December 2021

For those outdoor education organizations — or for those enthusiasts who live for a well-planned wilderness experience — the inclusion of a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) on the trail brings an additional layer of risk mitigation to any backcountry experience.

As for the question posed in the headline above, one of the primary reasons for becoming a Wilderness First Responder by earning your WFR certification, is the demand for highly trained and prepared educators and guides.

When you’re prepared to deal with medical emergencies in remote wilderness areas (locations where emergency response personnel may be difficult to reach or significantly delayed in arriving), you can not only breathe a sigh of relief; you can rest assured that you have someone in the group with the critical thinking skills and medical knowledge to help assess the situation and then properly manage the team if things go wrong.

What Does WFR Certification Entail?

Here’s what you should learn during a Wilderness First Responder course:

• Basic first aid skills, including bleeding control and wound care, splinting, and CPR.
• How to assess a patient and pinpoint any issues that compromise optimal health.
• The basic anatomy and pathophysiology of common medical problems. and injuries including shock, internal bleeding, dehydration, and infection.
• How to differentiate between true emergencies and more routine medical complaints.
• What to expect and how to proceed when you have to stay with your patient for hours or days before help arrives or an evacuation can occur.
• Evacuation guidelines and techniques.

Who Normally Takes a WFR Course?

Many professional outdoor industry businesses — including (more…)

One tree doesn’t offer the strength of a forest, just as one organization can’t lead an entire industry.

According to others, we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) have distinguished ourselves as outdoor and adventure education industry leaders. But without collaborations, our ability to be creators and innovators would be difficult — if not impossible to achieve.

Since 2009, we have sought out ways to collaborate, learn, and lead with others. As a result, partnerships have taken us around the globe and helped us grow, and we happily play it forward, or backward or sideways to help our partners and others do the same.

As the calendar runs out in 2021 and we look ahead toward 2022, we see our biggest year yet on the horizon. On the agenda are courses, trainings, expeditions, and custom outdoor education programs that vary in length from three days to three months — all of which focus on technical outdoor and personal development skills. These include mountaineering, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, backpacking, surfing, sea kayaking, remote backcountry travel and camping, and of course… team building.

So, how exactly do partnership and collaborations with like-minded organizations help us grow? As we began working with public, private, and independent schools over 10 years ago, the word spread about our programming, curriculum, depth of instruction, and track record of facilitating programs that shifted students’ lives, school cultures, and even started to redefine communities.

For example, our collaboration with (more…)