As the leading adventure-based education program in the world, we have developed and refined our safety procedures and program reviews over six decades during which time over 4 million participants have experienced Outward Bound. Since each Outward Bound school seeks to have high standards of risk management, we have developed a number of voluntary procedures designed to reduce the likelihood of accidents and incidents in every country where Outward Bound programs take place:
Program Reviewing:
Every two years each of our member schools are reviewed by a team of experts external to the school. This may result in specific feedback for improvement of the school's risk management practice. If a serious issue were identified a school may be placed on probation or have its license revoked.
Safety Training:
Each school trains its staff in skills needed for the environments in which it operates. Outward Bound schools exchange information about current risk management practices through electronic exchanges and at biennial conferences.
Safety Resources:
Each school has policies and procedures for their activities. These are reviewed by Outward Bound International during the biannual program reviews.
Safety Infrastructure:
The Board of Directors of each school pays attention to risk management issues as part of its governance responsibility. Each school has an accident and incident reporting system to track trends and help prevent future incidents. Schools have medical screening processes to try and identify participants who have medical problems that could be aggravated by a particular course.
Staffing:
Staff skill requirements are set by each school. Each school also has an instructor development process that is appropriate to the activity type and skill level required.
Summary of Safety Responsibility:
As is evident from the above, risk management and safety of participants at a school is the responsibility of that school, not of Outward Bound International or any other Outward Bound organization. Each school is a separately incorporated not-for-profit Corporation in the country where it is licensed. Participants should make inquiries to satisfy themselves regarding risk management practices at the school in which they are interested.
