Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council

The Mission of Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council: Striving for ongoing improvement in outdoor behavioral healthcare by sharing best practices and raising the bar for wilderness treatment and its effectiveness in changing the lives of those dealing with a variety of emotional and mental constraints.

The Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council was founded in 1996 when representatives from a handful of wilderness treatment programs joined to collaborate and to share best practices. The founding programs realized the advantage of uniting to promote program standards and excellence and thus the OBH Council was founded.

Today, the organization and its member programs have been instrumental in raising the bar for wilderness treatment, facilitating research on the efficacy of wilderness treatment for adolescents, and in promoting the industry. Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare is delivered by trained professionals in the wilderness setting. OBH practitioners are trained in therapeutic techniques and interventions as well as adventure and wilderness facilitation.

OBH refers to the work done in providing primary care, secondary care and is considered an alternate intermediate care program with regards to public health and for obtaining full insurance reimbursement according to state and federal mental health and substance abuse parity regulations.