Panacea Adventures – Intentional Program Design
There is something special about passion. When used in coordination with amazing vision and a platform for social change, it is unstoppable. This is the best way to explain why Panacea Adventures is going to be successful! Experiential Adventures LLC is privileged to help develop an intentional training process that effectively merges outdoor education and therapeutic recreation into a cohesive outreach program for under served youth.
This summer Panacea will serve children with cystic fibrosis and their families using sea kayaking as a mechanism to establish lasting improvements in quality of life. They will be hosting an all abilities 5K Panacea Paddle race to raise money for cancer patients to go sea kayaking, visually impaired students to go surfing, and children with diabetes to go backpacking; all free of charge to the participants!
EA’s role with Panacea Adventures is to work with the staff to create a common language that helps the therapists communicate with the wilderness leaders, and to help all of the staff work together to reach the common desired outcomes of the organization.
Outcome Model - Zac writing on the whiteboard as he teaches about educational and planning assessment techniques. Mat is clearly making a strange face, and we have no idea why.....
At the end of the first day, and after much discussion and toiling with wording and language, the staff finished Panacea’s first ever staff purpose statement. It is written below:
“Panacea staff is a unified group of individuals who take pride in successfully organizing and orchestrating wilderness adventures. As a team, we strive to provide a physically and emotionally safe environment that encourages sustained personal growth by utilizing the tools found in the natural world. The success of each expedition is dependent upon our humility and support of one another. We feel privileged to collaborate with an organization that promotes social change!”
This statement typifies the positive feeling that one gets when working with Panacea Adventures. A staff mission statement is what the staff of the organization strive to be and it is a compilation of personal guiding philosophies and the organization’s overarching mission. The process is collaborative and helps the staff stay unified even when situations are stressful, frustrating or circumstances are not ideal.
In addition to the staff mission statement, we worked together to create a common language and integrated lessons that deliver multiple positive outcomes.
Sand-Up. (Stand up activity that is difficult in the sand)
While we use outdoor education as the medium for change, it is our intentionality and program design that creates lasting change and life improvement in our students. In fact, while our desired outcomes focus on three skill sets (human, educational, and outdoor), it is the integrated approach and application that makes Panacea programs effective. Drop outdoor skills and add any discipline specific skill you prefer (engineering, computer science, business administration), and you have the same outcome. Transference depends on the ability to functionally apply human and educational skills to other parts of life.
This summer Panacea Adventures will have a huge impact on the lives of many children and families in North Carolina and beyond! Experiential Adventures LLC is excited to part of this difference and cannot wait for the next opportunity to work with such an amazing group of educators.
Intentional Design - Cannot be overlooked
2 Comments to Panacea Adventures – Intentional Program Design
May I refer to this post for the school project?
matNovember 4, 2011
That would be fine. What is the school project?
Mat Erpelding.
November 4, 2011