What could the next decade look like at the Kinark Outdoor Centre?
In summer 2026, our renewed leadership team began exploring that question together. Jessie Geyer, Mike Townsend, Elisha Weiss, Emmi Timmermans, and I looked beyond day-to-day operations to consider the changing world around us, and what children, youth, families, and schools will need to thrive in the years ahead.
Our conversations returned to a few powerful themes: meaningful friendships, real-world experiences, resilience, opportunity, and hope for the future. These priorities are shaping how we think about the next chapter of the Kinark Outdoor Centre (KOC).
This vision also reflects the complexity of our communities and environment, as well as the different ways families connect with KOC, whether they visit occasionally or return regularly.
One mission, three ways to make a difference
The KOC is a program of Kinark Child and Family Services (Kinark), and our work is grounded in a shared mission: helping children and youth with complex needs achieve better life outcomes. We do this by working together with families and the communities that naturally surround them.
With the youth that we serve in mind, we bring our mission to life through three connected service streams:
- Family Connections creates meaningful opportunities for families to spend time together, strengthen relationships, and build positive shared memories.
- Clinical Supports use the outdoor environment to complement therapeutic goals and help participants practise skills in an engaging, real-world setting.
- Group Adventures bring peers, schools, and communities together through purposeful challenges that encourage teamwork, confidence, and belonging.
Together, these services provide upstream support throughout a young person’s development. Better outcomes for children and youth with complex needs depend on more than supporting the individual; they also involve strengthening the well-being of parents, caregivers, peers, and the wider network around them.
Why being outdoors matters
At KOC, the outdoors is not simply a backdrop, it is an active part of the experience. Stepping into a natural setting gives young people space away from familiar routines, distractions, and expectations. That change can help them become more present, try something new, and relate differently to peers and supportive adults.
- Connection grows through shared experience. New outdoor activities invite cooperation, conversation, trust, and a stronger sense of belonging.
- Learning becomes active. Hands-on challenges make communication, problem-solving, leadership, and self-regulation visible and practical.
- Confidence comes from doing hard things with support. Participants can try, adapt, persist, and experience success; learning not only new skills, but also how to approach future learning.
- Nature can support well-being. Movement, time outdoors, and a break from everyday pressures can help participants focus, reset, and strengthen emotional and social well-being.
- The learning can travel home. Intentional reflection helps participants connect outdoor experiences to relationships, school, home, and community life.
Carrying the experience forward
Outdoor experiences are real, shared, and memorable. At KOC, they become opportunities to build practical skills, deepen supportive relationships, and discover strengths that can last well beyond a visit. As we look toward the next decade, our goal is clear: to create more opportunities for children, youth, and families to connect, grow, and move forward with confidence and hope.
We look forward to welcoming your group to the KOC.
Jane Isbister
Director, Kinark Outdoor Centre
