We now have evidence that Trojan’s Trek works, thanks to Master’s Student Kendall Bird.
Her Master’s thesis findings have now been published here but are paywalled. If you can’t get around the paywall you can read a summary of her findings below.
“The Signal” article — pdf
An abstract of her work presented at the 2013 AMMA conference — pdf here see page 47
Peer Outdoor Support Therapy (POST) for Australian Contemporary Veterans: A Review of the Literature. Click here to read this literature review online or download as a pdf here
In addition to the Bird paper, another UniSA student Sarah Jane Burleigh has just completed her thesis (January 2015) which looked at the peer support and the longer term value of what was coined by Bird as POST (peer outdoor support therapy) intervention. The Burleigh thesis is a very thorough review of many outdoor programs world wide. Her thesis has just been published. The results indicated very good outcomes for the practice in particular Trojan’s Trek. In short her conclusion “suggests that non-therapist led interventions have the potential to address barriers to care, and increase veterans’ mental health care accessibility and involvement. Current findings propose that peer outdoor support therapy (POST), a form of non-therapist intervention coined by Bird (2013, 2014), may be effective for initial mental health care access and act as a supplementary treatment to empirically supported therapies. Research suggests that the potential benefits of POST are promising for returning veterans. It is evident that further POST research is required for a better understanding of its application to the veteran population.”