I used to really struggle to tell people what I studied in school or did for work.
Regular people don’t know what outdoor or experiential education is…and I don’t work at a summer camp, so I can’t just say I’m a camp counselor. In grad school, I came across the term ‘led outdoor activities’. I like it and find it to be quite accurate, as opposed to ‘leaderless’ or ‘un-facilitated outings’.
But it sounds academic, and it’s clunky to use in conversation.
There are a lot of names for the many varieties of outdoor programming fields.
You might recognize terms like:
Outdoor or adventure recreation, or travel programs– all designed for ‘fun’ as the primary outcome
Outdoor/adventure/environmental education, outdoor learning, and experiential education– programs intended to change thinking, team building, or develop leadership skills
Behavior change programs at the clinical end of the spectrum, like adventure or wilderness therapy and outdoor behavioral healthcare
To varying extents, all these programs do three things. They promote healthy relationship-building with:
The self (sense of identity)
Others (peer and community groups), and
The natural world.
Today, I refer to them more broadly as ‘outdoor programs’, which I define as a community of professionals who facilitate human engagement with nature.
These professionals are the outdoor educators, adventure and nature-based therapists, wilderness guides, camp directors, ski instructors, school teachers, administrators, trip leaders and chaperones, park rangers, scouting leaders, experiential education facilitators, expedition leaders, and outdoor recreation managers, among many, many others.
A sector comprises many professional communities and fields of practice. Outdoor programs are a part of the outdoor recreation economy, which is huge (it’s bigger in the U.S. than agriculture and mining). And, we’re part of the education and healthcare sectors. But, we don’t fit neatly in any of those.
Outdoor programs exist at the intersection of education, recreation, and healthcare.
Ok, problem solved, right?
Mom, dad, grandma, and neighbor….I work with outdoor and off-campus programs. Normies may still pause a little bit, but they recognize what these are. Nearly everyone can identify with going on a field trip at school or some type of camp experience.
Except, no. Problem not solved.
Today, the world runs on algorithms. An algorithm has never been to camp or gone on a field trip. It doesn’t know what to do with us or how to sort us.
That’s a problem, because it hinders our ability to get together. It’s a barrier to a community sharing and learning from each other, and to connecting on like issues and topics.
To learn and improve, we have to seek it out. We have to create and join specialty Facebook groups or pay lots of money to attend a conference in person. Our feeds won’t just show us content about our work because it doesn’t understand our work. It’s hard for the online world to inform or inspire us.
But, scapegoating tech isn’t quite right, either.
After all, I don’t want big tech to learn more about my life and habits to know that, yes, I care a certain way about politics and how to cook indian food at home. I’m entertained by endless amounts of solopreneurship advice and content intended for visual designers; I’m constantly looking for size 8 skate shoes that look slightly more professional, and, yes, I am also an outdoor educator (therefore, connect me with other outdoor educators who aren’t searching for it, yet outdoor program content would stop our scroll when it does come up).
Our community has been siloed.
We are obsessed with our differences in practice and context. Think: recreational vs. educational vs. therapeutic; or school-based, volunteer-, or wilderness -based, metro parks and rec., or facilities or residentials, like ski areas, summer camps, or the YMCA.
As a consultant and risk management specialist in this space, I’ve seen the silo show up there, too. “My program is unique and special, how could anyone else [at my school / my university / in my org] understand what we do?”
In the risk management space, we’re hesitant to understand how OSHA or other health and safety regulations might impact us. After all, they’re built for industrial safety where risk should be eliminated as much as possible. In outdoor programs, learning about and engaging with risk is an essential part of the relationship-building process, with self, others, and nature.
We’ve come a long way in the risk management space. We’re getting better at translating and applying lessons from larger safety-critical domains, like aviation and healthcare. Safety science has helped here, as leading theories and frameworks are better at explaining how safety-critical industries relate to one another.
We must continue to look up and out of our own programs and practices.
The risk landscape for all outdoor programs is rapidly changing. Parents and schools are changing what they value and what they’ll pay for. Public lands are more crowded and outdoor recreation is getting more expensive. Public lands are on fire and under threat. Behavioral health is more openly recognized and discussed, yet program infrastructure and staff skills are still lagging behind the need.
Outdoor programs have been incredibly impactful in my personal life and are at the center of my career. I genuinely believe in the power these experiences can have to help shape individuals and communities into a healthier and more caring society.
That’s why I write about these issues and why I want to connect with and grow a community of others who care about these, too.
If you’re like me, and seeing content about your work and outdoor programs would stop your scroll, subscribe to my Substack. It’s the only way you’ll know about new articles.
I’d like to keep my stuff free. I’m here to genuinely connect with others and to use this space to work out my observations and ideas.
Welcome to my Substack.
I’ve compiled and grouped a few posts about the changing risk landscape to help you get oriented:
Make the case for your program
We’ve always had to justify our programs, and it’s getting harder. Parents, schools, and boards accept less risk than they used to. They’re also weighing our programs against everything else a young person could do with that time. When they can’t see or compete with value, outdoor and off-campus programs get cut.
More posts under Relevance and value and Making the case.
How the risk landscape is changing
The climate and context for outdoor programs are changing. Climate change is impacting where, how, and when programs can operate. Regulators and insurers are asking new questions they used to overlook. And as we learn more from larger, better-researched, and better-resourced fields, many of our traditional ‘sacred cows’ are under revision.
More posts under Climate and weather and Sacred cows.
The people who run our programs
A lot of program administrators got their start in the field (I’m one of those, too). We have solid foundations in outdoor leadership and field instruction, and we learned about middle management and senior leadership from the people who led us. Organizational leadership, psychology, and engineering aren’t something most of us have formal training in. As a result, we learn through our own mistakes, and gaining visibility and influence can feel like an uphill battle. Risk management and safety leadership can be isolating work, and the burdens add up over a career.
Logistics
I try to post a new article every weekend. Each one takes just a few minutes to read and gives you one thing you can do about it that week. Everything here is free.
Working with me
I’m Stuart Slay. I started a consulting and coaching practice for schools and providers of outdoor and off-campus programs, called Slay Risk. If I can ever help your organization or program with these ideas, or with risk management and safety leadership in general, check out my website to learn more about how we can work together.
I also love it when readers respond to me or comment. Tell me about how these changes show up in your program and what you’re doing about it.
That’s how we can be in community together.