Groundswell Pilots: weaving the way for waves of healing near you
Since the founding of Groundswell Community Project in 2016, we have been committed to the empowerment of community. And in 2022 we actively committed our time, energy, and resources to support the development of our research based trauma informed surf therapy model and tools into new fields, spaces, and communities. To see Groundswell facilitators, interns, and team incorporating what they have learned through their trainings, mentorship, and time with Groundswell to discover and actualize their dreams into the world is what we are all about. Waves of grief, Waves Within, Holistic Surf Coaching, and Color the Water Surf Therapy programs are some of the development highlights 2022 held.
Waves of Grief:
In 2020 Tracey Chester LMFT and founder of The San Diego Pain and Trauma Institute reached out to Natalie Small, Groundswell’s founder, speaking into the need for grief support within the community due to the collective impact of the pandemic on the local and global community. To loss of loved ones and loss of access to our rituals around death to loss of jobs, homes, and ways of being. Tracey recognized the increase of our collective grief as a global crisis and saw Surf Therapy as a space for support, healing, and recovery. Together they built out a community drop in surf therapy program based off of the curriculum, model and structure of Groundswell Surf Therapy integrating in grief tools like the Mourner’s Bill of Rights to atone and give permission to the access and experience the diversity of waves that grief causes. Certified grief counselors and down the coast of California where trained in the curriculum and began holding Groundswell Waves of Grief Ⓒ programs for their local communities. Women gathered every second Sunday of the month along side their children and partners to honor their individual and collective grief. With the National Geographic series IMPACT featuring Groundswell’s Surf Therapy facilitator, Kelsey Ellis, as she provided a groundswell surf therapy program in the Bay Area with mentorship and support of Groundswell Surf Therapy facilitator, board member, and licensed therapist Dana Marie Ahmed. In the episode, Kelsey vulnerably and bravely shared her own grief story around loosing her sister Audrey Marie Ellis to COVID in March 2020 and how facilitating Groundswell Surf Therapy programs for others also provided support for her in her own grief journey, helped shed light to and welcome people to honor their own grief journey through the medicine of community and the sea. Kelsey now has her masters in grief counseling and launched her own clinic providing grief support through community and ocean engagement that is funded by the Audrey Marie Ellis Foundation.
We are honored to be handing over the Groundswell Waves of Grief curriculum to Kelsey’s clinic so she can continue this work that bring her and her community so much healing, joy, and connection. To see Groundswell facilitators and team incorporating what they have learned through their trainings, mentorship, and time with Groundswell to discover and actualize their dreams into the world is what we are all about. If you are looking for grief support held within community and the sea head to Kelsey’s Waves of Grief and Love Collective to find a Waves of Grief drop in as well as other grief support near you.
Holistic Surf Coaching:
In 2020 Groundswell shifted our California Association of Marriage and Family Therapy accredited CEU trainings in Surf Therapy to the virtual space and were able to welcome surf therapy providers and the curious from around the world to dive deeper into trauma informed surf therapy together. The first cohort included women from Israel to Australia, Peru, South Carolina, Africa, Canada, and California who ranged professionally from licensed therapists to surf instructors and ocean lovers. Holly Beck, Pro-surfer and founder of Surf With Amigas, at the time based in Costa Rica and working towards her masters in Counseling was one our trainees. Surf With Amigas is one of the first women surf retreats in the world and now holds high level women surf coaching retreats in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Indonesia, Morocco, and Peru. Holly shares how she decided to go back to school for her masters in counseling after seeing over and over how during surf coaching more was happening that just helping people improve their surfing, but peoples fears, insecurities, trauma, and grief would also come to the surface in-between sets and wanted to go deeper into how surfing could be a supportive tool for not just improving your surf skills but also your mental health.
After Holly completed her year long Surf Therapy Facilitator training with Groundswell in 2020 and moved into the intern phase of her masters, she joined 5 other clinical therapy interns in practicing and holding Groundswell surf therapy curriculum for identifying womxn overcoming diversity of traumas through learning how to surf. With Holly’s years of experience in surf coaching and passion to support womxn reclaim their healing and power, together with Groundswell Surf Therapy Facilitator Jessica, LMFT and founder of Sea Love Healing, we began developing and adjusting the Groundswell curriculum to support a higher level of surf ability. We piloted the new Holistic Surf Coaching curriculum as a 4 week program, single day programs, and as a collaborative retreat with Surf With Amigas.
Surf With Amigas is now incorporating the curriculum built with Groundswell to continue providing Holistic Surf Coaching Retreats in Morocco, Peru, and Costa Rica and is collaborating with Natalie Small LMFT to provide trauma informed trainings and consultations for their all women surf instructor staff so they can continually better support the amigas as they learn to surf the waves of the sea and of life with grace, joy, and community. Check out Surf With Amigas upcoming Holistic Surf Coaching offerings and come experience the power and transformation that surfing can have on both your physical, mental, and social wellbeing
Waves Within
Michelle Cortrite AMFT and Emily Farro LCSW both started as interns in the Groundswell Surf Therapy Internship program. Through their additional trainings in art therapy, play therapy, and experience working with youth they had a passion to adapt the Groundswell Surf Therapy Curriculum to attune specifically to tweens in Los Angeles. They piloted two 4 week Surf Therapy programs in LA with the support of Groundswell staff, Surf Safety Facilitator Leah Austin, and volunteers. The tweens and their families shared “my daughter is stronger, braver, and more confident than when she started the program” and “ I have gained new friends, surf skills, and experienced love, compassion, acceptance, and belonging which is huge for me”. They are continuing on to register Waves Within as it’s own non-profit and continue to engage in the Groundswell Surf Therapy Collective for on going mentorship and support as they actualize their dream of being surf therapy providers and welcoming young girls into a deep relationship with their bodies, emotions, each other and the sea. You can read their impact report here and follow them on instagram to see the stories and powerful spaces they are holding for youth in Los Angeles.
Color the Water
Lizelle Jackson joined our Surf Therapy Facilitator cohort in 2020 and during this time co-founded Color The Water, a non-profit org that decolonizes surfing through offering free surf lessons for BIPOC folk in Los Angeles. In 2021, Color the Water board member and Ludine Pierre LMFT completed the Trauma Informed Surf Therapy cohort as well with the goal for the two of them to co-faciltiate Groundswell 8 week Surf Therapy programs for the BIPOC womxn community in LA. As Lizelle was teaching surfing through Color the Water she noticed the impact of intergenerational trauma and racial trauma that many of her surf clients were holding in their bodies and with their relationship to the ocean. The goal: to provide a surf therapy program that welcomed a safe and brave space for them to build supportive BIPOC community in the sea together and to acknowledge their collective trauma and their collective resiliencies. This is the second year of Ludine and Lizelle holding 8 week surf therapy programs utilizing the Groundswell curriculum and model and they look forward to continue to provide and expand the offering to both women centered spaces as well as welcoming identifying men into the surf therapy space in 2023.
"I learned that I am resilient! I am good at getting knocked down and getting back up." 34 yr old participant*
"I learned that when you can let go of control, magic happens." 21 yr old participant*
"Surf therapy helped me to stay present and boogie boarding helped me have fun again. I also learned that it's okay to ask for help, to be a part of the community." 50 yr old participant*
"I'm learning to enforce my boundaries with myself and mother ocean helps me see that. I can roll with life with self-honor." 50 yr old participant*
San Diego Pain trauma Institute
Tracey Chester LMFT and founded SDPTI to create a team of mental health therapists and physicians working together to facilitate healing as a whole person. Through holistic treatment they seek to relieve suffering by understanding the current stressors you’re managing as well as the root cause rather than treating symptoms alone. They offer grief and trauma-informed care, meaning they take into account the mental, emotional, social, and physical factors impacting your unique experience. Tracey started collaborating with Groundswell in 2018 and through trainings and partnerships supported Groundswell in the development of “Waves of Grief” curriculum that has been used world wide as well as with her clients in San Diego. She has also been able to take the groundswell curriculum and adapt it to best support those with chronic pain. Groundswell and SDPTI are currently working together with USC to support research on the impact of Groundswell’s trauma informed Surf Therapy model specifically for those with chronic pain. They will also be offering specialty trainings to support the further development of surf therapy in the areas of chronic pain, grief, and eco-therapy.
Whats Next for Groundswell?
A biodiverse ocean is a healthy ocean…and the growth and development of Surf Therapy in a healthy way demands diversity in the leadership, development, and facilitation. We are committed to sustainably supporting the deepening of, expansion of, and accessibility of Surf Therapy into communities up and down the coast and around the globe so all have equal joy filled access to their bodies, community, and the ocean for their mental health. To support local programs, individuals, and orgs like Color the Water, Waves with in, Holistic Surf Coaching, and Waves of Grief so they can serve their local communities best, we are excited to launch of our Groundswell Surf Therapy Collective. The Collective will allow us to more sustainably provide on-goin resources, trainings, supervision, mentorship, and community for the individuals and orgs that are looking to provide trauma informed surf therapy for their local communities. We can not wait to see all that is possible as we reciprocally weave our diversity of wisdoms together and welcome womxn and their communities to reclaim their healing, power, and belonging in mother oceans waves!
If you are interested in joining the Collective, check out our Surf Therapy Trainings page to get started and let’s dive in to deeper self love, sea love, and surfsisterhood together!