2024 Wilderness Risk Management Conference

Successful critical incident management requires a significant amount of both individual and organizational capability, and all at a time when we are at our most vulnerable. Multiple studies and first-hand experience confirm that during a crisis, we simply cannot rely on ourselves believing that we or our colleagues will make the same quality decisions and calls that we would on a normal day at work. The irony is that the need for adaptability, clear decision-making and leadership is never greater than when it is exactly the most difficult time to assure it. The good news is that it is possible to pre-prepare and plan for critical incidents. This workshop will provide attendees with a contemporary, practical, and research-informed overview of the key principles and elements of optimal critical incident management for outdoor and adventure programs. Attendees will leave with the capabilities to develop and enhance their own fit-for-purpose plan.

In August 2022, two NOLS students were struck by lightning and one of them died in the field. This presentation describes the facts of the incident, NOLS’ response, and the strategies used to manage the situation. Topics will include the field response, NOLS’ crisis plan, response team roles, psychological support of those impacted, communicating with and supporting the family and others, responding to media inquiries, conducting the investigation, and legal issues.

Risk management in Global Education is always a step behind the evolution of its hazards. In a world where “unprecedented” events are becoming the new normal, the need to be innovative remains paramount. We will work with the principles developed by corporate world and the U.S. military for operating educational programs in what they describe as a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous). We'll also look at lessons from the pandemic that now need to be applied to the threats that had been emerging well before the pandemic.

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.

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.

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.