Surf Therapy is for everyone! Therapists too. (reflections from PRIDE 2023)

While sitting at San Diego Pride Festival this year, I was reminded of why it is important to show up. As a the community partnership manager, I often had to choose/ select events to show up to. We are a small team of 4 core office Part time staff, so often we have to be intentional about where we choose to show up too, where we put resources into, and how we manage our time and energy. 

“Wow, this could really change my practice” a local therapist shared as we had a conversation over our fake tattoo stickers about what we do with surf therapy and what training we provide. When I talk with people about Groundswell Community Project, we often chat about the programs, the participants impact, but what is really amazing to connect with people about is the sustainability for therapists and the impact Groundswell has on training and sustaining them. Groundswell Community project is fortunate enough to be able to be the first organization to provide certified Surf Therapy Trainings accredited by a therapy association! All our trainings are facilitated by licensed mental health professionals and provide California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) accredited Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for therapists and therapists in training. This allows us to not only have a great impact on our community participants but also to have lasting impacts on therapists and counselors that can then ripple out the impact to their participants. 

This ripple we hold space for in our own programs and we teach through our trainings. “To choose” is a powerful phrase. We choose to show up for San Diego PRIDE to show our community, our staff and our participants that Groundswell cares deeply for our surf sisters, surf brothers and surfers not matter their identify. In our programs, we hold space for our participants to share pronouns, the choose to speak into their “I am’s” and reclaim their voice, as a powerful act. Where for our Pride community, has often been taken away.