The Junior Guides program offers personal and professional development trainings that support youth in becoming outdoor leaders.
The program honors lived experience and builds on the knowledge, capacity and expertise of each participant. Junior Guides program participants are exposed to a vast array of outdoor activities while being offered personal and professional development trainings that support them in becoming outdoor leaders. Junior Guides also facilitate outdoor experiential opportunities for younger CultureSeed participants.
Junior Guides are youth who have graduated from CultureSeed programming and pursue training, internship and employment opportunities in the outdoor field. Junior Guides are also paid to plan and lead outings with CultureSeed youth in order to gain experience on the ground.
Honoring the process of becoming…
Upon graduating from the Junior Guide training youth have the option to take their experience to the next level. CultureSeed offers a supported, transformational journey for adolescents as they move toward adulthood. Youth grow and learn through participation in ongoing programming including one on one therapy, peer circles, adventure outings, and challenging group trips like backpacking or rafting. Honoring the “process of becoming” that unfolds as each young person connects with nature, themselves, and others, CultureSeed encourages youth to recognize their strengths and gifts. The summer after senior year in high school, youth can choose to embark on a Solo Challenge to claim these gifts and mark the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
What is a Solo Challenge?
With support from caring adults camping nearby, youth spend 24 hours alone in nature, without shelter, food (this can be adjusted as needed) or other distractions. Youth are invited to design a personal ceremony as a way to claim their unique inner gifts and adulthood. Upon return, they are welcomed back as adults, witnessed in telling their stories, and supported in integrating their gifts into daily life and in service to their communities.
