Arrive in Chiang Mai, where your GIVE guides will welcome you to Northern Thailand. Settle into your accommodations, meet your fellow travelers, and enjoy your first Thai meal together.

We’ll begin with an introduction to GIVE and Therapy Abroad, the communities we’ll be visiting, and the experiences ahead. Orientation will introduce your role as a student, expectations for supervised clinical and community learning, and our approach to cultural humility and ethical engagement.

Begin exploring how culture, language, environment, and community influence health and wellbeing. Establish a foundation for culturally responsive learning, ethical community engagement, and respectful cross-cultural communication.

Cultural humility is an ongoing practice: listening carefully matters more than arriving with answers.

What does respectful listening look like when you are new to a community?

Dive into Northern Thailand’s culture with an introductory Thai language lesson and exploration of Chiang Mai.

Visit Wat Pa Dara Phirom, a revered Buddhist monastery known for its Lanna architecture and cultural significance. Learn about Buddhist traditions and consider how language, culture, family, and belief systems shape perspectives on health and wellbeing.

Therapy Abroad clinicians will also introduce the CSD learning ahead, preparing participants for supervised communication and hearing activities, observation, documentation, and community engagement.

Experience Chiang Mai’s famous Night Bazaar and put cross-cultural communication into practice while exploring local food, handicrafts, and everyday city life.

Explore how linguistic and cultural differences influence communication, assessment, health education, and access to services. Practice approaching unfamiliar communication environments with curiosity, flexibility, and cultural humility.

A language difference is not a communication disorder. Context matters in every encounter.

How might language and belief systems change the way someone discusses health?

Spend the morning at Pun Pun Organic Farm learning about seed saving, sustainable agriculture, food systems, and community resilience before enjoying a fresh farm-to-table lunch.

Journey north through dense jungle and limestone mountains to Mueang Khong, GIVE’s host community and your home for the next eight nights.

Meet members of GIVE’s local team and learn about the community-led education, agriculture, and development initiatives you’ll support throughout the week.

Explore how nutrition, agriculture, livelihoods, geography, and environmental conditions intersect with public health. Consider food security and environmental resilience as important contributors to individual and community wellbeing.

Food security, soil health, and sustainable agriculture are public-health issues, not only environmental ones.

Where did you see links between agriculture, community resilience, and wellbeing?

Begin your time in Mueang Khong by learning directly from local partners about community strengths, priorities, and approaches to health and education.

Through a community health visit and guided conversations, explore how geography, schools, families, health services, and other community resources support children and families in rural Northern Thailand.

Participants will work with GIVE’s local team, community partners, and Therapy Abroad clinicians to connect these conversations with the week ahead, including supervised CSD activities and educational programming shaped by local context and priorities.

Practice respectful listening and community asset mapping while exploring how education, transportation, language, family networks, livelihoods, and access to services influence health and participation. Consider how CSD fits within a larger public-health system rather than viewing communication and development in isolation.

Transportation, language, education, and family networks can all influence access to health services.

Which community strengths and resources did local partners emphasize?

Today brings a more focused look at communication and hearing within the local educational environment.

Working alongside local school partners and Therapy Abroad clinicians, participants may support supervised language and hearing screening activities within clearly defined student roles. Depending on final arrangements, students may assist with child preparation, materials, language activities, documentation, and other components under appropriate supervision.

Participants will observe how clinicians and local partners consider language, culture, educational context, and family communication when determining whether additional support or follow-up may be appropriate.

Explore the purpose and limitations of screening and the distinction between screening, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Consider the larger public-health pathway from identifying a potential concern to communicating with families and accessing appropriate follow-up services.

Screening is not diagnosis. Any potential concern needs appropriate communication, supervision, and follow-up.

Why is it important to separate screening from diagnosis and treatment?

Continue exploring communication and child development through interactive activities with local students. Working alongside local educators and Therapy Abroad clinicians, participants may help facilitate storytelling, shared reading, language games, music, movement, turn-taking activities, and learning through play. Rotate between guided observation and supervised participation, paying attention to how clinicians and educators adapt activities based on children’s communication, interests, developmental differences, and responses. Outside of structured learning activities, enjoy time connecting with Mueang Khong through locally led cultural experiences.

Explore how language, play, movement, sensory experiences, and social interaction contribute to childhood development. Practice observing before responding and consider how SLP, OT, PT, education, and public health perspectives can complement one another when supporting children and families.

Play, music, movement, and shared reading offer many ways to observe communication and participation.

How did adults adapt to children's communication, interests, and responses?

Build on your experiences from the previous two days by continuing to support locally guided education and communication activities. Participants may work with educators and Therapy Abroad clinicians to adapt games, learning materials, or communication activities for different ages, interests, abilities, and learning styles. Later, shift from the classroom to GIVE’s sustainable agriculture initiatives. Work alongside local farmers, teachers, and students on projects designed to support nutritious food production, environmental resilience, and sustainable land management.

Explore health beyond the clinic by considering how communication, education, nutrition, environment, movement, and participation contribute to wellbeing. Consider how interdisciplinary health professionals can better understand individuals when they also understand the environments in which people learn, work, play, and live.

School agriculture projects can connect food production, nutrition, education, and local resilience.

How are food, education, movement, and participation connected?

Return to community and educational programming with a deeper understanding of local context. Working alongside GIVE’s local team, educators, and Therapy Abroad clinicians, participants will continue supporting interactive activities that encourage communication, cooperation, movement, creativity, and participation. Where appropriate, students may practice communication supports modeled by clinicians, adapt activities based on participant responses, and consider how simple resources can be incorporated into everyday classroom or family routines. The remainder of the day may include sustainable agriculture projects, cultural activities, sports with local students, handicrafts, or other locally directed experiences.

Apply concepts from communication sciences, occupational therapy, physical therapy, education, and public health within a community setting. Explore how professional knowledge can support participation while remaining responsive to local expertise, culture, resources, and priorities.

Simple everyday routines and classroom resources can support communication and participation.

How could a simple activity be adapted with local educators' input?

Today, we’ll return to the broader community-health perspective introduced earlier in the week. Through a second community health experience, participants may explore child development, communication and hearing concerns, referral pathways, caregiver communication, and barriers to accessing follow-up services. Where appropriate and authorized, participants may observe Therapy Abroad clinicians engaging with local partners, children, or caregivers while considering how clinical recommendations need to fit within the realities of family life, geography, language, available services, and community resources.

Connect experiences from schools, community activities, and supervised CSD learning to the broader continuum of care. Explore how caregiver communication, referrals, health literacy, transportation, cost, and service availability can determine whether identifying a health concern actually leads to meaningful support.

Finding a concern is only one step. Family communication and realistic follow-up are just as important.

What practical obstacles might make a referral or follow-up difficult?

Our final full day in Mueang Khong brings together everything we’ve learned throughout the week. Continue working alongside local partners on education, communication, and sustainable agriculture initiatives while reflecting on how activities or resources developed during the program might support existing community efforts where useful and requested. Participants will also review their CSD and public-health learning with Therapy Abroad clinicians, considering what they observed about communication, development, family engagement, access to services, and culturally responsive practice. We’ll close our time in Mueang Khong by celebrating the relationships built throughout our stay and reflecting on what our local partners have taught us.

Consider what makes health and education initiatives sustainable beyond a short-term international program. Reflect on local leadership, continuity, appropriate referral and follow-up, cultural humility, and the responsibility of health professionals to listen before acting.

Long-term impact depends on local ownership and continuity, not on one short international visit.

What should future participants preserve about a locally led partnership?

Say goodbye to Mueang Khong and travel deeper into the mountains to Ban Bpa Kao Lam, a Karen hill-tribe community surrounded by jungle. Meet local guides and community members, learn about village life, and explore the relationship between Karen communities and the semi-wild elephants living in the surrounding forests. Learn how to construct traditional bamboo rafts before gathering around the bonfire with local guides and mahouts to discuss elephant welfare, conservation, livelihoods, and ethical tourism.

Explore the interconnected health of people, animals, and environments. Consider how conservation, tourism, livelihoods, land use, and cultural traditions influence both human and ecological wellbeing. Reflect on the importance of local expertise and community leadership when approaching health, conservation, or development in unfamiliar settings.

The One Health perspective connects the wellbeing of people, animals, and shared environments.

How can conservation, livelihoods, and responsible tourism reinforce one another?

Wake early and join local mahouts to observe elephants moving through their natural environment and learn about their behavior, care, and welfare. Afterward, begin an unforgettable journey down the Mae Taeng River aboard traditional bamboo rafts, traveling through remote jungle before reaching the Lahu community of Pong Ngen. Spend your final night in the mountains sharing a traditional dinner, stories, and dances around the bonfire.

Explore how healthy environments, community livelihoods, recreation, and cultural traditions contribute to wellbeing. Practice communication, teamwork, adaptability, and trust while experiencing an entirely different side of Northern Thailand.

Local mahouts bring important knowledge of elephant care, behavior, welfare, and their environment.

When did your group rely on clear communication and trust?

Continue bamboo rafting through some of the most spectacular sections of the Mae Taeng River before returning toward Chiang Mai. Along the way, take the ultimate leap with a 160-foot bungee jump, with drift karts available as an alternative. Back in Chiang Mai, gather with your GIVE guides and Therapy Abroad team for final reflection. Review the experiences and observations that shaped your understanding of communication, child development, public health, community engagement, and culturally responsive practice. Celebrate your final evening together and the incredible journey you’ve shared.

Bring together lessons from supervised CSD learning, education, community health, sustainable development, and cultural exchange. Identify experiences that challenged your assumptions and consider how the relationships and perspectives gained in Thailand may influence future coursework, clinical training, and careers in health and human services.

In new environments, teamwork, communication, and adaptability become powerful learning tools.

What experience most challenged an assumption you held before arriving?

Enjoy your final morning in Chiang Mai before heading to the airport or continuing your travels in Southeast Asia. Complete your final reflection with the Therapy Abroad team and leave Thailand with new friendships, unforgettable experiences, and a deeper understanding of how communication and health are shaped by culture, family, education, environment, and access to resources.

Reflect on how cultural humility, community-centered engagement, supervised clinical learning, and interdisciplinary collaboration can inform your future studies and professional practice.

Reflection connects international experiences to how students approach future study and practice.

What will you carry into your next course, placement, or community setting?