Leaders & Trainers

Quick Links || Overseas Expedition Leaders | UK Trainers

Overseas Expedition Leaders
Wilderness Expertise uses mature, qualified leaders who not only have expedition experience with young people, but also experience of the destination the team will be travelling to. A thorough working knowledge of the country in question is fundamental to the planning stages as well as the expedition itself. A belief in the value of adventure education and the aims of WE, combined with enthusiasm and willingness to support the team and project are essential.

The leader's role is one of an experienced guide with overall responsibility for the safety and successful completion of the expedition. Our philosophy is based on the students 'driving' their own expedition so each of them will have several opportunities to take on the role as student leader on each day of the expedition giving them responsibility for the team under the guidance of the Expedition Leader.

All our Expedition Leaders have qualifications in the outdoor industry, advanced First Aid training and experience of the age-group and country to which they are leading the expedition.

Qualifications & Experience
Our leaders are employed for their judgement, experience and knowledge. We look for a number of objective measures of these values:

As there is no official award in British law that qualifies a person to be an Expedition Leader, we use the well-respected system of national governing bodies for outdoor activities. The Mountain Leader Training Board (MLTB) administers the training and assessment of Mountain Leaders in the UK and all our Expedition Leaders are required to be ML qualified. We believe that in addition to relevant expedition experience, the UK Governing Body Awards can be used as a guideline for the selection of our Expedition Leaders.

In addition to all this, all our Leaders have to attend a training course in the February before expedition departure and most will have worked with us in the past.

CV's of all our Expedition Leaders are available upon request

 

UK Trainers
Safety of all young people is our most important concern. Wilderness Expertise has many safety strategies in place including:

• Experienced Trainers
• AALA and BCU inspections/licence
• Thorough specific Risk Assessments
• 24-hour on-call cover while students are on programme

Trainers
Our programmes use the outdoor environment and adventurous activities to challenge individuals beyond their normal 'comfort zones'. This is done through individual challenges and group support. At the heart of this concept is the development of teamwork and life skills.

To enable staff to adapt the programme to the specific individual's needs we give the trainers ownership of the programme. They can alter the training to fulfil the needs of the group and meet the training objectives. We can do this because we use high calibre trainers backed by a small flexible support team.

The Trainer's Role
We believe that the trainer is the most important individual in our 'quality assurance' system. Our aim is to maintain high quality staff with the right qualifications, depth of experience and personality. Most importantly all our leaders have extensive experience of working with young people in a developmental background and possess the soft-skills required to bring out the best in their experience.

The leader is responsible for the safety of the group and for delivering safe, quality training that is tailored appropriately to the clients needs. It is vital that the trainer acts as a positive role model and keeps an open management style throughout the programme.

Qualifications
All our trainers hold the very best qualifications for the work they are undertaking, backed up by relevant experience. For UK work the qualifications required vary greatly depending on the nature of the course. Full CV's for all our Trainers are available on request.

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