Essential reading for students and practitioners involved in outdoor education, sport, recreation and tourism. Dickson, University of Canberra; Gray, University of Wollongong, Australia.

Your outdoor program provides fun, personal growth, adventure. It changes lives. But are your safety systems up to standards? If something happens, are you prepared to respond? Risk Management for Outdoor Programs: a Guide to Safety in Outdoor Education, Recreation and Adventure provides essential knowledge for any outdoor professional. Program managers, executives, volunteers and group leaders will learn the critical approaches and strategies for successfully anticipating and addressing outdoor program risks. Packed with real-life stories, current research findings, and best practices, Risk Management for Outdoor Programs: a Guide to Safety in Outdoor Education, Recreation and Adventure gives expert advice on: - Approaches to Risk Management - Standards - Legal Considerations - Safety Culture - Activities and Program Areas - Staff - Equipment - Participants - Subcontractors - Transportation - Business Administration - Risk Transfer - Incident Management - Incident Reporting - Incident Reviews - Risk Management Committee - Medical Screening - Risk Management Reviews - Media Relations - Documentation - Accreditation - Seeing Systems

′"Bureaucracy is the reason for the decline in school trips". A statement often quoted. But it is a myth that there is a decline in school visits... It′s competent people, not paperwork, that make visits safer′ - Ian Park, ex-Chairman, Outdoor Education Advisers′ Panel ′Every man and woman who is involved in the development or education of young people - however slightly - should be chained to one of the Barns of Bynack and not released until they have read this book cover to cover′ - Alan Bantick, wildlife conservationist, lecturer, photographer and guide ′Bob Barton′s balanced and well thought out book will help anyone involved with the planning and management of outdoor activities for young people. Bob explores the issues that need to be considered when developing and implementing outdoor policies and procedures, in an interesting and thought provoking style, drawing on his wealth of outdoor experience′ - Peter Westgarth, Chief Executive, The Duke of Edinburgh′s Award ′This book fills a gap which sorely needed filling. The safety versus adventure debate is discussed in a thoroughly refreshing way and should inspire a new generation of teachers and youth workers to take their charges into the great outdoors. The book should be required reading for every Health and Safety Officer throughout the land to improve their understanding of what Adventure Educators are trying to achieve′ - Doug Jones, County Officer, Outdoor Education and Adventure Activities, Bedfordshire County Council ′A distillation of years of experience in adventure activities and an essential guide to getting the proper balance between adventure and safety′ - Nick Barrett, Chief Executive of the Outward Bound Trust Providers of outdoor education must strike the right balance between adventure and security. Effective risk management enables providers to deliver lasting educational value without breaching their moral and legal duties of care. This practical guide shows how genuinely adventurous outdoor activities can be provided to acceptable standards of safety. Drawing on the author′s own experience as an expert mountaineer, instructor and consultant, the systems and processes of successful outdoor adventure are clearly explained using real life examples and case studies. Bob Barton is Safety Adviser to the Outward Bound Trust and works as a consultant on the management of adventure activities.

The ability to manage risk continually challenges those who oversee, manage and instruct outdoor activities. This second edition incorporates many new developments from a variety of sources including current legislation, management tools, and experiences from teaching the subject to students. This manual is for leaders, including voluntary or commercial outdoor instructors, aspiring instructors, teachers, youth group leaders, club trip leaders and guides.

Risk Management in Sport and Recreation is a comprehensive resource for those charged with the responsibility of providing for the safety of participants and spectators in a sport or recreation setting. It covers a range of safety issues, including lightning, heat illness, aquatics, playground safety, drug testing, and medical emergency action plans. Readers receive clear and detailed explanations of issues to consider before making decisions on risk management. Risk Management in Sport and Recreation is designed to provide a foundation for approaching key issues in safety and risk management. It shows readers how to evaluate and analyze various safety issues and apply the underlying concepts to a variety of situations. The following are unique features of the text: -A safety guidelines finder lists Web sites of accessible standards, guidelines, and recommendations from leading organizations. -Chapter objectives and pullout boxes of key points and key statistics stress the importance of the topic under discussion. -Threshold issues in each chapter highlight important factors to consider when making decisions on risk management. -Real-world applications at the end of each chapter present scenarios involving the potential for harm, and readers must make a decision on how to address the issues. -Examples of public service announcements, posters, and other publicly viewed safety information are presented. -An appendix offers examples of emergency action plans, checklists, and recommendations from organizations such as the National Lightning Safety Institute and university aquatic centers. -A companion Web site provides links to the Web sites used in the book, as well as updates to guidelines and links that may occur after the book is in print. The safety guidelines finder gives students and practitioners a single location from which they can easily access important safety information. Organized under land-based or water-based activities, each activity lists guidelines, recommendations, and standards along with the source for that information. Each entry includes Web sites where readers can find the full documents. The text also features sample guidelines and safety checklists from agencies and associations that demonstrate how organizations might plan for risk and communicate safety information. Readers also consider the types of postings and equipment they will need in order to communicate their risk management plans, and they are given real-life situations in which a risk management plan is needed and are prompted to consider why and how to create a plan for such situations. The resource will help students and professionals plan for and manage risk. Current and future employees of sport facilities, school athletic programs, parks and recreation programs, youth and aquatic centers, or resorts and golf courses will find that Risk Management in Sport and Recreation provides the tools to assist in making the right decisions to manage risk effectively.

What is the difference between ‘risk’ and ‘danger’? What can children learn from taking risks? How can you provide key experiences for children and ensure their safety outdoors? Young children will naturally seek out challenges and take risks and this is crucial to their overall development. This book clearly explains why children should be given the freedom to take risks and provides practical guidance on how to offer stimulating and challenging outdoor experiences that will extend all areas of children’s learning. Including examples of activities for all weather conditions across all areas of learning, the book covers: The pedagogical history of adventure, risk and challenge Health, wellbeing and keeping safe The adult role Risk assessment Supporting individual children with different needs Environments that enable challenging and adventurous play Working with parents and addressing concerns Observation, planning and assessment This book is essential reading for practitioners and students that wish to provide rich experiences for children that will enable them to become confident and adventurous learners.

A research focus on hazards, risk perception and risk minimizing strategies is relatively new in the social and environmental sciences. This volume by a prominent scholar of East African societies is a powerful example of this growing interest. Earlier theory and research tended to describe social and economic systems in some form of equilibrium. However recent thinking in human ecology, evolutionary biology, not to mention in economic and political theory has come to assign to "risk" a prominent role in predictive modeling of behavior. It turns out that risk minimalization is central to the understanding of individual strategies and numerous social institutions. It is not simply a peripheral and transient moment in a group’s history. Anthropologists interested in forager societies have emphasized risk management strategies as a major force shaping hunting and gathering routines and structuring institutions of food sharing and territorial behavior. This book builds on some of these developments but through the analysis of quite complex pastoral and farming peoples and in populations with substantial known histories. The method of analysis depends heavily on the controlled comparisons of different populations sharing some cultural characteristics but differing in exposure to certain risks or hazards. The central questions guiding this approach are: 1) How are hazards generated through environmental variation and degradation, through increasing internal stratification, violent conflicts and marginalization? 2) How do these hazards result in damages to single households or to individual actors and how do these costs vary within one society? 3) How are hazards perceived by the people affected? 4) How do actors of different wealth, social status, age and gender try to minimize risks by delimiting the effect of damages during an on-going crisis and what kind of institutionalized measures do they design to insure themselves against hazards, preventing their occurrence or limiting their effects? 5) How is risk minimization affected by cultural innovation and how can the importance of the quest for enhanced security as a driving force of cultural evolution be estimated?

The regulation of potentially hazardous substances has become a controversial issue. This volume evaluates past efforts to develop and use risk assessment guidelines, reviews the experience of regulatory agencies with different administrative arrangements for risk assessment, and evaluates various proposals to modify procedures. The book's conclusions and recommendations can be applied across the entire field of environmental health.

Comprehensive, Readable, and Packed with Practical advice, AMC Guide to Outdoor Leadership, 2nd edition, is a must-read for anyone committed to becoming an effective outdoor leader, guide, or educator, including camp, scouting, and outdoor club leaders. This completely revised and updated guide from the Appalachian Mountain Club details the critical skills and concepts every professional or volunteer outdoor leader needs to know. Through easy-to-remember leadership models, case studies, and his own extensive leadership experience, author Alex Kosseff explores such topics as effective decision-making, group dynamics and communication, self-awareness and evaluation, backcountry ethics, and more. Also included are a new chapter on techniques for leading and motivating youth and expanded coverage of risk and crisis management. --