Risk Management for Outdoor Programs: outdoor & adventure safety training course by Viristar

Risk Management for Outdoor Programs is a 40-hour online training course for outdoor, experiential, wilderness, travel and adventure professionals.

The course takes place over four weeks, and includes weekly video-conference sessions and independent work.

The video conference sessions are held once a week for five weeks. The first call is a 45-minute introduction to the course. The remaining four Live Sessions are 90 minutes in length, and include participant presentations, seminar-style discussions, role-playing activities, and other learning activities.

In between the live calls are independent work periods. During these times participants engage in online readings, recorded video lecture presentations, online video-based simulation games, quizzes, discussion forums, case studies, self-assessments, writing assignments, and small group projects such as a mock risk management review (safety audit).

Participants also draft a Risk Management Plan (Safety Management System) outline, and create a Strategic Improvement Plan to guide their actions for improving their risk management systems in their workplace.

The course is targeted to administrators and executive leadership of experiential and outdoor programs world-wide.

Participants have attended from the adventure tourism, service learning, conservation corps, experiential education, outdoor recreation, independent school, outdoor education, adventure-based learning, forest school, wilderness therapy, gap year, search and rescue, international school, and environmental education fields.

Topics include the history of safety thinking; risk assessments; risk transfer; liability waivers; insurance; legal principles; safety management systems; emergency response plans; safety practices regarding equipment, staff, and participants; incident causation models; managing subcontractors/providers; safety culture; wilderness risk management; documentation; accreditation; systems thinking and complex socio-technical systems theory; change management, and much more.

The class includes weekly quizzes and a final written exam.

A certificate is awarded on successful completion of the course, good for three years.

Participants in over 40 countries around the world have enrolled in the course.

Graduates are eligible to receive Continuing Education Units from Colorado State University-Pueblo, USA.

The course was educationally endorsed by the American Camp Association in 2022.

Additional information and a full course schedule are available at https://courses.viristar.com/.