Cahoots Outdoor Programs for Kids

Vanya and the Wild Forest....

Vanya grew up in Northern Ontario and spent a lot of her childhood outdoors climbing trees, making forts, exploring ravines and hiking with her family of 6. In her 20's she did her Bachelor of Arts in a pursuit to become a teacher. By the time she was applying to Teacher's Colleges she realized that a mainstream education career was not the path for her. For the next 7 years she travelled all over the world gathering skills and knowledge by volunteering and doing work exchanges in rural areas where communities were deeply connected to the land. Back in Canada she started training within the 8 Shields philosophy of deep nature connection and working in outdoor education in Toronto where she created and ran children's outdoor programs, at Evergreen Brick Works, for several years. She also started to study Hakomi, a mindfulness, body-centred style of psychotherapy.

In 2012, she moved to Salt Spring Island to continue to study advanced methods of Hakomi. She worked for WOLF Kids for 2.5 years as an Outdoor Educator and Mentor before having her son Nico in 2017, with her loving partner Adrian Selby. She is currently (slowly) working on her Master of Counselling Psychology with the dream to merge deep nature connection with psychotherapy. Vanya has also been a Conscious Dance Facilitator at Dance Temple and a Birth Doula on Salt Spring Island over the last few years. She loves to bring songs and movement, stories and games to her outdoor programs as well as introducing kid-friendly mindfulness tools for helping to navigate the internal compass; emotions and conflict.

Come and explore the wild spaces of Salt Spring Island with Vanya at CAHOOTS!