Anne Robillard spent eight years in and out of hospitals with her son. During those years, she learned something she hadn’t fully appreciated before: even brief encounters with nature could offer her family refuge and hope. Years later, that experience would help shape the foundation of her work as an occupational therapist, FTHub Forest Bathing Guide, and FTHub Forest Therapy practitioner.
An occupational therapist with more than two decades of experience working with children and young people, Anne Robillard has combined her clinical background with Forest Bathing, Forest Therapy, physical activity, and nature connection. Through her work with schools, cancer patients and caregivers, people in mental health and addiction recovery, seniors, and workplace groups, she is helping people discover that nature can be an accessible and powerful part of their recovery and wellbeing.
From the Hospital Room to the Forest
For Anne, the path to Forest Bathing and Forest Therapy began long ago, and its roots are deeply personal. “It really came from my family experience,” she explains. “My younger son was born with a rare, life-threatening disease, and for eight years, we were in and out of hospitals. I spent so much time living indoors in hospital environments.” Her family had always been active and outdoors, which made the sudden loss of that freedom all the more profound. “During those eight years, I didn’t fully realize how powerful nature was for our healing as a family, and particularly for my son,” she says. “Being stuck in a hospital room for months at a time really showed us the value of nature.”
Whenever there was an opportunity to get outside, Anne took it. Her son was in a wheelchair, but that did not stop them from finding ways to spend time outdoors. They would meet up with her other son and the rest of the family, making the most of whatever moments in nature were possible. At a time when so much had been taken away from her family, nature offered something they desperately needed. “My son was really at death’s door for those eight years, and it was an awful experience,” Anne recalls. “But nature unexpectedly provided us with a place of refuge and a place of hope.”
Finding Purpose in a Science-Based Approach
After her son received a bone marrow transplant and began to recover, Anne was able to return to her work as an occupational therapist. She re-licensed and then pursued another long-held ambition: completing a master’s degree. At the University of British Columbia, she earned a master’s in education, specializing in curriculum studies. The degree allowed her to bring together what she describes as her three loves: health, physical activity, and the outdoors. She also holds a degree in physical education, making movement and wellbeing a natural part of her professional perspective.
It was during this period that she discovered Forest Bathing and Forest Therapy. Curious to understand how they might fit within her existing professional framework, Anne began exploring. “I looked at all of the programs that were offered worldwide,” Anne says. Ultimately, she chose FTHub because, as she puts it, “I chose Forest Therapy Hub because of the science behind it.” She was also drawn to the way the training combined the FTHub Certified Forest Bathing Guide and FTHub Certified Forest Therapy Practitioner pathways. The latter, in particular, gave her an opportunity to explore the practice through a research-informed lens. “It was like a mini research study,” she says.
As part of her practitioner training, Anne worked with high school students in a learning strategies class, incorporating Forest Therapy alongside mindfulness and emotional regulation tools. The six-week program offered an opportunity to explore how nature-based practices could support students with different diagnoses while also gathering evidence of their impact. Using standardized questionnaires before and after the program, Anne looked at changes in the students’ connection to nature and their mental well-being. Both increased over the course of the six weeks.
The experience reinforced something Anne had begun to understand through her own family’s experience: nature could be more than a place to escape to, and become an important part of well-being. “I really liked that the Forest Therapy Hub kind of pushed us to use research and science during the training,” she reflects. “We had to use standardized questionnaires, taking a look at nature connection and also their mental well-being.”
That combination of personal experience, professional training, and research became the foundation for the work Anne is doing today. “I’m trying to really bring that to people,” she says, a mission that now extends from supporting people living with cancer and their caregivers to working with people navigating mental health and addiction recovery. Over the past four years, that commitment has taken shape through Wild Results, her growing nature-based practice, which now spans schools, healthcare, mental health, recovery programs, homes, hospitals, and other group settings.
Making Nature Accessible to Everyone
Anne’s own experience of spending so much time in hospitals has influenced the way she works with people who cannot easily access the outdoors. “If people can’t get outside, I bring nature indoors,” she says. That might mean creating an indoor forest therapy experience in a hospital room, bringing in plants and nature imagery, introducing natural scents, or using sensory activities to help someone connect with the natural world. She has also worked with people in their homes, helping them create a small nature space where they can look out a window, open a window, engage with plants, and take part in guided meditations and sensory activities.
The goal isn’t necessarily to change someone’s environment completely. Sometimes it is simply to give them a brief moment away from pain, anxiety, or stress. Anne recalls a recent two-week hospitalization for her younger son, during which he experienced multiple complications and spent days confined to bed. She took him outside in his wheelchair whenever possible. “He could barely tolerate five minutes outside,” she recalls. “But it really brought him some healing and hope during that very tough two-week admission.”
Anne’s occupational therapy background is central to the way she approaches Forest Therapy. Rather than expecting people to adapt themselves to nature, she asks how nature experiences can be adapted to the person. That might mean physical modifications, sensory adjustments, or changes based on someone’s mental or emotional needs. “I really want to provide accessible spaces, safe spaces, for people,” she says. For someone who cannot sit or lie directly on the ground, for example, Anne looks for ways to make that experience possible. She has worked with people who desperately wanted to sit beneath a tree or ground themselves in nature but hadn’t been able to get onto the ground for years. “The joy that it brings people to be able to do that after they haven’t been able to do that for years is unreal.” This is where her occupational therapy training becomes especially valuable. “With my occupational therapy skills, we’re always modifying the environment, how people can access nature.”
When Skeptics Become Converts
Not everyone arrives at a Forest Bathing session already convinced. Anne regularly meets people who are skeptical but curious enough to give it a try. “They come, and then they’re like, ‘Wow, this was not what I was expecting at all.'” Her hope isn’t necessarily that every participant will become a dedicated Forest Bathing enthusiast. Instead, she wants people to discover at least one way of connecting with nature that feels genuinely useful to them. “I always hope that they will at least have one thing that they liked, and that they will continue doing.”
Her sessions incorporate a variety of mindfulness and nature connection practices, from progressive muscle relaxation and body scans to sensory activities. One of the things Anne loves most about Forest Bathing is that the experience doesn’t stop with the individual. There is the connection to nature, the connection to oneself, and then the connection to the small group gathered in the forest. “It’s such a powerful tool,” she says. That sense of connection becomes especially visible during the sharing circle at the end of her sessions. Every group is different, Anne explains, because every gathering creates its own unique bond.
Finding New Ways to Make Nature Accessible
Anne is excited by the growing recognition of nature as part of preventive health and lifestyle medicine in Canada. Through Canada’s PaRx nature prescription program, she can prescribe nature to eligible clients, including access to a Parks Canada pass that helps remove financial barriers to spending time outdoors. Her approach also draws on Canada’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, which consider sleep, sedentary behaviour, and physical activity, including light movement. For Anne, Forest Bathing is a natural fit: participants move slowly, change body positions, engage their senses, and spend time outdoors, while her occupational therapy training in mindfulness, sensory regulation, and body awareness adds another layer of intention. “I don’t tell people what I’m doing,” she says with a smile, “but everything that I’m doing has a purpose behind it. There’s a science behind it.”
That philosophy is at the heart of Anne’s newest project, Sense the Wild, a four-week, eight-senses recharge program that brings together Forest Bathing and her occupational therapy expertise. Each week focuses on two senses, exploring how they work and what science tells us about our relationship with nature through them, before participants put that learning into practice during a two-hour Forest Bathing experience. They also receive activities to continue exploring between sessions, supported by a booklet, journal, and a small Sense the Wild bundle, from a plant for vision and Japanese wind chime for hearing to nature-related teas for taste and a lavender sachet for smell, alongside activities focused on proprioception, vestibular sense, and interoception.
Anne hopes the program will extend beyond individual participants into organizations and workplace wellness programs, helping people weave nature into everyday routines rather than experiencing it as a one-off activity. “It is for people to have something to tap into their senses, and something that’s more science-based as well,” she explains. “So it’s really using my Occupational Therapist skills. Because for the workplace, they could bring, for example, their plant to have it on their desk, so it is just about trying to bring that awareness of nature and the science behind it in a program.”
She is also finding new ways to make Forest Bathing feel approachable for people who may be intimidated by hiking. In her hiking Forest Bathing sessions, the goal is not to conquer a trail but to experience it differently, combining gentle movement with Forest Bathing activities along the way. On a recent Rocky Mountain experience, participants covered around eight kilometres with approximately 200 metres of elevation gain, while the Forest Bathing activities took place en route to the halfway point. “The focus isn’t on the physical part and that end goal of doing the hike,” Anne explains. “It’s a completely different experience than a regular hike, one with a more mindful purpose.”
Is Nature the Most Underused Wellness Tool?
Anne’s research and subsequent reading led her to a striking conclusion: nature may be one of the most underutilized wellness resources available. And she wants to change that. Whether she is working with someone in a hospital room, a student at school, an employee at their desk, or a group hiking through the Rockies, her approach remains the same: find a way for people to connect with nature, make that connection accessible, and allow them to experience it on their own terms.
And for Anne, this isn’t simply a professional philosophy, but something she has lived. “I guess when my sons were so unwell, and being in hospitals for so long, it’s just really helping people to achieve what their goals are,” she says. Sometimes that goal can be as simple as getting outside. “And it’s like, yes, we are going to get you there. We’re going to find a way.” Then, returning to the word that has become something of a guiding principle for her, Anne concludes: “Hope really is my word. And I really feel that nature provides that hope for a lot of us.”
Act now, enrolling in our FTHub Forest Bathing Guide Training and FTHub Forest Therapy Practitioner Training. Grow together, equipping you with essential skills to lead transformative experiences in nature.
FAQ
Is Forest Bathing the same thing as Forest Therapy?
No. Forest Bathing is a slower, sensory-focused entry practice, while Forest Therapy is a more advanced, structured application of the same core methods. Anne Robillard trained in both, pairing the Forest Bathing Guide and Forest Therapy Practitioner pathways with her occupational therapy background.
Can Forest Bathing help someone who can’t go outside?
Yes. Occupational therapist Anne Robillard brings forest bathing indoors for people confined to hospital rooms or homes, using plants, natural scents, nature imagery, and guided sensory activities to recreate a nature connection without stepping outside.
How is Forest Bathing used with cancer patients?
Anne Robillard leads monthly forest bathing sessions with Wellspring Alberta for people living with cancer and their caregivers. The practice offers a break from treatment-related stress and a source of connection during recovery.
What is PaRx, and how does Anne Robillard use it?
PaRx is a Canadian nature prescription program that lets health professionals prescribe time in nature, including access to a Parks Canada pass. Anne uses it alongside Canada’s 24-Hour Movement Guidelines to support clients’ physical activity and time outdoors.
What makes Sense the Wild different from a standard forest bathing session?
Sense the Wild is a four-week program built around the eight senses, combining forest bathing with occupational therapy tools, a take-home sensory bundle, and between-session practice activities, designed for individuals and workplace wellness programs alike.
