Professor Angie Moline of Northern Arizona University several years ago released the results of a study directed to the level of preparedness of university faculty who supervised outdoor field programs for students in subject areas such as ecology, biology, environmental science, geology, forestry, and anthropology. Such programs were of lengths ranging from 1 to 14 days or more.
Professor Moline’s study found that 32% of the programs always have a WFA / WFR trained person in the field, 37% sometimes have a medically trained person (students or TAs), while 31% do not have medically trained field staff (or training has expired).
Further, the study asked whether the risk management training, policies, and protocols in place on such field trips / courses were adequate to manage the inherent risks encountered?
The response: No = 71%, Yes = 29%.
When asked the reasons for answering “no” to the previous question, the respondents indicated a lack of policies and protocols (51%) and lack of training (49%).
The policies and procedures believed to be lacking included risk management policies / protocols, and incident response policies / protocols. The training believed to be lacking included wilderness medical training, risk management/risk mitigation training, and incident response training.
Do these survey results have any meaning for the planning and conduct of an outdoor Scouting program? Of course they do, particularly when the survey results focus on the lack of policies and procedures, and training, as the main contributors to an inability to address the inherent risks of the outdoor activity. Indeed, would the stated survey results be any different for some Scout units?
And, certainly, some of the stated reasons for the failure to have adequate policies and procedures, and training, in place may be applicable to Scout units: “lack of time”, “we haven’t gotten around to it yet”, “we are more reactionary than proactive”, “we are unaware of the need”, or “any plans or policies that might exist are not widely distributed”.
A Scout unit which does not incorporate BSA‘s policies and procedures (such as set forth in the Guide to Safe Scouting) into the planning and conduct of its outdoor program, or fails to ensure that its well-meaning adult volunteers are properly trained both in such policies and procedures and risk management principles, may not only find itself in an undesirable circumstance during an outdoor activity, but unable to deal with the circumstance within which it now finds itself.
Scout units need to (1) make the time, (2) understand the need, (3) be proactive, and (4) ensure that its adult volunteers are both aware of and well-informed as to, BSA‘s policies and procedures, and are also adequately trained, in order to both plan for, and be able to address, risks that may arise during their outdoor program!