Outdoor Education Australia
inaugural National Outdoor Education risk management Conference
20 September, 2007, Doherty's Lodge, Ballarat, Victoria
Sponsored by Affinity Risk Partners
Program
The Risk Management conference will comprise keynote presentations from the speakers listed below followed by table discussions. A final facilitated plenary session will allow for a dialogue amongst delegates and speakers.
Keynote 1. The opening keynote presentation from Preston Cline will frame the conference by establishing the philosophical basis for risk management in outdoor education. Preston’s masters thesis into the etymology and evolution of risk gave him the opportunity to reflect on how our western culture approaches risk.
Along with this academic experience Preston also has hundreds of days in the field leading remote wilderness trips allowing him to maintain a practical focus on how risk management moves from being a passive set of documents to being actively applied in the field.
Keynote 2. Moving to a more practical concerns Grant will share with delegates the findings from his research in which he sought to understand the root causes of outdoor education incidents.
Delegates will have the opportunity to hear how incidents evolve and some of the strategies that can be applied in the planning phase and on program to contribute towards effective risk management.
Keynote 3. Clare’s international experience and recent masters thesis on risk communication has given her new insights into how we take the practice of risk management and share that with colleagues, parents, managers and outside agencies. She will help you to consider what language you are speaking when you talk about the management of risk so that those listening actually understand.
Keynote 4. Coming from a senior position in a state education department with responsibility for providing risk advice and leadership across a wide range of contexts, Peter is in an ideal position to share how bureaucracies approach risk management. Peter will demonstrate to delegates how risk can be used as an outdoor education management and decision tool for reviewing, building an evidence base, influencing and innovating.
Faciliated plenary discussion.
The facilitated panel discussion will ask a range of leaders from the outdoor education and risk management fields their perspectives on how outdoor education is changing and where the changes are coming from. Questions we put to these leaders were:
- How will your programs be different in 3 years time?
- What will drive changes to your program?
- Will your approach to risk management change in the next three years?
- What may influence changes to your risk management planning?
- How can we as a profession respond to outside challenges and opportunities?
David Summers (National Outdoor Leadership School - Australia/NZ) Glen Mollenhauer (Queensland Department of Communities - Northern Outlook) Lyn Willcocks, Wilderness Medicine Institute) Sue Donoghue (Canberra Grammar School) Ian Boyle (Scots College Glengarry)
Speakers
Grant Davidson (New Zealand)
Director, Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre
Grant is recognised internationally for his expertise in outdoor risk management theory and application. He has completed a PhD in risk management through the School of Management Studies at Waikato University. His thesis was titled, “Towards understanding the root causes of outdoor education incidents”. He has a Masters degree in outdoor education from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelors degree in Physics from Auckland University. He has a number of other awards and certificates including: Diploma of Sport and Recreation, Diploma of Teaching, Certificate of Teaching, NZOIA Bush II, Mountain II, Rock II, Kayak II, Outdoor Safety Instructor and is a former NZOIA Assessor in all of these disciplines.
Grant is a trained teacher and before taking on a management role, instructed at OPC and a range of outdoor centres in the UK and North America. He was instrumental in setting up NZOIA and was made a life member in 2000 for his services to the organisation. A self confessed ‘terminal intermediate’ in most outdoor activities, he has spent time developing his skills in rock climbing (including many big wall ascents in the USA ), kayaking, paragliding, orienteering and fixed-wing gliding. He has built his own house and planted, then managed, his own forest. His most recent, and greatest, challenge to date is raising two sons and a daughter with his wife Sarah. Rope, boots and kayak have been temporarily shelved in exchange for baby backpack and buggy.
Grant is currently Director of the Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre; Deputy Chair of Outdoors New Zealand; and, a Board member for the Sport Fitness and Recreation Industry Training Organisation (SFRITO).
Clare Dallat, Australia (Victoria, Australia)
Director of Risk Management and Programs, The Outdoor Education Group
Clare's philosophy on managing risk involves providing staff with the best tools possible in order for them to make decisions under many variable and sometimes time critical conditions, always with the primary question being 'What educational purpose am I trying to achieve right now?’ To further develop these tools, Clare decided that what she needed was to investigate more diverse theoretical perspectives of other professions and apply these where possible to Outdoor Education. This quest took her back to university where she has recently completed an MSc in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management from the University of Leicester, UK.
Clare's research interests are in the area of risk communication; her master's dissertation is a discourse analysis of how Victorian schools are currently communicating about risk to parents, in order for parents to provide 'informed consent' about their child's participation in an outdoor education program. She presented on this topic at the 2006 International Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC) in Killington, Vermont, USA, and again will present on this important topic at the 2007 WRMC Conference in Banff, Canada.
Clare is also researching various theoretical models of contingency planning and crisis/disaster planning. She was recently invited to present on this topic at the Canadian Outdoor Education Risk Management Conference in May 2006. Clare is a certified Lead Auditor in Occupational Health and Safety Management.
Clare is a Councillor of the Victorian Outdoor Education Association and member of the Safety Guidelines Review Panel providing recommendations to the Department of Education on their adventure activities guidelines.
Preston Cline (USA)
President, Adventure Management
Note: Preston has recently been appointed as Associate Director of the Wharton Graduate Leadership Program at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvannia. [November, 2007]
Preston began his career in the late 1980’s leading 60-day remote wilderness trips with adjudicated youth out of New Jersey.
Preston has a Bachelors of Environmental Science from Rutgers University, with a minor in Professional Youth Work, as well as a Masters of Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where he completed formal research in the etymology and evolution of risk within the Risk and Prevention Program. It was this research that earned him an invitation to write the definition of risk for the Greenwood Educational Dictionary.
Preston is the author of numerous articles on operational risk management as well as two books Adventure Management Systems®: Organizational Crisis Response and upcoming Adventure Management Systems: Operational Risk Management.
Preston continues to lecture and publish frequently on the subject of Risk and Risk Management, and has been interviewed by Outside Magazine, Psychology Today and the Harvard Gazette.
Peter Wilkinson (Australia)
Manager Risk Portfolio Branch, Department of Education (Victoria)
With a background in policy and strategy in government portfolios of community services, youth services and education and training, Peter’s current responsibilities include management of risk, business continuity and pandemic planning. Peter also has responsibility for leading the development of governance, assurance and risk management frameworks. Peter’s interests include keeping his contributions relevant, practical and pragmatic by using an internal consultancy service delivery model.
- Preston Cline - Learning to Interact with Uncertainty
- Grant Davidson - Towards Understanding the Root Causes of Outdoor Education Incidents
Sponsor
Affinity Insurance Brokers
www.affinityib.com.au