Outward Bound Program Focuses on Grieving Teens

Jason Stout took to fighting and alcohol and suffered depression and anxiety attacks as he struggled for years with the childhood traumas of experiencing the death of his father, a 5-year-old sister and his great-grandmother.
    
It took a weeklong trek with the leadership school Outward Bound for Stout, then in his 30s, to begin to heal. Sitting alone in northern Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert and staring at the stars, Stout says he felt a peace he'd never felt before.
    
The experience led him to create Heroic Journey, an Outward Bound program that takes grieving teens into the Colorado wilderness in hopes that healing would come for them, too.
    
Heroic Journey has expanded to other states, including North Carolina, Minnesota and Maine, and it offers 200 youth each year the chance to participate in weeklong summer expeditions.

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