K-12 educators and health-related professionals in the United States face significant challenges promoting the human-nature connection when working with youth. Policy-mandated priorities related to health and academic achievement often dictate the focus in publicly funded education and managed care health settings, thus potentially inhibiting the capacity to facilitate youth connection with nature. The EcoWellness model serves as one strategic framework that can help practitioners incorporate nature connection into broader treatment or educational objectives. The model categorizes the relevant research into seven distinct factors: Physical Access, Sensory Access, Connection, Protection, Preservation, Spirituality, and Community Connectedness. The purpose of this article is to situate EcoWellness as a framework for contextualizing nature connection into traditional clinical and educational settings. The multidisciplinary empirical literature is reported through an EcoWellness lens, and practical methods for integrating EcoWellness in clinical and educational settings are introduced. Ethical considerations and research implications are discussed.
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