Staff Spotlight: Kayleigh Higginbottom
Kayleigh Higginbottom is a member of the clinical team here at Summit Achievement. She came to us with a background in outdoor education and having been a guide at a traditional Wilderness Therapy program in Oregon. As with all of our therapists, Kayleigh works with students in both our Achievement and Traverse programs.
You can read Kayleigh’s bio and view her bio video here!
How long have you been working at Summit? What is your current role?
I’m one of our therapists! I’ve been working here since June 2022.
Tell us about yourself! What about your life/background drew you to working at Summit?
What drew me to Summit? The short answer would be continuing to work in a wilderness/outdoor therapy field in the Northeast.
The longer answer to this and the story of my journey to get here started a long time ago– back when I was an undergrad student in New Hampshire. It was then I first learned about this field. I was an Adventure education major and I took a class from Will White on Wilderness Therapy. From there I worked in a lot of guiding and outdoor jobs such as outdoor education instructor, snowboard instructor, sea kayak guide and eventually a guide at a traditional Wilderness Therapy program out west. I wanted to be able to continue in this career path so I moved back east to go to graduate school for my MSW and Masters in Outdoor Education.
What is your favorite part about working at Summit?
The people I work with and the location!
What is one thing you wish you could tell students who are thinking about enrolling at Summit?
Your time at Summit will be hard in certain moments– but also worth it.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I try to be as active as I can and enjoy the area around here. Depending on the season I like to mountain bike, hike, paddle, ski and snowboard. Pretty much anything other than climbing, (which is awesome but I found I’m more into being on the land or sea than in the air!)