Bio

Laura Park Figueroa, PhD, OTR/L spent the first 15 years of her career as an occupational therapist in pediatric outpatient and school-based practice. On the verge of burnout in 2014, she considered leaving the profession…until she remembered a dream she once had way back in OT school: to work outdoors in nature as an OT. In 2015, she started Outdoor Kids OT, a nature-based private practice specializing in outdoor therapy groups for children, and in 2019, created the ConTiGO (Connection & Transformation in the Great Outdoors) Approach- an evidence-based therapy model to empower pediatric therapists of all disciplines to take their work with children outdoors into nature. A variety of free resources related to nature-based pediatric therapy, including a podcast, book, and free membership community can be found on her website: Therapy in the Great Outdoors. Laura's PhD research developed a theory about how change occurs in nature-based pediatric occupational therapy: the Ecology of Change in Outdoor Therapy (ECO-Therapy) Model....coming soon to a journal near you (hopefully)! :)