HEALTH & SAFETY POLICY

To uphold our Duty of Care as an organization, Global Leadership Adventures adopts a rigorous approach to identifying and mitigating the risks we face in operating educational travel programs for teens. 

We recognize taking strategic decisions that entail calculated risks and managing those within sensible parameters are fundamental to meeting commitments and the GLA promise to our staff, participants, and their families, partners, and members of the communities in which we operate. 

We believe risk management must be integrated into the day-to-day management of our operations and above all, it should guide our decision-making and form an integral part of our culture at GLA. We believe and are committed to making safety and risk management our top priorities. 

Our risk management strategies have been guided and informed by an investment GLA has made to hire a third-party professional consultancy, NOLS, a long-time expert in the field of risk management in the context of outdoor leadership programs. For nearly a full year, a team of reviewers examined multiple components of our organization, from the enrollment and screening process to staff training practices to our activities and policies in the field.  Suggestions stemming from this review process have been a key component in continuing to uphold GLA’s already high safety standards in an ever-changing world.   

GLA also continues to invest and participate in the Cornerstone Safety Group (CSC). CSC is a Risk Management Group of professionals in the outdoor education and youth development field that meet monthly during off-peak season to discuss best practices and set industry standards for Risk Management practices for service-learning programs. While we utilize CSC mainly in a preventive capacity to ensure we are training and hiring our HQ, field staff, and service providers with the best professional resources, we also partner with them during when participants are in the field – consulting with their professional consultants who serve as Medical Director, Mental Health and Risk Management experts on any escalated mental health, medical or safety cases.