OEN is building out training resources that are culturally informed and that provide comprehensive and intersectional risk management.

Although experiences outdoors are a key way to support emotional, physical, and social health for young people, curating such an experience can be complicated.

Most traditional outdoor recreation centers participants that are young, male, white, fit, and relatively financially secure. As a result, outdoor education and recreation trainings often support only a very narrow cultural framework. Emanating from our history of settler colonialism and a violent frontier narrative, this cultural framework excludes and harms participants that don't fit.

In order to ensure that outdoor experiences are positive and supportive, instructors and teachers must be provided leadership training that integrates risk management and culturally informed practices that are key to an inclusive outdoor experience.

These resources are an ongoing work to support our member libraries and the larger outdoor community with better meeting the needs of our communities.

Mind Map

The purpose of this tool is to help us think through the intersectionality of DEIJ work. This tool centers around the question “What does a program that allows educators, students, and families to be fully held look like?” it then breaks it down to a series of questions at each step of the program: pre, during, and post. On the opposite side of the map, we find additional prompts for reflection on the differences of Train the Trainer programs that our Network Members offer:  instructors/teacher leaders, community/family program leaders, and direct community programs. The cool thing about this tool, is that the questions derived from the above graphic of the Tree and encourage you to reflect about each section: gear, training, inclusion, safety (real & perceived), generational trauma, power-with vs. power-over language, culturally informed programs, and the shared culture we are currently building in this industry. This tool is ever-evolving and growing. The hope is that it allows you to think of this work in smaller sections, and to remind you that small steps will get us there. Please don’t edit, but do comment & interact with this tool at your discretion.

Framework Resources

Intake Form Builder Tool —allow this tool to help you reflect on what your current program intake/sign-up forms look like, and adapt them to better suit the communities you are working with. So often, these forms exist as an attendance management tool for programs/memberships. However, these forms have huge potential to be where you lay out the foundation of trust and build rapport within the groups with whom you are engaging. This tool is meant to guide you in developing an intake processes that ensures that your groups feel safe and prioritized.

Presentation - 2022