Risk Management for Outdoor Programs
Pre-Conference Event for Bauhinia Experiential Learning Conference 2025
World-Class Safety Training
Globally Renowned Curriculum
Viristar’s Risk Management for Outdoor Programs course offers a comprehensive training in safety management for outdoor, wilderness, travel, field-based, adventure, and related programs.
The course covers theoretical models of incident causation and prevention, safety standards, and detailed procedures for helping prevent and mitigate incidents.
The curriculum addresses risk assessment and safety management practices, an overview of general legal principles, and adventure activity standards and good practice guides.
Graduates complete the course with valuable, practical skills and expert guidance for improving safety at their organization.
Learn
The science behind why incidents occur
Gain
Skills and knowledge essential for managing risk
Create
A custom action plan for increasing safety
Improve
Safety outcomes at your organization
Course Syllabus
Course topics include:
- Risk assessments
- Experiential safety standards
- Legal concepts
- Safety culture
- Human factors
- Schools & providers
- Equipment management
- Incident reporting
- Emergency response planning
- Media relations
- Systems thinking
- And more
Course Structure
The academically rigorous and intellectually challenging course is offered over three days, 12-14 February 2025.
The training runs from 8:30 am to 5:30 each day, with a one-hour lunch break. The course is 24 hours in total.
The course will be held at ISF Academy, 1 Kong Sin Wan Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
Coffee, Tea and water will be provided.
Tuition: HK$4,100
Course textbook included
Participants are provided with the acclaimed 218-page course textbook, Risk Management for Outdoor Programs: A Guide to Safety in Outdoor Education, Recreation and Adventure in online e-book format.
Textbook testimonials
This course is for you if you are:
- A manager, program coordinator, administrator, or executive leader in a CAS/AYP, outdoor, adventure, travel or experiential program
- A Risk Management Committee or Safety Committee member, a technical advisor on outdoor or adventure activities, or a trustee or director with governance duties
- An individual (such as a field-based activity leader, facilitator, instructor or guide) interested in a managerial role with safety responsibility
Certification
- Course completion certificate issued by Viristar
- Certificate valid for three years from date of course completion
- To be awarded certificate, participants must be present all three days, complete all course activities, fully engage in discussions and group activities
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The course curriculum is designed to be applicable to outdoor, adventure, and experience-based programs anywhere in the world. The principles of incident causation and prevention taught in the course, and the standards of good practice covered, are relevant everywhere. Participants are provided resources to identify locally-relevant legal, insurance, activity-specific, and other resources specific to their circumstance.
Yes. Viristar’s Risk Management for Outdoor Programs course has been recognized as a valuable professional credential by government agencies, higher educational institutions, outdoor programs, and industry bodies worldwide. Government entities in nations including the USA, Singapore, Canada and Australia have enrolled employees—or entire teams of employees—in the course, and the training is recognized by the Association for Experiential Education, the Association for Outdoor Recreation and Education, the International Schools Experiential Education Network, the California Association for Environmental & Outdoor Education, the American Camp Association, the International Outdoor Education Federation, the South African Adventure Industry Association, and the Outdoor Council of Canada, among other industry bodies. The training has been educationally endorsed by the American Camp Association in 2021, and graduates are eligible for Continuing Education Units from Colorado State University Pueblo (USA). Outdoor, adventure and experiential programs in over 60 countries on six continents have enrolled their staff in the Risk Management for Outdoor Programs course. The outdoor risk management training sector is generally not regulated by government bodies, however; consequently, no formal accreditations by government authorities are known to exist for trainings such as Viristar’s Risk Management for Outdoor Programs course.
It’s not necessary to be working for an outdoor, adventure or experiential program in order to enroll in and learn from the training. Part of the course involves participants evaluating risk management practices at an organization with which they are directly familiar. Therefore, it is helpful if you are working for (in a paid or volunteer capacity) or have recently worked for an outdoor, adventure-based or experiential learning organization, but this is not required.
Recent Organizations
Graduates of Viristar’s Risk Management for Outdoor Programs course come from leading institutions in over 70 countries and territories around the world, including:
Course testimonials
Enrollment
Register for this training at the Bauhinia Experiential Learning Conference website.
