Restoring youth Rites of Passage

Advanced Leadership Intensive

Update: ALI Postponed—Stay Tuned for Updates

Do you long to be of deep service to young people, future generations, and wholeness in our communities and Earth?
To be a powerful guide and role model to youth in living a soulful life?
To be an effective leader of authentic, non-appropriative, earth- and spirit-affirming ceremonies that honor life transitions?
To find your place of belonging in community and on the Earth, in ways that are in solidarity with all Peoples?

The Advanced Leadership Intensive is an 11 day immersion into the realm of guiding youth through rite of passage experiences. This Intensive format offers our most comprehensive training opportunity, including our core framework and toolset for soulfully mentoring youth through rite of passage experiences. It also offers a powerful opportunity to connect with your personal gifts and ancestral inheritance, and begin building your niche in this culture-transforming work.

Over the course of a deeply experiential journey, you will participate in your own two-day solo vigil; use and practice other wilderness soulwork modalities; inquire into the intersections of colonization, ancestry, trauma, and initiation; and explore frameworks and tools for rite of passage leadership, program facilitation, and adolescent development.

Through personal reflection, exploration, and sharing, you will gain insight into your own transitions into adulthood and do some of the important remedial ‘inner teenager’ work that will make you a more effective mentor to young people.

Alongside your co-participants, you will also delve into key issues in rite of passage work today, including working with youth of diverse backgrounds in gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, and engaging in ceremonial practices in ways that respect diverse spiritual orientations and are not culturally appropriative.

For over 50 years, Rite of Passage Journeys has pioneered a unique approach to coming of age. This approach is not a one-size-fits-all model, but one that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of a given community and their young people. Originally designed as a comprehensive preparation for prospective apprentices and guides at Rite of Passage Journeys, the Advanced Leadership Intensive has been refined and expanded to meet the needs of a wide variety of mentors and guides looking to incorporate rite of passage experiences into their work with youth. This program includes the core material from:

It also incorporates a 2-day fasting solo in nature, an initiatory experience which is intended to support you in powerfully stepping into service to your community as a mentor or guide to youth.

Postponed--stay tuned for updates

PROGRAM DETAILS

Ages 18 +
All Genders

Postponed—Stay Tuned for Future Developments

TBA

$1600.00 - $2800.00, Sliding Scale
Additional Financial Aid is Available

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Program Postponed—stay tuned for updates

Questions? Check out our FAQ page or send us a message!

You Will Leave With...

A powerful catalyzing initiatory experience through immersion in a wilderness-based rite of passage framework – this includes your own two-day fasting solo
Training in theoretical and practical fundamentals in creating rite of passage experiences, including ritual & ceremonial design, working with different populations, logistics, safety, and more
Experience exploring the dynamics of power, privilege, oppression, and difference, how this impacts our work, and how to make use of your unique social position(s) to most effectively support young people on their path to becoming healthy adults, and building just, resilient communities
Further insight into your own journey through childhood and adolescence, and the opportunity to heal some wounds and identify others that you need to work on
Greater awareness around your own ancestral heritage, and how to guide culturally appropriate, culturally relevant rites of passage in the context of settler colonialism
An introduction to adolescent development from neurological, psychological, cultural, and ecological perspectives
Familiarity with Rite of Passage Journeys’ mentoring framework, values wheel, and key strategies, originally developed by Stan Crow and honed over 50 years of working with young people
Experience in a group field facilitated with trauma-awareness, along with an understanding of the essential role of embodiment practices in healing trauma and cultivating wholeness in general
Tools for bridging between worlds: helping you embody the world you wish to see in the context of present-day realities

Mentoring on Journeys youth Programs

This training offers powerful personal, experiential, and conceptual learning in the range of subjects and modes we see as important to be competent in to do this work. The hands-on, practical learning that takes place in the apprentice positions on our youth wilderness programs is an ideal complement. We very much encourage you to apply for both!

Note that this Leadership Intensive – or comparable training and experience elsewhere (uncommon!) – is a prerequisite to apprenticing and staffing most Rite of Passage Journeys youth programs. Find information about apprentice and staff positions here, and contact us with questions, inquiries, and applications, at info@riteofpassagejourneys.org.

Program Cost

$1600 - $2800, Sliding Scale

This is all-inclusive; food and camping are covered for the duration of the program. We are committed to making this program accessible to all who are called to it, and we hope that this sliding scale will help with that. You are welcome to choose any number within the scale, or apply for financial aid if the range is beyond your means. Note that we are also happy to arrange payment plans to help extend the cost over a longer period of time. Consider the following as you decide:

Assuming we end up with a full or nearly full group of participants, we estimate that:

$1600 per person will cover our direct expenses for this program

$2000 per person will sustainably support our administrative expenses

$2400 will support those needing to pay on the low end of the scale

$2800 will support us to invest further in program development and relationship-building.

Journeys has never turned away a participant for lack of funds. Thanks for supporting this movement towards greater financial equity and transparency!

The two-week intensive takes place at beautiful Ekone Ranch in Goldendale.

“[I’m] grateful for such a deep experience, and know that my life, my work and the youth I have the
opportunity to experience will be gaining directly from the wisdom gained in these two weeks.”

— Stacey, Leadership Participant

Application Process

1. Please complete this brief registration form.

2. Please send a letter of intent to info@riteofpassagejourneys.org. Note that this application letter is required to reserve your spot in the program– not just step 1. We invite you to consider the below questions in your letter.

3. We will follow up with you shortly after receiving your submissions. After admission into the program, we will ask for a deposit ($400) or financial aid application to hold your spot.

Questions to consider:

What in your heart calls you to seek out this experience?
How did you hear about it/Rite of Passage Journeys?
Are you interested in being a mentor on Journeys’ youth programs this summer?
How might this experience fit into any personal or professional goals or visions that you have at this time?
Please describe any past experience you have working with youth, and how you see yourself working with youth in the future.
Have you participated in a guided fast in the wilderness before? When and with whom? Have you been involved in any way in any other kinds of intentional rites of passage?
Looking back, what one or two experiences – intentional rites of passage or not – most initiated you into the place you are now on your journey of adulthood?
What do you know about your ancestors? How do you relate to them at this point, if at all?
What are some of the challenges and gifts that come from various aspects of your social identity (such as race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, class, etc)? What aspects of your identity feel most important to you at this time?
Anything else you’d like to share with us?

Space is limited in this program. Please apply soon!