Laura and Paul Donelan have used their expertise in working with children to build a thriving retreat centre in the village of Vienna in the Municipality of Bayham. Opened in 2005, Dancing Creek: Adventures in Balance (www.dancingcreek.ca) offers space and/or programs for therapeutic adventure, earth education and general wellness.

“The number of children and adults served by the centre has doubled each year and now the centre is beginning to attract people from outside of southwestern Ontario,” says Laura Donelan. She believes that the Elgin County area has strong potential for eco-tourism.

“It’s a fabulous environment,” she says. “It’s hard to find natural areas that are accessible in southwestern Ontario. In Elgin there’s a diversity of trees and hills and orchards and fields, and the beach is so close -- and all of it is quite untouched. It is exactly what we were looking for.”

In early 2004 the Donelans bought their 10-acre wooded property and moved from London with their children, Quinn, now 10, and Indigo, 8. They were seeking an opportunity to put into practice the ideas and methods they had developed in 10 years’ experience of working in treatment centres and seeing “dramatic changes in kids using the therapeutic adventure model,” as Laura recalls.

Paul is a teacher with the Thames Valley School Board and Laura is a social worker with the London District Catholic School Board. Both continue in their part-time jobs while being hosts to school day trips, summer camps and corporate retreats at Dancing Creek.

Paul has transformed a 40-year-old barn into a 1,600-square-foot yoga studio. There’s also an indoor climbing wall, an outdoor challenge course and hiking trail, and opportunities to explore the Big Otter Creek, which runs through the property and for which Dancing Creek is named.

“We are unique in that we incorporate yoga into our therapeutic programs,” Laura says. “The adventure therapy model asks people to move out of their comfort zone to achieve change. The flip side is that we also teach people a way to calm themselves and integrate that change through yoga.”

Dancing Creek employs up to five instructors during the summer and is preparing for expansion by offering bed-and-breakfast accommodation for yoga groups that wish to use the property for their own retreats.

Most recently, Dancing Creek entered into a partnership with Oxford /Elgin Child and Youth Centre to provide some specialized day-camp programs.

The Donelans have developed the resources to attract visitors from far away. In the spring of 2010, Dancing Creek will be host to an international yoga teacher-training event extending over seven weekends presented by the Nosara Yoga Institute of Costa Rica.