Meet Angela Hanscom

We were lucky to catch up with Angela Hanscom recently and have shared our conversation below.

Angela, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

My work with TimberNook was never MY plan. MY plan was simpler. It was to be an occupational therapist for children. Then I would stay home with my children and return to the clinic setting when they reached school age.

Well, the truth is….God had other plans for me. Even while I was still in the clinic setting, things started changing in my life. I started noticing things I’ve never noticed before! Children were presenting with interesting sensory issues. I had one child come in for treatment that didn’t like wind in his face. I was thinking to myself, “how do I treat this indoors? Blow a fan on the child?!” A lot of children were coming in that didn’t want to get dirty. And many children were becoming more and more clumsy. Teachers were reporting that more kids were even falling out of their chairs.

Right around that same time, I noticed there were less children playing outdoors. It literally just dawned on me one day. I was like, “where are all the children? Why are they not biking to one another’s houses?”

I decided to run my own nature program and had a friend that was in marketing suggest I run summer camps. “I think parents are more likely to drop their children off with this sort of programming.” Typically, occupational therapists are found indoors, have little business experience, and work one-on-one or with small groups of children. So, I had no idea what I was getting into!!

Under the guidance of my marketing friend, I ran 3 weeks of summer camps with the help of some occupational therapy college students from the University of New Hampshire. I miraculously filled all three weeks of summer camp with children without even having a website! It was all word-of-mouth back then. People were excited that an occupational therapist was running programming that was affordable.

The three weeks were fun, but an incredible amount of work. It was like putting on a birthday party every day! I was exhausted after it was all done. “I’m never doing that again!” I told myself. Well…..here is where things got really interesting. The four occupational therapy students that volunteered that summer went back to the University and told other therapy students. I had 14 volunteers the reach out asking to help for the next year. I had two teachers hear about my program, asking to help. “This is amazing! It is so needed!!” That was confirmation to me to keep going.

Each year, I said “yes” to doing it just one more year. Three years into the program, my four weeks of summer camp (because that was all I was willing to do with my own children!) filled in one-minute. I had waitlists for all four weeks! Two parents called in tears, because their children didn’t get in. “What are you doing to do about this?” one asked me. Then I had an occupational therapist and a physical therapist reach out asking if they could replicate my program as no one was doing this at the time for our profession. Again, we are often found indoors — in clinics, schools, and hospitals. Not out in the woods with children!

That’s when I realized this was a calling and I was supposed to share this program with the world. I sought out two business mentors that could help me to license and train others on how to use the program.

MY plan was to market in New England since I live in New Hampshire as that would have been the logical thing to do. Yet, again….God had other plans. About a year into marketing, I had an article on my own blog called, Why Kids Fidget and What We Can do about it go incredibly viral. It got picked up by the Washington Post and then this went viral. Newspapers from around the world picked it up. I ended up doing a TEDx talk for Johnson & Johnson on their main stage in front of 100,000 people talking about how we are overly restricting children’s ability to move and play and how this is profoundly affecting child development as we know it. That’s how the concept of TimberNook spread to Australia, the UK, and Canada, before even going to the next State over!

In 2017, a school was knocking on our door. They were interested in getting the TimberNook programming – now known as innovative outdoor play experiences – into the school settings. I was hesitant, but again, said “yes.” We are now in a number of schools and researching the effects of TimberNook on school culture with the University of New Hampshire.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I founded TimberNook in 2013. What started as an experiment in my back-yard, quickly grew to become an internationally-recognized outdoor program.

The main occupation of a child is play. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I view outdoor play as a very meaningful occupation that is really at risk. Less children are playing outdoors then ever before in history and it is wrecking havoc on their overall development. The mission of TimberNook is to restore the transformative occupation of outdoor play to childhood. We train therapists, teachers, and other professionals from around the world to bring the TimberNook program into their communities and schools so that children can have these important play opportunities.

An example of a TimberNook experience for little children may be hearing the story, Three Little Pigs in the woods. Then their would be real bails of hay, sticks, bricks, wolf masks, etc. The children would then have the opportunity to create their own life-sized three little pig homes engaging their muscles and senses and diving deep into their imaginations for hours!

During play is where all the “good stuff” happens. Children learn how to initiate their own play ideas and then execute them. They learn to be mentally flexible with other children’s ideas. They learn to regulate their emotions and solve their own problems! These are all things we desperately want children to have, but need to give them plenty of time to practice via authentic play opportunities.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three most important lessons I learned along the way…

1) Resilience is a Must Have — Over the years, I continued to say, “yes” to what came before me if I knew it was a door I was supposed to go through. However, there were incredible trials along the way. And there continues to be challenges, just like any business. I learned that it didn’t matter what other people said about me or what their opinions were. I had to stay true to the mission behind TimberNook no matter what got thrown my way. Some days were really hard, but if you keep going, it gets easy again. It is important to never, ever give up in the face of adversity.

2) Transparency is Key — My most recent learning experience is the importance of transparency. I’ve always worked very hard with my team “behind the scenes” and have shared the good that is happening. However, I’ve learned that isn’t always enough for people. If you don’t talk about the work you are doing, people don’t know it is happening. This past year, we’ve been really intentional about sharing progress on a weekly basis both in video form and newsletters. It keeps the community connected and engaged. Unity is really important and that cannot happen without regular communication.

3) Discernment — One of my most important lessons I’ve learned right from the very beginning is to not journey alone. It is important to have mentors with more experience than you to go to for discernment. I seek discernment especially when I have bigger decisions to make. There is a lot of prayer involved, business meetings, and paying close attention to the bigger picture. I also make sure our core team is in good alignment with where we are going.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

Gosh! I never think of this question when talking about my journey, but my parents really did lay a strong foundation for me. “Anything is possible if you just believe.” This is the sort of mentality I grew up in. I was blessed to grow up in a very loving home, where I had parents that believed in me and cheered me on. They also taught me how important family was. I’ve really kept these ideals throughout my life. God comes first, then family, then my work. Keeping my priorities in order has helped me to manage my time wisely and kept everything in perspective for me.

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Mad Liv’n & Design Photography

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