Restoring Youth Rites of passage

Field Training Apprenticeship

Ages 18 + | Various Trip Dates | Return to Adult Programs

Guiding youth as they come to know themselves more fully through Rites of Passage is a complex combination of being authentically yourself, applying your knowledge and skill, and practicing the art of Seeing. Learning how to do that well is best accomplished by apprenticing with someone who does it well.

Program Details | Apply Now | Program Staff | Other Programs

An Essential Component of Guide Training

Guiding wilderness rites of passage here at Journeys requires many layers of experience—good wilderness leadership is required to safely take groups of youth out into the Olympic Wilderness, as well as strong ceremonial leadership and insightful ability to cultivate effective invitations for transformation for a wide range of youth. Generally speaking, it’s rare for someone to come to Rite of Passage Journeys well versed in all these areas.

If you are new to both rites of passage facilitation AND wilderness leadership, the optimal way for you to gather the necessary experience to step into a Guide roll is to get yourself some thorough training and experience through the Apprenticeship Program. This is how many of our Guides began their career (and some of these were participants themselves!) The Field Apprenticeship is the only way for prospective guides to gain the necessary wilderness leadership (taking kids backpacking) experience through Rite of Passage Journeys.

Apprenticing is a crucial aspect of learning to be an effective guide for youth. Nothing truly prepares you for the realities of working with youth in the physically and emotionally intense setting of a rite of passage journey like assisting skilled guides as they lead a group through the experience. Rite of Passage Journeys has always made an apprentice opportunity part of our summer rite of passage experiences, and we are continually working to refine and improve our Apprenticeship program.

We also highly recommend you consider enrolling in our Restoring Youth Rites of Passage Leadership Training workshops and intensives, particularly if you are just beginning on the path of guiding youth (or adults!). These trainings, or solid previous experience in youth rite of passage work, are strongly encouraged in order to guide or apprentice with our youth programs for ages 12 and older.

Before applying, please spend some time getting acquainted with our program offerings. Then complete the online application for the position(s) you are interested in and submit the supplemental materials via mail or email (info@riteofpassagejourneys.org).

Thank you for considering a summer with us! We look forward to hearing from you. Also, in the meantime consider dropping in on one of our upcoming community or volunteer events – you can find these listed on our Community Workshops & Events page.

Apprenticeship and the Progression of Guide Training

Apprenticeship is an opportunity for you to integrate and more deeply understand the theoretical and practical study and training that you have been doing, and at Rite of Passage Journeys, we work with potential Apprentices to identify an ideal learning and training progression to be completed in preparation for their Apprenticeship. Though this progression will look different for each person depending on their level of knowledge and experience coming into it, the baseline Rite of Passage Journeys Apprenticeship includes:

The Leadership Fundamentals Intensive course (2 weekends in April 20-21 and April 27-28 2024; online),
Participation in our 3 Day Staff Training June 7-9 2024 at the beginning of the summer season.
Apprenticeship on a trip sometime between mid June and end of August (one, two, or three weeks in length)

Placement of Apprentices

Matching apprentice candidates with particular trips is determined with consideration to previous experience, demonstrated capacity, and other factors. We have three tiers of apprenticeship opportunities:

Short trips for younger youth
- These trips have the fewest training requirements, as they are shortest and work with younger youth in a relatively ‘light touch’ level of initiatory and ritual dynamics. Trips: Explorer’s Journey, Call To Adventure
Coming of Age Journeys
- These trips are the most ritually intense, and therefore require a certain degree of demonstrated capacity to hold space for vulnerability. They are also strongly rooted in the Solo Fast. As such, it is generally a prerequisite to have personally experienced your own Solo Fast or similar type of initiation or rite of passage. Trips: Mountain Quests, Moon Rise, Olympic Odyssey
Working with Teens
- Working with teens in our rite of passage trips generally requires a heightened capacity for grounding and centeredness, a demonstrated level of integration of your own adolescent journey, and, for the Crossing trips, a high level of backbacking experience is important. Trips: Fire on the Mountain, Solo Crossing, Queer Crossing

PROGRAM DETAILS

Ages 18 +
All Genders

Components and Dates:

Leadership Fundamentals: Spring Session:
April 20-21, 27-28, 2024,
Fall Session 2024 dates TBA
Staff Training: June 7-9 2024
Field Training Apprenticeship:
- Varies: mid-June through August

Location:

Training: Bothell, WA
Trips: Olympic National Park

$200-$600, Sliding Scale
Additional Financial Aid is currently available

Apply Now

Apprenticing at Journeys is a mentored, multi-layered experience. The process begins by getting to know you and understanding your goals, as well as your previous experience and current level of capability. This program requires an application to ensure good participant fit, and to allow us to determine the best (and necessary) training programs for you to complete prior to going into the field as an Apprentice.

Are you ready?

Apply now!

Program Staff

Jakob Ledbetter

Born and raised in the Piedmont bioregion of Georgia, Jakob (Osiris) Ledbetter grew up exploring the beautiful blue ridge mountains of Southern Appalachia. Intrigued by the intersection of nature and human development, Jakob pursued an MA in Ecopsychology at Naropa University. While completing his masters, Jakob worked as a personal development mentor at a young-adult transition home, in addition to volunteering as a nature-connection instructor at multiple 8-Shields organizations in the southeast. Furthering his explorations into the wonders of the natural world, Jakob spent a year at Wilderness Awareness School as part of the adult immersion program, learning the core routines of a naturalist. Combining his experience, knowledge and skill sets, Jakob applied himself as an environmental educator teaching science-based programs in schools, a nature-connection mentor working with youth outdoors, and a rite of passage guide leading coming of age ceremonies for teenagers. A year living in the Four Corners area of Southwest Colorado guiding with Open Sky wilderness therapy provided further opportunity for practicing the craft of creating initiatory experiences for youth. Jakob is passionate about place-based skills, such as wildlife tracking, bird language, natural movement, and wild edible foraging. He believes that rites of passage and the art of marking significant life-transitions through ceremony are essential cultural tools to be utilized in the modern world towards creating soul-centric communities. As Assistant Program Director, he is invested in the development of the Journeys guide community and helping to design transformative experiences. On most days, Jakob can be found in the forest staring up at birds in trees, crawling on the ground looking at tracks, or sharing food around a campfire, singing with friends.

Gretchen "Grae" Gerlach

LFI Facilitator

Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach (she/her) grew up in rural Montana on traditional Salish lands, where she was raised as much by the wilderness as by her nature loving community. With the Rocky Mountains, glacier fed rivers, ancient forests, creatures of her homeland and a horse ranching family as inspiration she declared her life purpose early on in life (6 years old); “I will work with the nature in people!” After graduating from Brown University with a degree in Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems, Grae began working as a guide for youth in immersive Horticultural Therapy in Hawaii. Here she found her way to Rites of Passage work and the School of Lost Borders in 2016, where she has trained and apprenticed extensively for 5 years and now works as a Guide. Simultaneously, Grae began working with Journeys in 2018. The combination of these experiences inspired her to incorporate Ceremony into her work guiding youth and adults in wilderness therapy, rehab and recovery in Southeast Alaska and Southern Utah for the past 4 years. Her work has a passionate emphasis on the somatic embodiment of Rites of Passage for women and ceremonies for the sustainable practice of whole-istic wellness and reciprocity with the non-human world. Grae is co-founder of Crone Collective, an organization focused on fostering belonging and the incorporation of ceremony into communities of women. Grae’s style is to create a simple foundation and a center of gravity where individuals' internal natures, as rich and wild as the environments that hold them, can come together, can remember reciprocity, can heal, and can mark a place of belonging in the long lineage before and after them. She approaches her work from a place of love, humble responsibility, and gratitude for the wisdom she has inherited from her Mother (Mama and Nature!) as well as the lineage of learning that her mentors have shared. She can be found migrating between work in Utah and Alaska while tending her roots homestead in rural Montana.