Since 2004 Trackers has lead the way in standards of safety for outdoor camps and programs. All camp staff are CPR/First AID certified and have passed a fingerprints background check. We are very selective in our hiring process, choosing mature and competent individuals with profound experience in education.
We appreciate when parents call us to learn more about our safety policies and practices. So feel free to contact us with any questions that may not be addressed here. Below are key questions to ask any camp your family is hoping to participate in this summer. This is what Trackers does to address these most important concerns.
Do you perform fingerprinted background checks for all your staff?
Yes. We fingerprint all of our instructors, both leads and assistants for Colorado, Washington, California and Oregon. We then have the State Police check to ensure they are appropriate for working with children and youth. Our insurance company also double-checks for traffic infractions to insure clean driving records.
What is the average experience of your instructors?
Our average instructor must have one to three years of experience in education. Plus, this experience has to be relevant (for duties very similar to what they will be responsible for at Trackers). They have to prove to us that they were at the top of their game while accruing their experience. We thoroughly check references. One might ask the question, "How can Trackers require such high end experience?" The answer is we're simply more fun to work for. Our camps don't go through the motions, we never phone it in, we don't teach out of a box. We do things that inspire great passion from the kids and adults we work with. We get the best families, campers and instructors, bottom line.
How do you interview and choose your instructors?
We have nearly every person on our full-time program staff interview any potential seasonal staff. This means an average of fifteen individuals typically have to say "Yes" to an applicant before we hire them. Our full-time program staff are not only long-term educators, they are coordinators who have profound experience with Trackers programs in the field. They know who they need on their team to do a great job. With this, every applicant must pass a thorough background check based on their fingerprints.Do you have safety policies?
Yes. We feel Trackers has one of the best Safety Manuals in the business. Often people don't understand true risk in many activities because they lack experience. Our policies look at every potential risk and lateral contingency. Ironically, what we do has a lower statistical risk than youth martial arts, dance, sports or gymnastics, yet we feel we focus more on mitigating our hazards than those fields.
Trackers is at the forefront of blending "old school" outdoor education with new and leading standards of safety, responsibility and personalized learning. We seek to bring environmental education back to true adventure in the out of doors.
Do you do a risk assessment for sites and activities?
Each program coordinator does a thorough evaluation of the hazards and challenges inherent in the site and activities. As a team they outline the best preventive practices for risk management. These are thoroughly reviewed and consistently discussed by all instructors to be capable of adapting to new information throughout the program.
The latter adaptive aspect is very important. Many risk management policies assume a "one size fits all" approach. At Trackers we feel safety begins with hiring the most competent and experienced staff and allowing them digression to limit activities with safety as the paramount concern.
Do you have trainings for your safety policy?
We do seasonal safety trainings, including intensive driver training. Beginning Summer 2012 all our driving staff will possess a full Commercial Drivers License. Along with training and assessment by key outside driving programs, key Trackers staff also personally road test all incoming instructors and address best practices for driving. Instructors working near emergency services are required to be up to date on first-aid and CPR certifications, including Epi-Pen. If operating in an area more than 2 hours from definitive care, we require a Wilderness First Responder certification.
Furthermore, we review our safety policies in full, at each training event. But we don't stop there. It's one thing to have policies in place, it's another thing to have a staff that fully understands and assumes responsibility for those policies. We engage all staff in an ongoing dialogue as to "why" these policies exist. They contribute their own thoughts and methods to consistently review and improve them.
Do you do check-ins and audits that assure consistent implementation and improvement of your safety policy?
A favorite piece of Trackers’ safety infrastructure happens every morning. It's called "Safety Stand Up Meeting". Every member of the staff takes a turn voicing their thoughts on the upcoming day. They consider their Site Safety Profile, observations of previous days, students who have demonstrated needs for additional attention and much more. We then brainstorm refinements and growth in our strategy. We believe this is the most important thing we do. It prevents our safety policies from becoming something people read in a manual one day and forget the next. At Trackers we understand that overreliance on only policies can lead to someone saying, "But it wasn't in the Handbook".
“Always expect the unexpected” is a motto Trackers lives by. We choose to see safety as a continuous and intelligent dialogue, always improving based on the real world experience of those responsible for it.
How do your camper groups work?
For younger campers (ages 4-10) we feature small groups of 12-16. On rare occasion we will exceed that due to siblings or friends wanting to be in the same group. The standard ratio is 1 instructor to 8 students. One lead educator and one assistant educator works together to create the most personal experience possible. We constantly account for and monitor all students within our immediate area (head counts). Even within this direct oversight we require students to always work with a buddy.
For older campers (ages 10-18) a standard ratio is 1 educator to 10 students. This may occasionally fluctuate, according to the parameters of a given activity, by 1-2 students. As with our younger campers, every camper is required to have a buddy with them at all times.
What is your discipline policy?
Recognizing that we have high expectations for the activities in our programs, we have one of the most immediate discipline policies for camps. If a camper is not choosing to listen to directions and work with the expectations set by the instructor, we will ask them to stay home for one day. This allows us to focus on the other campers who are choosing to participate in a positive way. We take personal and quality experiences seriously. We are not baby-sitters; we are educators bringing real life back to camps.
Please see Our Best Fit Guarantee for information on refunds relating to our discipline policy.
Are your instructors thoroughly trained and experienced in what they're teaching, or do they pull it from a box?
This is always a challenging balance. Many outdoor education programs will do a "survival class" or "tracking" program but the lineage of curriculum is often internet research and boxed programs. At Trackers we do our best to always keep it real.
While our focus is hiring professional environmental educators and not simply skills specialists or recreational guides, we all cross-train together. Our community based training allows individuals to deftly share a strong based of collective knowledge. Trackers instructors get together as a community, on their own time, to blacksmith, track wildlife, practice primitive skills, do homesteading projects and much more. Plus, all the primary founders and directors of Trackers have been thoroughly immersed in the culture of traditional skills and outdoor lore. We make our own bacon, raise our own livestock, plant our own gardens and we believe our animal "trackers" are the some of the best in the world (thus living up to our name).
These same folks then oversee official trainings to continually cross pollinate skill sets throughout our entire staff. This is why when we teach about the life cycle of fish, we actually go fishing (especially removing invasive species like carp or bullfrogs). When we teach about homesteading, we actually make cheese. When we teach about survival skills, we will build functional survival shelters. Our folks aren't armchair or only academic outdoor educators. We walk the talk. We know our stuff because we live it.
Is your organization insured AND bonded?
Trackers is fully insured for liability and we are a licensed and bonded outdoor guide service with the State of Washington. All the sites we operate in are also named as additional insured on our policies. From our boats to our buses, all our vehicles are insured. Our insurance company helps us with vehicle risk management by consistently monitoring the records of driving staff.
What is the average experience of your lead counselors (Were they hired right out of high school/college or do they have life experience)?
On top of requiring deft and diverse experience as professional educators, our focus is to work people of great ilk and stature. Within the culture of Trackers we insist on competency, family depth and creativity. We need our instructors to be direct, honest and very clear in their communication process. This comes from being here a long time and living this Earth in a quality way. We expect both knowledge and wisdom to complement and temper their passions. Life experience is required for all these things. We look for depth of experience before inviting anyone into our family. As the founder of Trackers, I will only work with people I will 110% trust my own children with.
Conclusion
Risk management and good safety policies must be based on well trained, intelligent and competent staff. They need to do more than rely on policies. They need to be a team where every individual takes it upon themselves to focus on awareness for any contingency. We require our people to be incredibly thoughtful and discerning. We ask them to treat your children's wellbeing as if they were their own.
Hopefully we covered all the questions parents may have about our safety policies. If you have more, feel free to contact us. This is a responsibility we take very seriously and a conversation we are deeply passionate about.