2024 Wilderness Risk Management Conference

The geographic spread of organizations in the outdoor industry has widened to attract talent and students, and while the tools at our disposal and the administrative capacity of organizations in our industry have grown, distributed organizations are faced with unique challenges when a critical incident occurs. In January 2023, the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE)—a permanently remote organization with “home office” staff spread across four time zones—responded to a critical incident in which a staff member suffered a medical emergency and ultimately passed away during a field course. While operational and organizational actions taken were unlikely to have changed the outcome, this presentation will focus on how critical incident response impacts administrative staff, both in the moment and long-term, in a distributed work environment. We will share key findings from the incident based on our utilization of a consensus review process, and how research rooted in organization management, critical response, and stress injury gives us a lens to improve organizational culture and systems while addressing individual staff needs. You will walk away from this presentation with tools and strategies to unveil things you didn't know you didn't know in order to improve immediate and long-term responses.

This workshop introduces and utilizes the S.L.O.W De-Escalation model as a tool for frontline staff who may encounter challenging and potentially hostile interactions with another person. Tensions can rise with clients, colleagues, and the general public over many topics- some trivial and some of substance. Minor conflict has the potential to escalate if we do not recognize and respond appropriately. Whether it be program decisions, financial discussions, or something on a more personal level, we usually don't know what another person is carrying with them emotionally. This workshop will focus on responding not reacting, active listening, validating someone's concerns (which does not necessarily mean agreeing with them), and knowing when to walk away from an interaction. The overarching goal of this training is to learn a new tool for your toolbox with a focus on personal safety and wellbeing.

With approximately 20% of people worldwide experiencing a mental illness at any given moment, including rising numbers of mental health concerns across adolescents and young adults, it is vital for programs to be knowledgeable about and prepared to support participants with mental health conditions. Misinformation is a barrier to knowledge and to the ability to effectively provide support, and unfortunately runs rampant with respect to mental health conditions– what they are, and what they mean for the participant, as well as for program staff. Harmful misinformation about mental health conditions also breeds stigma, which in turn often leads to elevated fear that the impacted person will become unpredictable or dangerous, and an inclination to keep a distance from that person or to treat them differently rather than as an equal to others on the program. Conversely, accurate knowledge and empathy best position us to meaningfully connect with our program participants, contributing to an optimally successful program experience for participants and staff alike. In this session, Michelle Lange, Psy.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist, will debunk common mental health myths and misconceptions, providing you with knowledge and skills to confidently and empathically work with program participants who experience common mental health challenges.

Since 2019, there have been regular WRMC presentations and pre-conference sessions devoted to the principles of Safety II (or Safety Differently), but until now, we have talked more about the theory than the practice. This session will provide a very brief introduction to the concepts behind Safety II, but primarily focus on practical applications and lessons learned by programs that are implementing a Safety II approach. We will use case studies, practical examples of success stories, share pitfalls to avoid, and offer action steps for participants to apply Safety II concepts to their own organization. Participants will also be invited to recognize how they may already have many components of a Safety II approach existing within their current policies, practices, or organizational culture - even if they aren't calling it that (yet).

Includes four short 18-minute Ted-Talk style presentations!

Search & Rescue, Stress and the Path to Resilience presented by Josie McKee: Stress injuries can occur when a stressor overwhelms our capacity to manage it. During this short talk, Josie will share her experience of working on the Yosemite Search & Rescue team. Her story includes an incident that left her stress injured and how awareness of stress injuries helped her go from burnout to finding the resilience to continue SAR work. This talk will help participants develop awareness of potential causes of stress injury and provide structure they can use to decrease stress and increase capacity to manage stress.

Odysseus Rules and Wake-up Alarms: Moving Beyond Heuristic presented by Nik White: Decision making in a wilderness setting is always complicated by human factors. Many programs have started training students on heuristic traps (FACETS?) as ways our brains play tricks on us that may lead to poor decision making. But just knowing how our brains fool us isn't enough. We need to Know about the trap, Identify when we are falling into it, choose a different Decision, and have the Skills to execute the the new plan. Odysseus Rules and Wake-up Alarms are two tools which help us Identify when we might be falling into a heuristic trap, and can help lead to better decision making in the wilderness.

Benefits of Utilizing Mental Health Clinicians in Partnership with Outdoor & Field-based Programs presented by Lauren Glass: In the past few years, many outdoor focused organizations have identified an increase in the way that participant mental health struggles have impacted program outcomes and added to staff burnout. Just as organizations may partner with professionals from outside the outdoor and recreation space, there are many ways to partner with mental health clinicians. This short talk will offer an overview of potential strategies and tiers of engagement that organizations may use to collaborate with mental health clinicians. It will illustrate the benefits that a partnership offers to risk management, equity initiatives, and supporting the sustainability of staff. This talk will outline the beginning steps to utilizing the expertise of mental health clinicians, as well as offer several case studies of successful partnerships.

Program Team Reset: Building a Program Team through Belonging and Managing for Strengths presented by Jason Croft: When there is staff turnover or big transitions in our organizations, we need to cultivate safety, belonging and strength. In this workshop we will discuss the experience of rebuilding SCA Alaska's Program Team from the ground up. My team and I were hired at the same time and were tasked with carrying out the programming set in motion by our predecessors while also, building a functioning team, gaining trust from project partners, replacing aging gear, and learning how to do everything SCA does from huge 50-person training events to our Risk Management policies. We didn't just build a program, we built a team capable of taking on the future of conservation work in Alaska.

Utilizing survey data gathered in spring 2024, we will present an overview of the outdoor industry sector’s self-assessment of the impacts of climate change on operations and perception of preparedness to face these burgeoning challenges. We will introduce the United Nation’s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and demonstrate how to apply it at the organizational level. We will offer strategies for building early warning systems and highlight new decision-making challenges faced by programs. We’ll discuss how to leverage and augment existing tools to better represent the new risks posed by extreme weather events and wildfires. Finally, we will review how organizations can operationalize contributions to climate change solutions.

In this workshop, you will learn the steps you can take as an individual or organization to create more inclusive and accessible space for the Deaf community in the outdoors with technology and communication access. Participants will learn about risk management from Deaf lenses in the outdoors along with some data gathered from the community. We also will be covering different technological advantages that can benefit Deaf people in the outdoors.

This session will cover the basic employment law issues that will help you further refine or strengthen the foundation of your business' employment practices. We will review legal topics such as at-will employment, policies reflecting workplace harassment and discrimination laws, and the essential policies to include in your employee manual. The goal of this session is to give you enough information to guide your questions and review of your employee manual when you get back home.

How do journalists and the public know the difference between good programs and a harmful one? Do you understand what the term “troubled teen industry” means and where your program is positioned in the outdoor programming marketplace? Negative press in any outdoor sector impacts all outdoor programs. As the adventure therapy field and therapeutic programs navigate public criticism around ethical care, this session covers understanding and working with a journalist’s perspective and strategies for proactive PR. The session aims to give practitioners tools and strategies to help clarify programmatic purpose, common or inherent practices, who regulates programs, and how standards are determined. Join Sarah Hoye, a past recipient of the prestigious Peabody Award for her work in journalism, and Denise Mitten, Ph.D., a thought leader and ethicist specializing in mental health counseling, in this thought-provoking session. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of how to work with media, a positive press release about their program, and the importance of and how to write ethical standards applicable to their programmatic context.

This workshop will provide program managers, rescue team leaders, and others with the tools needed to keep their staff's wilderness medical skills well-tuned and accessible. Wilderness Medicine training is an important part of risk management for outdoor programs and rescue teams. Regardless of the duration of a certification, wilderness medicine schools recommend that program managers and team leaders facilitate periodic review sessions with their team, equipment, and environment. This workshop will apply the concepts of spaced learning, in situ practice, and cognitive offloading to help program managers help their staff transfer lessons from their wilderness medical training courses to the parameters and scope of the program they serve. This workshop will serve Search and Rescue Teams, Ski Patrollers, outing clubs, college and professional outdoor programs, professional guide services, military recreation departments, summer camps with tripping programs, etc.

This presentation will be about how risk is communicated to participants pre-trip, media relations immediately following a critical incident, and overall crisis communications to participants, family members, and internal within the organization post-incident. There may be a false belief, reinforced by subtle choices of language, that an instructor/guide is there to keep clients safe. Dealing with the media after a critical incident is a fine line to walk balancing safety with residual risk and explaining risk management in 15-second soundbites. Lawyers have historically advised their clients – “Don’t apologize, it can be construed as an admission of guilt in litigation.” With the advent of apology laws, it is now possible. This presentation will argue, controversially to some, that communicating – rather than circling the wagons, building firewalls, and saying little if anything at all – with those affected helps in healing, resolving conflict, and restoring relationships.

Traditional Chinese Medicine includes 8 parts: meditation, exercise, diet, cosmology, feng shui, bodywork, herbal medicine, and acupuncture. The more commonly known parts are acupuncture (needles) and plant medicine. As a Chinese Medicine Practitioner as well as a NOLS Wilderness First Responder, PSAR with the NPS, climber and hiker with special training in Trauma Medicine, I created a TCM Field Kit that I want to share during this workshop. Often times while responders wait for assistance we are handling mental trauma, shock, pain, bleeding and things that acupuncture and herbs are very good at treating. Learning how Eastern and Western Medicine compliment each other can enhance the healing process for the injured person during and after the medical response. The objectives of this workshop are to: learn points that are used for resuscitation, shock, bleeding, digestion, pain, blood pressure, bone and soft tissue swelling and more. Learn what herbs can be added to your FA kit to stop bleeding. Learn Battlefield and NADA Protocols using ear seeds to stop pain. And breathing to calm the spirit before, during and after any medical emergency for the patient and the responder by improving health and reducing risk.

Annually, your organization enters a wide range of relationships for services and products. You have a contract that reflects accurately what you have to pay (or be paid), a description of the services or products that will be provided, and a time-frame or duration of the services provided. What else is there and what’s the deal with all of those other terms and conditions you never talked or even thought about? In addition to the essential terms, a primary purpose of any contract is to spell-out risk allocation, or put another way: “who is responsible for the ‘what ifs.’” This presentation will review the important risk allocation terms to ensure that the most significant parts of the relationship have been considered and align with what you thought you were agreeing to.

Stress in outdoor and wilderness education is inevitable. Stress injury doesn’t have to be. This interactive and engaging session guides the individual instructor, manager, or administrator through a set of awareness skills and supportive tools for the mitigation of stress injuries. Now more than ever, we need increased resiliency to support our best selves. Participants will leave this session with: (1) A shared and effective language to discuss stress injuries, (2) Two tools to support proactive stress injury prevention, and (3) An increased sense of resiliency in self.

This session will focus on how to prepare your organization to receive and investigate reports of unwelcome behaviors. We will identify the increased harm and impact of unwelcome behaviors as they become more egregious, identify the best practices for taking a report and what an investigation should entail.

As with all gravity sports, it is way too easy to equate an uneventful trip with being ready for the worst case scenario. We are fortunate that rivers are so forgiving but where are the gaps in our crews readiness for call to action when things go sideways. Join us in this interactive session to review trends in PPE, Rescue Gear, and Training Strategies.

Stop drinking from the fire hose and learn how to develop a workable child safety policy in 4-5 months.

“Climbing is an inherently dangerous sport” is the oft repeated phrase - but for many of us, walking through our day to day lives also involves inherent danger due to differences and prejudice based on race, class, disability status, gender, and sexual orientation, amongst others. For many folks in minoritized communities, the risk associated with climbing is one of the few that is firmly in their own control. We know there is value and dignity in taking risks - but who is allowed or encouraged to access that dignity? Join this panel with members from local affinity climbing groups representing various marginalized communities to discuss how minoritized communities experience risk in the outdoors, engage in risk mitigation practices, and ultimately manage risk while recreating in outdoor spaces. 

The body doesn’t lie. In high-risk situations, our body will do what it has practiced. Come understand your baseline reactions, learn new ways to manage your response, and practice what you need to successfully navigate high-risk situations calmly and effectively. Join me at a 90-minute experiential conversation to learn about cutting-edge brain science, body-based practices for students and instructors/administrators, and the challenges of being in and leading groups.

In the realm of risk management, our approach to a given situation varies depending on whether we are vacationing with friends, operating within the confines of our professional roles, or collaborating with a professional partner. In the context of outdoor or experiential education, risk can be particularly valuable as it presents opportunities for students to challenge their assumptions and develop essential problem-solving skills. It is through navigating the inherent risks in the learning process that students foster resilience, creativity, and adaptability. These varying perspectives illuminate the complex dynamics and trade-offs inherent in effective risk management. This workshop explores how we define a shared organizational understanding of risk tolerance as it pertains to student learning and the student experience, and offers tools for how we communicate a unified vision of risk appetite to our staff. We will share a risk continuum that can be applied personally and organizationally, and offer a framework for undertaking an organizational assessment of acceptable risk. Additionally, we will provide tools to support and train staff in upholding organizational risk thresholds that may differ greatly from their own personal risk tolerance.

Wrap up the conference with unstructured netwokring. Cash bar event, followed by Keynote Dinner and Presentation! *Keynote Dinner is included for all attendees.

Emily Ford is a winter adventurer and thru-hiker based in Duluth, Minnesota. She has completed many thru-hikes in the midwest including the 1,200 mile Ice age trail, which crosses Wisconsin east to west from Potawatomi State Park to St. Croix State Park on the Minnesota border. Also, in the winter of 2022 she completed a solo 180-mile ski route across the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Wilderness with her Alaskan Husky, Diggins. She now spends her winters running sled dogs in Alaska. With an understanding and drive to show that anyone can adventure and everyone deserves to discover the outdoors, regardless of race, gender identity, or upbringing, she continues to seek adventure and represent the underrepresented in outdoor spaces.