Adolescents on the move: the application of an integrated model for documentation and evaluation of “Back Into The Wild” adventure education project aimed at promoting psychophysical and relational well-being

This paper presents a new integrated model for documentation and evaluation tested in 2021 on Back Into the Wild project, an Adventure Education project by Equilibero Association (Padova-Treviso, Italy). The project proposes educational walks to groups of at-risk adolescents to promote their psychophysical and relational well-being. Due to the paucity of evaluation methods focused on grasping the process dimension of nature-based projects, the research team (CEFEO Research Centre, University of Bologna) chose to construct a new model of documentation and evaluation through a participatory bottom-up process involving practitioners. In addition to outlining the main characteristics of Adventure Education in socio-educational projects in Italy and the peculiarities of BIW project, this paper describes the co-constructed integrated documentation and evaluation model in detail. The first application highlighted the usefulness of the multi-perspective view provided by this tool, allowing for a reflection on how the adventurous project impacted on participants’ psychophysical and relational well-being.