Online Certification Program

JOIN US: February-September 2026

Reciprocity Rx™ Foundations is an eight-month certification program facilitated by Sydney + Barry Williams of WITW Consulting, Melissa Sundermann, DO, FACOI, DipABLM, FACLM (aka Doctor Outdoors), guest experts and Program Advisors to help protectors, providers, and pathfinders restore their own wellbeing, reconnect with the land, and bring nature-based reciprocity into the way they care for patients, communities, and themselves. Program participants have the option to join an immersive certification retreat various locations around the United States.

EXPLORE: Reciprocity Rx™ Curriculum

March – Receive Experience how time in nature restores your nervous system and discover simple tools to share with patients.
April – Reflect Use journaling, movement, and story to cultivate self-awareness, emotional regulation, and clarity of purpose.
May – Return Explore how stewardship and service amplify healing—for yourself, your patients, and your community.
June – Reconnect Build sustainable practices of rest and reciprocity to prevent burnout and maintain long-term vitality.
July – Integration in Motion Let the learning land through embodied practice—on trail, in service, or wherever nature calls you.
August – Translating Practice into Care Bridge your personal growth to your professional work with practical, nature-based tools for patients.
September – Closing the Circle Celebrate your growth, share your vision, and commit to reciprocity in your life, work, and community.

What’s Included?

FOUNDATIONS
Online Certification Program

2026 Registration Fee: $500-1,500*

We recognize that we’re living in a time where access to transformative experiences like this one is often shaped by inequities far beyond our control—skyrocketing tuition, widening pay gaps, generational wealth disparities, systemic barriers to education and advancement, and the emotional labor of simply existing in a world not built for everyone. We believe that care should not be reserved for the few, and we are committed to making this program as accessible as possible.

For our online certification program, sliding scale pricing and scholarship opportunities are available, because healing, connection, and reciprocity belong to all of us. 

🌿 Choose What Feels Right for You: we believe in making this work as accessible as possible, while honoring the time, energy, and resources it takes to create and hold these experiences. Our sliding scale is an invitation to self-select the tier that best reflects your current reality. No proof needed, just your honest reflection. Want to spread out your payments? Let us know in your application and we’ll set up a payment plan.

  • This is the true cost of the program. If you have access to abundance — personally or through your employer — your contribution helps sustain this work and makes it possible for others to join at a lower rate.

  • This tier is for those who are navigating early career transitions, paying down student loans, or stretching their resources to grow professionally. You’re invested in your path, and we’re honored to walk it with you.

  • Reserved for folks in lower-wage service roles — like public lands professionals, nonprofit staff, and community organizers — whose work supports collective well-being. This tier reflects our commitment to reciprocity and access.

  • If none of the tiers above are accessible to you, we are happy to discuss sponsorships, scholarships, trade/barter arrangements, etc. 

  • The Reciprocity Rx™ Online Certification offers three live virtual sessions each month:

    • KNOW: Each month, we explore a new Reciprocity Rx™ theme through science, story, and lived experience. Led by Sydney + Melissa, these sessions blend evidence‑informed content, reflective practice, and discussion to help participants know themselves, their purpose, and their place in the larger ecosystem of care. 

    • GROW: Our monthly community gatherings create space to share reflections, exchange insights, and learn from peers across sectors. Led by Sydney and the Reciprocity Rx™ program advisors, these circles nurture belonging, empathy, and collaboration—because when we grow together, our capacity to serve and steward expands, too.

    • GO: Led by Barry, these hands‑on sessions build confidence for time outdoors and in facilitation—covering safety, logistics, accessibility, and embodied learning. Participants practice translating lessons from the classroom to the trail, modeling reciprocity in motion.

  • Every module includes a recording of the live teaching session plus a companion workbook filled with reflection prompts, rituals, and recommended readings to help you integrate reciprocity into your own life and community care.

  • Receive a signed copy of Hiking Your Feelings by Sydney Williams, Doctor Outdoor's Guide to Nature and Lifestyle Medicine by Dr. Melissa Sundermann, a Reciprocity Rx Trail Journal, and hand-selected supplies to support your journey.

  • Access a secure online space for discussion, reflection, and collaboration with fellow protectors, providers, and pathfinders — a place to exchange insights, share resources, and grow together.

  • Gain access to a curated collection of peer-reviewed research, reflective essays, and practical tools for integrating nature-based care and stewardship into your professional setting.

  • Join periodic guest sessions with leaders in lifestyle medicine, change management, environmental health, and conservation to broaden your understanding of reciprocity in practice.

  • Start and end the journey in community. Orientation helps participants set intentions and get comfortable with the platform; the closing circle invites shared reflection and integration.

  • Download ritual cards, seasonal check-in templates, and printable prompts to help you weave these teachings into your daily and professional rhythms.

  • Upon completion, earn your Reciprocity Rx Certificate and gain access to advanced facilitator training, continuing professional development, and our Alumni Circle — a growing network of protectors, providers, and pathfinders leading with reciprocity.

Applications are open

Find Your Path with

Reciprocity Rx™

Whether you’re here to reconnect with your personal health, support your patients and community, or protect the landscapes that sustain us all — there’s a path for you in Reciprocity Rx™.

Our community gathers during the Foundations Program each month — a shared space where science, story, and soul meet. From there, you’ll have opportunities to deepen your learning through immersive retreats and specialized tracks designed for the unique roles we play in collective healing.

🛡️ PROTECTORS

for Indigenous partners and public lands professionals

For the people who steward our shared landscapes — Tribal leaders, park staff, and nonprofit partners working to understand and preserve cultural and ecological wellbeing. Protectors engage in relational restoration: reconnecting to the resource, deepening community resilience, and grounding stewardship in reciprocity.

Choose this path if you protect the land — and you’re ready to let the land protect you, too.

Protectors

🌎 PROVIDERS

for healthcare and wellness professionals

For clinicians, coaches, and care providers ready to integrate nature‑based care into their work. Providers learn how to prescribe and model reciprocity through evidence‑informed tools, immersive learning, and community dialogue. This path restores the healer while expanding their impact — from patient care to planetary care.

Choose this path if you’re called to bridge medicine, meaning, and the natural world.

providers

💚 PATHFINDERS

for individuals and community members

For anyone ready to remember what it feels like to be well — in body, mind, and relationship with the Earth. Pathfinders explore nature’s healing potential through personal reflection, group connection, and place‑based experiences that help transform “time outside” into a lifelong practice of reciprocity.

Choose this path if you’re seeking restoration, inspiration, or new ways to align your personal healing with planetary health.

Pathfinders

✨ Join us at the Reciprocity Rx™ Virtual Open House on December 10
to learn more about our protectors and pathfinders programs, and receive your free 4Rs Worksheets to begin your own practice of reciprocity.

RSVP Here!

Program Facilitators

We’re here for you.

A woman with curly blonde hair, dressed in a green jacket and black pants, speaking into a microphone at a podium inside a room. There is a wooden counter behind her with a red water bottle and a black object, possibly a computer monitor. An exit sign is visible above a door in the background.


  • ABOUT SYDNEY
    Sydney Williams is a keynote speaker, author, and advocate whose journey from a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis and unresolved trauma to the wild trails of self‑discovery turned into a mission: to rekindle our relationship with the land, each other, and ourselves. 

    After more than a decade in digital communications — launching campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and crafting social stories — Sydney traded the boardroom for backcountry trails. Her first major backpacking trips across Catalina Island ignited a realization: healing isn’t just something we find in nature — it is something we practice with it. 

    In 2018 she founded Hiking My Feelings (HMF), a nonprofit designed to make nature‑based wellness accessible, inclusive, and relational. Under her leadership, HMF has guided thousands of participants through trails, stories, and transformative experiences. 

    Today, as the founder of Wellness in the Wilderness Consulting and creator of Reciprocity Rx™, Sydney blends lifestyle medicine, somatic reflection, and land‑based learning into a growing library of free resources and an eight‑month certification program that empowers providers, public‑lands professionals, and community stewards to integrate nature‑informed care into their work.

    Sydney holds certifications as a Wilderness First Responder and has facilitated field‑based workshops across national parks and protected landscapes. Her work has been featured in BBC, Health Magazine, Psychology Today, HuffPost, and on the SXSW and Public Lands Alliance Conference stages. 

    She lives between the trailhead and the campfire, believing that when we slow down, look around, and lean into the land, the next step isn’t just for us — it’s for the Earth we belong to.

A man with a beard wearing a navy jacket, sunglasses on his cap, and a wristwatch stands near a lake with a mountainous background.

  • ABOUT BARRY
    Barry Williams went from high-rises to high altitudes — trading a tech career on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for a trailer in the backwoods of Maine after a single skydiving experience changed the trajectory of his life. Within 18 months of that first jump, he left the world of Fortune 100 clients behind to pursue instructor ratings in the skydiving industry, eventually building a 16-year career as a professional skydiver and mentor.

    Originally from New Hampshire, Barry grew up hiking and backpacking in the White Mountains, where he also earned his Wilderness EMT certification. Today, he brings that same sense of adventure, adaptability, and calm under pressure to his work as co-founder of Hiking My Feelings and Wellness in the Wilderness (WITW) Consulting.

    Barry is the behind-the-scenes engine and on-the-ground support — co-leading hikes, facilitating retreats, documenting our programs and events with photos and pictures, and ensuring participants feel safe, seen, and supported in the outdoors. He also helps design and deliver custom wellness experiences for public lands agencies, corporate teams, and nonprofit partners, weaving stewardship, story, and movement into every offering.

    Inspired by the teachings of Bruce Lee, Alan Watts, and Jiddu Krishnamurti, Barry lives by the mantra “be like water.” Whether he’s cooking a soulful meal, hiking at the pace of purpose, or capturing the perfect moments shared under the stars, Barry shows up with presence — and invites others to do the same.

A smiling woman in a white medical coat with a stethoscope around her neck, pointing at her name badge that reads 'Sundermann DO, DipABLM, Internal Medicine.' She is wearing a pink and blue winter hat and standing outdoors with snow and trees in the background.

  • ABOUT MELISSA
    Dr. Melissa Sundermann is a double board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine with over 25 years of experience in medical practice. She has advanced training in Integrative Medicine from the University of Michigan and has completed a Professional Training Program in Mind-Body Medicine through the Center for Mind-Body Medicine. Dr. Sundermann believes in a holistic, patient-centered approach, empowering individuals to heal through self-care and the pillars of Lifestyle Medicine.

    Widely recognized as “Doctor Outdoors,” she is a leading expert in Nature as Medicine and serves as the Founding Chair of the Nature as Medicine subcommittee for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She is also the Chair of the Global Wellness Institute’s Lifestyle Medicine Initiative, where she works to expand global awareness of evidence-based lifestyle interventions.

    Currently, Dr. Sundermann is the Medical Director of Lifestyle Medicine for Corewell Health System. She also serves as an Advisor for Social Prescribing USA, Project Reconnect at UCLA, and InCaria — lending her expertise to initiatives at the forefront of community health, integrative healing, and innovative well-being solutions. Previously, she specialized in Longevity and Lifestyle Medicine with Lifespan Medicine and Canyon Ranch Wellness Resort. In addition to her clinical work, she is the co-founder of REVIVE! Lifestyle Medicine Well-Being Coaching and Retreats, and contributes educational content to several leading health and wellness organizations.

    Her recently released book, Doctor Outdoors’ Guide to Nature and Lifestyle Medicine, offers readers a transformative blend of science, stories, and strategies to reclaim health through the healing power of the natural world.

    A lifelong outdoor enthusiast, Dr. Sundermann finds inspiration and healing in running, biking, hiking, skiing, and immersing herself in nature. She is a 12-time Boston Marathon finisher, a 3-time Full Ironman Triathlon finisher, and is currently training for upcoming ultramarathons. She firmly believes that “age is not your cage” and is dedicated to helping others cultivate vitality, resilience, and joy at every stage of life.

PLUS guest experts in lifestyle medicine, change management, community engagement, public administration, and conservation!