Types of Adventure programming

Adventure programming is broadly defined as “the deliberate use of adventurous experiences to create learning in individuals or groups, that results in change for society and communities” (Priest, 1999, p. xiii). It involves the use of specific activities (e.g. games and trust activities), adventure experiences (e.g. hiking and white water rafting), and wilderness or other novel environments (e.g. high- or low-ropes courses), which are encountered as corrective life experiences that provide opportunities for multidimensional growth within the safety of a supportive group system (Alvarez & Stauffer, 2001; Itin, 2001). Although the primary, immediate goal of adventure programming is learning – seen as a shift in the way programme participants think, feel, or behave – the ultimate goal is to develop competence, values, and altruistic traits that enable participants to uplift and empower their communities (Priest, 1999). While adroit adventure programmes do obtain notable outcomes, there is a great deal of variability in outcomes between different studies,

different participants, and different programmes (Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997). Adventure programming is fortunate to be able to draw on multiple perspectives and expertise from a diverse array of fields including psychology, social work, criminal justice, recreation and leisure studies. This diversity is manifest in the multitude of programmes types, and synonymous titles, that fall under the banner of adventure programming. Examples include adventure-based counselling (Glass &

Myers, 2001), adventure education (Berry & Hodgson, 2011), adventurous experiential learning (Heunis & Priest, 2008), adventure therapy (Gass, Gillis, &

Russell, 2012), outdoor behavioural healthcare (Russell, 2003a, 2003b), therapeutic wilderness camping (Buie, 1996), wilderness adventure therapy (Bandoroff, 1989), wilderness therapy (Davis Berman & Berman, 2008), wilderness treatment programs (Salisbury, Kay, Peterson, & Peterson, 2013), and wilderness experience programs (Dawson & Russell, 2012). Adventure programmes can be conducted in two main contexts: wilderness and adventure facilities. Facility based programmes can be done indoors or outdoors in an artificial adventure environment, such as low or high-ropes courses (Gass, 1993b; Glass & Mysers, 2001). Wilderness experience programmes (WEPs) are a type of adventure programme that take clients into wilderness or comparable lands for its intrinsic value of naturalness and solitude, in order to develop their human potential through outdoor skill development, personal growth, rehabilitation, therapy, leadership development activities, and/or spiritual renewal (Friese, Hendee, & Kinziger, 1998; Gager, Hendee, Kinziger, & Krumpe, 1998).

There are numerous types of WEPs including challenge adventure type programs (like Outward Bound), environmental education programs (like NOLS), university or church-based clubs, survival schools, and spiritual or vision quest type programs. A

broad distinction is made between private placement and adjudicated programmes, and between base camp and expedition models (Russell, 2001). There are two types of expedition programmes: (a) continuous flow programmes, which can be up to eight-weeks in length so instructors rotate in and out of the field, therapists visit frequently, and new clients join existing groups; and (b) contained programmes, which can be up to three-weeks in length and the therapist, outdoor leaders, and adolescent clients remain together for the duration of the programme. Expedition programmes remain in the field for the duration of the treatment process, while base camp programs have a structured base camp, leave on an expedition for a period of time and return to the base camp for follow-up activities (Russell, 1999; Russell &

Hendee, 1999). Lastly, programmes can be differentiated based on the depth of intervention ranging on a continuum from recreation (allow participants to experience a positive feeling and enjoyment), education (use adventure to enrich students understanding of important concepts, gain insight into problems and social behaviour, and gaining new attitudes and perspectives on life), enrichment or development (improve functional behaviours, and purposefully address common issues such as self-concept, trust, and communication), adjunctive therapy (treatment blended with existing traditional therapy taking place before and after therapy, addressing primary therapeutic needs), to primary therapy (replaces traditional therapy in order to assess, diagnose, treat, and monitor therapeutic change) (Gass, 1993b; Priest & Gass, 2005).

By the turn of the 20^th century Friese et al. (1998) had identified 700 WEPs operating in the United States without counting Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, camps, community or church recreation programs, commercial outfitters and guides, and adventure travel businesses or wilderness skills instruction or work programs. Of

these WEPs approximately 25.2% offer five or less trips per year, and nearly 40%

offer less than 10 trips a year. These serve few clients and are likely to contribute to the high turnover in the industry. A few sizeable WEPs are most popular, and are overrepresented in the literature, media, and research reports. Tangen-Foster and Dawson (1999) resurveyed these and categorised them as educational (43%), personal growth (47%), and therapy and healing (10%). Russell et al. (1999) suggest that there were a minimum of 38 wilderness therapy programmes operating in the US in 2000, costing on average $325 per client per day. In South Africa, at around the same time, an ecotherapy, outward-bound, or similar adventure-based experiential programme could cost between R120 and R300 per participant per day (Steyn, 2005). Russell (2003a) identified 166 programmes that could be categorised as therapeutic, fitting the Outdoor Behavioural Healthcare (OBH) criteria. Of these approximately 46.5% were residential expedition programmes, 23.2% were base camp expedition programmes, 17.4% were contained expedition, and 8.11% were continuous flow expedition programmes. Programme participants were found to spend between 5 and 70 days in the wilderness with continuous flow expedition programmes spending almost all of the programme duration in nature (96% and an average of 62 days), contained expedition programmes spending 75% of their time in the wilderness (average of 28 days), private residential expedition programmes, which tend to be schools, spending only 7% of their contact time in the wilderness (21days), whereas adjudicated residual programmes spend up to 32% of their programme time on wilderness expeditions (70 days) (Russell, 2003a). In the United Kingdom, there were over 1,500 centres providing adventure experiences by the turn of the 21^st century (Institute of Outdoor Learning, 1998). The latest figures coming out of Bowen and Neill's (2013)

meta-analysis relating to adventure therapy suggest that ropes/challenge/adventure-based programmes are the most popular (42.7% of samples) type of adventure programme being studied followed by expedition (26.7%), and then multiple format varieties (21.4%). In terms of national distribution, studies from the USA make up 78.2% of the data, followed by Australia (12.6%), and then Asia and Canada (3.4% each).

Figure 1 below, provides a useful model for differentiating between different types of adventure programmes based on depth of intervention, setting characterisation, and intervention duration.

Figure 2.1: A typology of adventure programmes