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.
Regan Stacey - Founder & Lead Instructor
The Forest Therapy School
Our Story
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.
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.
Meet The Team
Regan Stacey
Founder & Lead Instructor
Regan works closely with students, graduates, instructors, and staff to guide the school’s training, curriculum, and community. An artist, writer, meditation teacher, former competitive open-water swimmer, and lifelong student of the natural world, Regan brings a grounded, creative, and deeply mindful approach to forest therapy guide training. Her work is rooted in helping people slow down, awaken their senses, and remember their relationship with the living Earth.
Nev Hoffman
Marketing & Communications Coordinator
Nev works closely with Regan to support The Forest Therapy School’s social media messaging, visual content creation, website design, and training communications. As an FTS graduate, Advisory Council member, and founder of 16 Hoops, she brings a highly specialized background in nature-based work, strategic branding, photography, and storytelling to her work with the school. A lifelong learner and tea enthusiast, Nev approaches this work with curiosity, creativity, and a deep respect for the guide training experience.
Trainers & Workshop Leaders | 2026-2027
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Lara Laskowski
TRAINER
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.
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Jonna Cooley
WORKSHOP LEADER
Dr. Cooley holds a master’s degree in counseling and a PhD in psychology and is deeply rooted in the belief that nature and mindful presence can support human well-being.
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Erin Day
MINDFUL MOVEMENT
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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Kirstie
BREATHWORK
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Council of Advisors
The Council of Advisors is a circle of trusted practitioners, educators, and leaders who offer guidance, perspective, and field-based wisdom as The Forest Therapy School continues to grow. Their insight helps support the school’s curriculum, community, and standards of practice while keeping the work grounded, responsive, and connected to the larger field of forest therapy, mindfulness, and nature connection.
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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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Nev Hoffman
BRAND STRATEGY & WEBSITE DESIGN
Nev Hoffman of 16 Hoops LLC brings strategic branding, website design, and communications experience to her advisory work, helping nature-based and mission-driven organizations share their story with clarity, care, groundedness, and a deep respect for place.
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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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Jeff Mohr
SOCIAL WORKER
Professor Jeff Mohr has served as an oncology social worker and social worker educator with a deep interest in the interconnection between human behavior and the natural environment.
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Dr. Tessa Palmer
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.
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Robert Reenan
SCIENTIST, MINDFULNESS GUIDE
With more than four decades of experience researching genetics and neuroscience, as well as a wealth of lived-experience in the outdoors, Robert is intensely interested in the intersection ofmindfulness and nature-based interventions on well-being and mental health.
A Growing Community of Forest Therapy Guides
The Forest Therapy School has trained more than 500 guides who bring mindfulness-based forest therapy into communities, organizations, and landscapes around the world.
Our graduates come from many backgrounds, including wellness, education, mental health, healthcare, conservation, coaching, the arts, and outdoor leadership. What they share is a commitment to guiding nature connection with presence, care, and respect.
Through our Guide Directory, you can connect with certified Forest Therapy Guides and explore the many ways this work is being practiced in the field.
Who Our Guides Serve
The impact of this work is not abstract. It shows up in real-world stories: in hospitals, community programs, public lands, veterans’ groups, schools, retreat spaces, and wherever people are longing for steadiness, connection, and peace.
Forest Therapy School guides bring this work into real communities, with real people, in many different seasons of life.
Some are creating programs for young people learning to meet life with courage and hope. Some are supporting veterans and first responders through outdoor experiences that encourage quiet, reflection, and restoration. Some are helping survivors reconnect with places of beauty and strength. Others are bringing forest therapy into grief support, education, healthcare, spiritual community, public lands, and private practice.
The impact of this work is often simple, but not small: a participant pausing long enough to feel held by a tree, a group finding a moment of quiet together, a person remembering that the living world is still here, still offering presence, still inviting them to listen.
This is why we train guides with care. Forest therapy is not only about nature connection. It is about relationship, attention, humility, and the ways a guided experience outdoors can support people, communities, and the places that hold them.
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
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
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