
I’m often asked, what brought me to the practice of forest therapy and mindful nature connection. The short answer: a spiritual journey with the forest through the gift of cancer. It’s not typically the answer people are expecting, but this is also how some of the hardest things we face in life can bring us to our calling.
My oncologist told me I’ll “never be out of the woods.” I found humor in that given the work I feel called to do — to invite people to awaken the forest within, to renew their relationship with the Earth and to live more fully into their aliveness from a place of grounding and belonging.
Searching for a way to reconnect humans to nature, I came across the practice of forest bathing and trained to become a forest therapy guide. I began offering mindful walks with nature as a pathway to healing.
In 2020, I had a vision to start a forest therapy guide certification program that framed the practice around mindfulness. I brought on a partner to help develop the business while I wrote a curriculum reflective of what I call a mindful way. Over the course of 4 years, together we trained over 400 guides across the globe.
Today, I carry the mission of the school forward with a talented team of nature connection advocates who share knowledge across the sciences, humanities, and spiritual arts.
Ultimately, our story continues with you. The more guides trained through The Forest Therapy School, the greater the reach in turning our collective hearts towards healing our relationship with ourselves, each other, and the Earth.
We all play a role, and I invite you to join us on the journey.
I believe forest therapy is needed now more than ever for the health and well-being of all. Imagine a world where humans and the-more-than-human world not just co-exist but thrive together.
Meet the Team
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Regan Stacey
OWNER & LEAD INSTRUCTOR
Regan acknowledges both the entanglement and enchantment of our times. She embraces a celebratory ecology that invites us to slow down and awaken our senses to the sights, sounds, and scents of the world with wonder, curiosity, and joy.
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Leah Manuel
INSTRUCTOR
Rooted in reverence for the natural world, Leah walks the path of guide, teacher, and lifelong learner. Her work is guided by a belief that nature is not a destination, but a remembering — of self, of community, of the living world.
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Lara Laskowski
INSTRUCTOR
Lara's love for nature blossomed on her family's 75-acre farm in Croydon, New Hampshire. Inspired by her father, a farmer and woodsman, and nurtured by the gardens of her mother and grandmother, Lara found her true home in the forests and fields.
Council of Advisors
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Rev. Dr. Lisa Dahill
PROFESSOR OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP
Dr. Dahill’s research interests center in the expansion of spiritual, ritual, and contemplative practices to encompass place-based approaches and the inter- and multi-species relationships that comprise our human lives on Earth.
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Erin Day (Daska Devi)
YOGA MENTOR
As the founder of Ten Summit Yoga & Earth Based Wellness and a yogini with twenty-seven years of teaching experience, I am devoted to learning and sharing the teachings of Yoga as they are intertwined with the natural world.
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Sarah DeWitt
SYSTEMS CHANGE
LEADER AND COACHWith degrees in geology and science documentary filmmaking, plus two NASA exceptional service medals for her efforts in science communication, Sarah has made it her mission to center planetary health in her work and her life.
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Chris "Painted Turtle" Harris
HERBALIST AND SPIRITUAL GUIDE
Turtle comes to us with the wisdom of Native Ceremony and is willing to share the teachings as he lives them in his spiritual life. He has a strong belief in our connection to Mother Earth and shares what he has learned on this path.
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Dr. Darin Knapp
SCIENTIST AND FARMER
Darin is a certified forest therapy guide via The Forest Therapy School and now a full-time farmer and creator of nature-based experiences with his fellow Forest Therapy guide and wife, Jane Saiers, at RambleRill Farm in Hillsborough, NC and nearby locations.
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Arthur Levy
PSYCHOTHERAPIST
As a clinical psychotherapist for 38 years I have had the opportunity to delve deeply into what our lives are made of. My emphasis is on depth psychology, development of mindfulness, and our interior relationship with our real Self. Differentiating our ego structures from what we truly are and truly feel.
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Tessa Palmer, Ph.D.
SOCIAL WORKER
Dr. Tessa Palmer completed her doctorate in social work from Kutztown University, with her dissertation exploring the integration of nature into multi-level social work practice. She is working to promote nature-based experiences for social workers and educators.
Accreditation and CE Credits
Our forest therapy guide certification program is accredited through the International Mindfulness and Meditation Alliance (IMMA), an organization that formally recognizes both mindfulness and the emerging practice of forest therapy.
The International Mindfulness and Meditation Alliance
We are internationally accredited through The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Certification Service. As a CPD provider, our program has been rigorously reviewed to meet industry standards, where quality is both recognised and assured.
The Continuing Professional
Development Certification Service
We offer 27 CE credits for national board certified health and wellness coaches through The National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC). Our training comes highly vetted, meeting rigorous standards for quality and ethical practice. # CEA-000003-1
The National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching
Let’s Connect.
Interested in The Forest Therapy School?
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