Outdoor Safety Data That Changes Practice

Outdoor programs don’t usually fail in the dramatic moments, they fail in the ordinary ones. That’s the big tension we dig into here: the outdoor sector manages “high risk” activities well, yet injuries keep showing up in places many of us mentally file under low risk, like walking, cooking at camp, and free time.

We start with quick but meaningful industry updates from Outdoors New South Wales and ACT, including the Trail Bike Toolkit for local councils, progress on outdoor leadership training reviews, and news about improved access to a curated set of Australian Standards. We also share what’s ahead on the calendar, from major industry events to leadership development opportunities designed to grow stronger, more capable teams across outdoor education and outdoor recreation.

Then we hand over to Matthew Morrison and Paul Salmon for a deep look at UPLOADS, the Understanding and Preventing Led Outdoor Accidents Data System. With 20,000+ incidents now recorded and five-year reporting trends across incident rates, severity, injury patterns, and contributory factors, the takeaways are practical: minor incidents matter, reporting culture matters, and common drivers like participant condition, terrain, weather, and communication gaps keep repeating across organisations.

Finally, we preview what’s next: the STARS project, a Systems Thinking Accident Risk System that aims to upgrade Uploads and integrate it with a digital NetHarms risk assessment tool. The goal is to connect prospective risk assessment with incident learning, and the project team is clear that practitioner input is essential through workshops, testing, and a future implementation trial. Subscribe, share this with a safety-minded colleague, and leave a review so more outdoor professionals can find the conversation.

Transcript

Welcome And Acknowledgement

SPEAKER_03 0:00

10 o'clock, so I'm going to get started. Welcome to the Connect and Share forum on the 29th of May here. Um, as you can see, Laurie is busy once again, so I'm stepping in for Laurie. Um, I'm gonna got my instructions down the side, so let's hope we can uh get it together. Oh no, where'd they go? Hang on. So you guys can see just the normal screen, right? Just checking before I keep going. Perfect, thank you so much. Um all right, well, um I'm coming to you from Waterong Country, and I'd like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the elders, past, present, and emerging. Um, and I'm gonna play some of these videos and we're gonna get moving so that we can have some time for our wonderful guests here. We have Matthew Morrison, who's gonna talk to us about the uploads project, and Paul Salmon, who's gonna talk about the Starz project. So I'll get going through this so we can get into the fun stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Welcome to the Outdoors New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, weekly Outdoor Industry Connect and Share Forum, where ideas thrive, collaborations spark, and our industry comes together to grow. Let's connect, share, and make an impact. This episode is recorded live with our professional outdoor friends and provided post-event as a resource for the outdoor industry.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

So um, so this week, apparently, we hit an amazing milestone in the number of people that they've managed to communicate to with the weekly updates. So thanks to everybody for the support. Um 2,500 downloads of this Connected Share forum. So I know that Laurie would be super excited about that because it's been a passion project. So thanks for all the support. Um, these sessions really are important um in keeping the industry connected um with knowledge about opportunities, regulations, and navigating changes. And it's also an important tool for us to hear from you because once these recordings are concluded, we have a little bit of a chat and those discussions are very valuable. So I'm looking forward to today's discussion um to support Laurie in understanding what's happening with our participants here today.

Trail Bike Toolkit For Councils

SPEAKER_03 2:30

But um, let's give you the information of what you do need to know this week. So, released yesterday at the local Government New South Wales Visitor Economy Conference, the Trail Bike Toolkit to help councils understand the opportunities of catering for trail bike riders in their area. So that's where Laurie is today, and she's presenting on this as well as the work that Outdoors New South Wales has done on mountain biking to the councils present. So that's my home here. So this initiative was supported by the Trailbike Community of Outdoor Trail Bike Committee of Outdoors New South Wales and ACT. In addition, we've had two students from Macquarie University working with Outdoors New South Wales this semester that looked at the outcomes from the trail bike survey that was conducted recently. So Laurie will be presenting these findings in the coming weeks. She'll also be sharing the latest report from McCrindle next week. So it's all about the education workforce and it's very important for those in our industry that work with schools. So that'll be happening in the Connect and Share on Friday, the 5th of June. For those that have been in our last weeks of Connect and Shares, this won't be news to you, but hopefully for everyone

Cheaper Access To Australian Standards

SPEAKER_03 3:56

else. So in the federal budget, there was consideration for access to Australian standards at no costs. So this is where standards uh this is where standards of legislation, standards and legislation need to be. I don't know, that sentence doesn't make sense, but we'll just go with that. The majority of outdoor-oriented standards are not embedded in legislation, and Laurie must have been in a great hurry anyway, but there'll be some that will be embedded in legislation, and that is great news. For all the other standards, the outdoor council of Australia has been able to negotiate a curated set of 35 standards that are relevant to parts of the outdoor industry, and you can get access to the 35 standards for one small fee. And if you're actually an outdoors New South Wales member, you can apply the code sent to you in your member's email to get another 10% off. So that's the outdoor industry's standard set.

AAAS Competencies And Training Timeline

SPEAKER_03 5:01

And for those that have been involved in the AAAS review committees, this will not be new to you either, but there is one, there is some exciting developments in the knowledge, skills, and experience portion of the AAAS when assessing staff competencies. So this framework has been put together and is now being applied to the activities for the draft AAAS that will be released in July for industry feedback. So if you want to know more, make sure you register for the monthly updates on this review. So this is looking at domains, capability level, and support availability. Concurrently, the vocational education and training courses on outdoor leadership are also being reviewed. So the timeline has been extended due to the amount of feedback from the industry that needs to be considered. So this is the new timeline, and expect that it will commence being taught in 2028. So January to June 2026, they'll incorporate feedback from public and government consultation. June to September 2026, they'll incorporate feedback and validation. And then October 26th, they'll do the senior officials check. November 26th, finalization and submission, December 2026, the Assurance Body Consideration and Skills Minister endorsement will take place. And then January 2027, that's a lifetime away. They'll release and post endorsement.

Pinnacle Leadership Program Updates

SPEAKER_03 7:04

So the Pinnacle Leadership Program cohort number three is now open. Obviously, this is a program that's near and dear to my heart. Having done the last two, being program manager for the last two pinnacle leadership programs, we're just wrapping up the cohort two and we're starting to look for people for the cohort three. So the thing that strikes me over and over again with this is the ability to change people's lives and directions within themselves and also as leaders in our outdoor community. It is for outdoor women only at this stage. We had another note requesting a male leadership program. Dave, you'll be pleased to hear we we've been looking for financing for it. If it's not funded by the government, our leadership course will cost about three and a half grand. But with the women's leadership, we did have a grant, so we were able to offer it for far less than that, and we are constantly in search of grants to try and make sure we can get an outdoor males leadership program happening as well. But the women's one is open, and I really encourage any emerging leaders that you know of in the outdoors, whether it's in your organization, people you know, anyone that just wants to have a little bit of explore about who they are and their place within the outdoor industry, or also just as leaders within their lives or organizations. It's um we had a beautiful, another beautiful email from someone who was sort of saying they wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for moving through this leadership program. And we are building a beautiful community of women supporting women within our industry. So it's lovely to see. Register now, it starts in August.

Key Events And Tickets Reminder

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Um this is a list of events that are coming up. Uh we have 27th to 29th of May, a local government destination and visitor economy conference. 2nd to 5th of June, the Eco-Tourism Summit. 11th of June is Outdoor Office Day with an exclamation mark, so that must be pretty exciting. Um 11th of June is the Blue Mountains local active partnership launch. 15th and 16th, we have the outdoor industry masterclass, 16th of July. Did I say July or June? It's July. The 16th of July Outdoor Industry Awards, 17th and 18th of July the Outdoor Learning Conference, the 23rd and 24th of July is the National Drowning Prevention Summit, and the 29th of July is Bathurst Career Events. So quite a busy couple of months there. Looking forward to it. This is the information for the masterclass and outdoor learning conference and the industry awards. Um, it's going to be held in Jervis Bay. I got excited. I forgot to read Laurie's little bit, but it says July will be here before we know it. And boy, do we have some great events for the industry and the lineup. We have the masterclass, industry awards, outdoor learning conference. So the masterclass is for the businesses in our industry that want to spend two days working on their business, not in it. The awards will celebrate some amazing achievements, and also we're going to be graduating the class of 2026 through the Pinnacle Leadership Program. And the outdoor learning conference is for our educators with the amazing Maggie Dent giving a guest appearance on Friday morning. So we've got lots of cool things happening there, and both Laurie and myself will be there for all of those days. So I look forward to meeting some of you in person and catching up with those that I know again. So there's a huge thank you to these following. Huge thank you to the following uh sponsors because without the support, the events just can't happen. So um we do have quite a number of people there um who are going to be supporting the event. So huge thank you to them. And finally, a reminder to grab your tickets for the National Outdoor Education Conference um in Cairns, 26th of September to the 1st of October. So get on that.

Introducing Uploads And Today’s Guests

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Um, so now I'd like to welcome Matt and Paul from the Uploads project to give some incitement in insight into the next phase of the project. So over to you, Matt. I'm gonna stop screening mine. And do you need um worry, Matt? Do you need a screen share?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah, that would be great, thanks. We've got a few slides prepared.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Okay, so I need to add you as co-host. There you go, so you should be able to connect the share now.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Great, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Yes, we do. I think we shouldn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Right. I might just hand over to Paul to kick us off and then we'll do a little bit of a switch once we uh get rolling.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Thanks for it. Yeah, and thanks for the opportunity to come and present, really appreciate it. So what we're basically going to do is is give you a bit of an overview of um the uploads data from the past five years. Um and then I'll start off and just introduce uploads if there's anybody who doesn't as is not aware of the system, and then Matt will kind of talk through the data from the past five years, and then he'll pass back to me and I'll talk about the new project, which is pretty exciting, and we're very keen to get um people involved in that, so we'll we'll finish up with that. So hopefully um you enjoy it. So we'll go to the next slide, Matt, please. Um, so I mean, most of you probably are familiar with uploads, but just to give a bit of background, so uploads or the understanding and preventing lead outdoor accident status system is an app that we um developed way back in 2014 now that basically provides um out lead outdoor activity providers the capacity to report and analyse injury, illness, and ear misincidents. And so that happens within different providers, but basically they then hit submit and all of the data comes to us. So we analyse the data and we report back to the sector based on things that we find and trends, all with the aim of improving safety during lead outdoor activities. Um, next slide. Um, and as I mentioned, um, it's been used to collect data since 2014, and just recently we hit over 20,000 incidents. So there's now 20,000 plus incidents in the data set, which really has allowed us to identify lots of important knowledge around incident injury causation in this sector, which um I'll hand over to Matt to take you through some of the interesting findings from the past five years. Over to you, Matt.

Five Year Trends In Incident Rates

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Thanks, Paul. So, yeah, as Paul mentioned, we we're just going to primarily focus on data from the annual reports over the last five years. Um, over that period, we've had 151 registered organizations and uh a really impressive around 1.5 million cumulative participation days logged. Uh, and of those days, we've had about 11,000 incidents registered in the last five years. Um, just for a fun fact, we have 20,752 incidents as of this morning. So to start off, we'll just have a look at the overall incident rate here. And if we look at the graph, we can see on the y-axis we've got the incident rate per thousand participation days. So it's quite a sort of stable number there. Uh, some of the things that sort of may stand out would be that there's uh obviously an impact here from COVID-19. So the reporting period was was quite heavily influenced by COVID uh with the lockdowns and and restrictions on sectors and things like that. Uh, we saw about almost a 40% fall in participation versus 2018 and 2019. However, the incidence numbers stayed around the same, uh, which did push that incident rate up a little bit. We saw the lowest uh overall rate in the 2021-2022 report, which is potentially sort of in line with the sector recovering post-COVID and perhaps some cautious operations once we're sort of back on the tools explaining that. We did see a little bit of a spike then in 2022-2023, uh, with the 10.7 being the highest rate across all of the reporting periods. Um, however, this could be uh sort of explained by a little bit of a change in the reporting. Um, and there was also a really big contribution from curriculum-based activities uh where the rate was up a bit was much higher, and I'll touch on this again in another couple of slides. But then uh in the 2023-2024 uh report, we did see a return to a much more sort of normal range. Uh, just interestingly to call out there for the 2023-2024 incident rate, um, although the overall uh rate was declining, which is great, we did actually see an increase or a worsened uh severity profile. So we did see some more serious injuries uh compared to sort of minor or moderate. Uh then next slide here. So we've got the incidents reported and participation days. So this is basically just another way to sort of show um how the data has been accumulating in uploads over the last sort of five years. So um sorry for putting two or two things on the same graph, but on the left-hand side here we can see the the number of incidents reported per year, and that generally hovers but around about the 2,000 incidents per year mark, except for our 2022-2023, where we had that spike in reporting. The line that goes across the horizontal here is showing the program participation days. Um so once again, we're sort of seeing a pretty consistent above 200 to 250,000 participation days uh per year, which is which is great. Um when we have a look at the incident rates by type. So we've pulled out uh so injury, uh illness, psychosocial, uh, and equipment. Um as you can see, it's quite obvious there that the top line that goes horizontal there. So injuries are very, very consistently reported. They take up generally between 60 and 65 percent of all incidents reported in uploads. Uh illness, the the next line across there as well, um, has crept up slightly over the years, but did drop in the 2023-2024 reports. The psychosocial rate um has had a small but consistent upward trend, um, which is worthwhile for us to sort of keep an eye on, um, and particularly with future analyses. Uh, the equipment rate uh is quite low. Um, interestingly, it it almost tripled over the the time frame there, but we're not suggesting that uh three times as much equipment is breaking, it's just potentially that we might be a bit more aware or a bit better at reporting um the equipment failures or the accuracy of reporting. When we look at the severity profiles here, so each line just represents a hundred percent, or sorry, each column represents a hundred percent of incidents reported for that year. So the blue being the minor incidents, orange the the moderate, and then we've got serious up the top. Um no severe or critical came into the analysis, which is which is good. Um the the trends we sort of can see here, we've got minor incidents declining uh with a pretty consistent downward trend across the years, which is good. Uh the moderate incidences are largely increasing. So we're seeing sort of some bigger sort of orange sections on the on the graph there. Um and and those moderate incidents are generally the incidents that require treatment beyond first aid. Uh serious incidents were rising, although they make a very small percentage of the overall incidents, they are increasing. Um sorry, my dog just ran up the stairs. Um yes, but it's it's important to interpret these severity incidents with um a bit of care. So they could be we could have more severe incidents happening happening, or we may just be improving our ability to identify and report those uh serious incidents as well. But uh definitely something we'll be keeping an eye on in our future analyses. Uh here we've just got a nice little graph that shows the activities where the highest incident rates occur over the last five years. And the the interesting thing here, I believe, is that a lot of these activities are probably the things we would generally think are quite low risk, things like walking and running and camping, but it's just a good reminder that uh incidents do sort of happen even with those low-risk activities. Uh, the interesting sort of stat to call out, as I mentioned earlier, with the curriculum-based activities, is we did see a massive spike in that 2022-2023 um yeah, but it went back to sort of normal after that. Um yeah, so that's our sort of our activity rates per activity. The injury patterns was was really interesting. Uh, when we look at these year on year, the distribution and spread of injury locations doesn't really change. So these are quite consistent over the the five year period. Uh, this is just one example from the 2021, 2022 year. Uh and what we can sort of see there is that the lower limb really dominates these injury figures. So the thigh, knee, uh, lower leg, ankle, feet, toes account for almost half of the injuries reported in uploads each year. Uh, and these are often uh And activity driven. Again, probably not surprising. The hands are always quite up there. Hands and figures are always high risk and involved, and they usually make up about a quarter of the injuries reported. And some of the main culprits there are burns, open wounds, and superficial lacerations. Head injuries as well are quite a consistent thing we see popping up here with around 15% of annual injuries. And just a sort of nice little caveat there is often there is a concussion component reported in there as well. So it really highlights, I think, the the importance of sort of understanding concussion symptoms and concussion management as well. And when we sort of zoom out and just look at these as a whole, uh superficial injuries are generally the most important type sorry, most frequently reported type of injury, which does align with our uh severity profiles, what we should we saw in the last slide. So majority of these injuries are quite low in severity, and a lot of these are superficial injuries. So that does match up quite well.

Injury Patterns And Common Contributors

SPEAKER_00 23:05

So some of the recurring contributory factors uh we see. So what appears to be driving these incidents. Uh so participant mental and physical condition is the number one factor most years. Um we also see the participant decisions um being a quite a prominent contributory factor as well. And participant experience generally sort of rounds out the top three. Uh, the environment also has a few contributory factors, a few sort of common factors that pop up there is uh terrain and weather. Um they're very, very prominent contributors to incidents reported, as well as that animals and insects generally find their way in sort of the top three environment as well. And I might hand back to Paul here, who's probably will take us through. But we've also got yeah, the big eight contributory factors, but I'll I'll pass over to Paul to chat through these ones. Thanks, Matt.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Yeah, I so I've got a few slides just reflecting on the uploads project uh more broadly over its almost 15 years, I think, of running. So so one we we were I was asked to give a presentation at a at the WRMC conference a few years back. And so basically what I was trying to do with the big eight is say, well, well, what you know generally across time and in the data has has been recurring as the factors that we always tend to see in in lead outdoor activity incidents. And so you can see them on the slide here, and the relationships between them by the arrows just saw that show that they influence one another. And so these are the things that we tend to see repeatedly across our analyses. So, you know, we'll have factors in the activity environment related to the participant equipment and clothing, activity leader behavior and condition, and participant behavior and condition. So those things are pretty well known, I think, like and they were before clothes. But the interesting ones to me are the ones higher up in the diagram. So we have factors around program design, and an interesting one that's been really prominent over time there is around the suitability of the program design for the participants who are doing it. So, you know, where you we've seen lots of cases where the program is just being provided for different participants, and and actually sometimes the participants might have the physical capabilities to complete the program, which is resulting in you know, injuries during it. Communications between the school, um, the parents, and the activity provider has always been an interesting one, also. So, you know, where, for example, the parents might not provide details around their children to the school, which in turn means the school don't provide them for the provider, which links to that program design that might not be suitable for their skill sets or physical capabilities. Uh, things like pre-existing injuries that the parents will know about or the school might know about, um, things that the school aren't communicating to the parents around the needs and the equipment that the children need to bring. Um, and then activity provider processes, and the predominant one within that node is things like risk assessment. So when the the activity provider is not really, um doesn't really have a full understanding of all of the risks that might be present during the program, and that's resulting in you know, things around program design that aren't particularly managing some of the risks. So those are the uh key factors we kind of see repeatedly and that interact together. Uh, we'll go to the next slide. In terms of what have we what we've learned from the broader program and you know, those 20,000 instances that we've analyzed, um, what we're seeing really is the majority of in uh injuries that happen on programs are really minor, which is great. Um so we we've also seen that lead-outdoor activity sector has a low injury rate compared to organized sports, and you know, there's a caveat around that in terms of the data that organized sports collects versus what we're collecting, is a little bit different in how you do it, but what we tend to see is much higher incident rates in organized sports. Um, and what it suggests was really is there are effective risk management strategies in place for high-risk activities. So things like high rope scores, walk-based activities are being managed very well. And the interesting thing really is that most of the injuries we see in the data they occur in less overtly risky activities. So things that you wouldn't look at and think that's a really risky activity. So things like free time, camp craft or cooking during camp and walking and running. So those are the activities that are often overrepresented in the incident data. And we'll go to the next slide. Um, in terms of incident causation, always incidents have multiple uh contributory factors spanning multiple actors or people. And so, you know, the big conclusion really is that there's more to incident causation than just instructor or participant error, which was kind of the state of knowledge before we came in with uploads. A really interesting one from our point of view is that the very minor incidents, minor injuries, etc., they tend to have similar contributory factors to the more major incidents. And so what we take from that is that the minor incidents in the and misses are basically giving us free lessons as to what the factors need to be managed that create the big incidents. So, and it also emphasizes the importance of reporting those minor incidents, even though it seems, you know, should we really bother reporting this is very minor? Actually, the factors that played a role in the minor incident one day will eventually lead to a major incident. And key areas for improvement in terms of the things we've recommended are obviously those communications between providers, schools, and parents, risk assessment processes, um, documentation, knowledge around pre-existing injuries, the fit between participants and the activity design, policy and procedures, and then consideration of the equipment and the environment that's going to be experienced in the activity. Next slide.

Reporting Culture And Learning From Near Misses

SPEAKER_01 29:13

In terms of the general practice of reporting, um, so we did run a formal evaluation some years ago that demonstrated a reduction in incident rates for users. Um and what we're seeing in the sector is there's a really strong desire for providers to contribute data to workloads, but there are various constraints preventing it. So, you know, the time to report and the workload that people are under means they can't report everything. Um, often we have interesting discussions around the value around placed on safety reporting, particularly from high-level managers. And so we see strong reporting culture in certain places, but it's definitely not sector-wide. And I think a big challenge for us in the new project is to really um do some work around building that reporting culture so it just becomes norm and really second nature across the sector. Uh, and we do think there are improvements required around the reporting in some places also. Um, next slide. Martin and the last one. So I'll that's sort of kind of what we've learned from a bigger picture. I'll hand over to Matt to finish his section and then I'll talk about the uh new project.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Thank you. Great. Thanks, Paul. So yeah, just a just a little last couple of things from me here. So the the sort of key takeaways from the the five-year analyses were that the severity trend um is probably the the big thing that stands out. So a bit of an increase in the uh severe or the serious incidents. However, there is also the decline in the minor incidents as well. So it's definitely something we'll be keeping an eye on in uh as we keep analyzing the incidents that come in. Uh participant condition decisions, terrain, equipment, weather and communication issues seem to be uh quite prominent in each and every report we do. So these are definitely some of those sort of potential levers for action. Um and as Paul sort of summed up there quite well, it's those lower risk activities as well that continually are well reported or quite prominent in the the reporting of incidents as well. Um and again, sort of Paul's covered these sort of um some of the issues around the reporting as well. But just to sort of reiterate, so there are some issues with some of the reporting um with just with the criteria required for us to report the data. Um some of the categories have changed over the years, some things have been blended in that uh make a little bit more sense to report things together rather than having lots of little things. We've we've uh over time put some things together to create more appropriate categories. Um and then, of course, there was the COVID-19 disruptions towards the start of that five-year analyses as well. So I think that's my last slide. And yeah, uh, over to Paul for the STARS project.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Thanks,

STARS Project And NetHarms Tool

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Matt. So I just want to spend um 10 minutes maybe talking about the new project. So this is the really the exciting part that we want to um tell everybody about the the uh STARS project. And I think you know what I'll do is I'll basically tell you what we're gonna do on that project, but really the point of uh communicating this is I think there's a real need for input from you know uh led up to activity practitioners throughout each project phase because we're effectively designing new tools to be used by the sector, so we really want to get as much input as we can. So if we go to the next slide, Matt. And so, yeah, the back, I guess the background here, and forgive the amount of text on the slide, it's it's interesting to talk to, I think. There's a number of things that kind of came together that you know built for this third project. And I think the first is that we'll acknowledge that the uploads infrastructure is really getting quite dated now. So the the app itself is a little bit dated, and it's for a long time now has required updates. So we are we we're well across. There's some usability issues with the app. Um, it probably takes too long to report incidents with the app. So there's some work to kind of redesign uploads. Um, we have the issue around that you know, we've only getting usable data from about 20 to 25 organizations out of, I think it's 150 now. Um, but there is a safety benefit. So we really want to get more people using the uploads uh tool. Um, but the other side of that is um through our work in the sector, we've also seen limitations in the risk assessment processes. And what by risk assessment here I mean the approaches people are using in a prospective manner to try and understand the risks that they face during a particular activity that they're about to go on or provide. So we, you know, we've we had uh Claire Dallett who did a PhD in that area, and she did some analysis of the different processes, and a lot of it is brainstorming or based on experience without really any structured method. And so in her PhD, she developed the net harms risk assessment method or the networked hazard analysis and risk management system, which is basically a structured method to allow organizations to identify the risks that they need to manage on an outdoor programs. So in all that came together, we'll go to the next slide. Um, all those things came together. Um, I'll skip over this one, Matt. I kind of just touched on that. Um we thought, well, you know, with the project, we're quite keen to provide develop and provide a risk assessment tool for the sector, but we're also keen to upgrade and enhance uploads to make sure more people can use it and use it uh well. So the STARS project, um, which is the systems thinking accident risk system project, basically involves the development of a digital net harms tool. So basically a risk assessment tool uh for the loud activity sector. And then what we're gonna do is integrate this with the uploads tool. Uh so one of the key gaps in safety science is that not many people are integrating their risk assessment process with their incident analysis process. So we're gonna integrate the two and form the systems thinking accident risk management risk system or the STARS system. And so what that will allow us to do, you know, while we're developing the NetHarms tool is also upgrade uploads. So we'll basically talk to the sector, we'll get some feedback, and we'll you know, remove some of these usability issues, make the reporting process much quicker, uh and so on. And then once we've developed that STARS tool, the project has an 18-month um evaluation trial where we get a bunch of providers to use the STARS tool and we do some evaluation to show that it provides um uh basically safety benefits. Um, next slide. Uh I'll skip over that one. I think it's too much detail in that one, and I need to go into it.

How Practitioners Can Get Involved

SPEAKER_01 36:03

And so I think the key point around that is that there's this opportunity for the sector to get involved. It's not really an opportunity, it's it's really a need. Like we have to um get lots of involved from the sector. So in a number of ways throughout the project. So the first one is in terms of designing and testing the new risk assessment platform or the NetHarms digital platform. So we have developed Sinclair's Dalux PhD, the NetHarms method, but we really need to kind of put this into a software tool that makes it really usable, really quick, uh, really easy to use for the sector. So we want people's input on that. So people in the sector who are involved in risk assessment or risk management processes, we want to talk to you and understand what your needs are in a risk assessment tool. Um, then the revision of the uploads system. Again, we want people who currently use uploads or people who want to use uploads but don't for various constraints for various reasons. We want you to tell us all of that and we can then you know revise the system so they can use it. Um, and then we're going to do lots of testing, so testing of the prototypes throughout the project. So again, we'll then we need to have lead-out to activity practitioners for that. And then the big one is the 18-month um implementation evaluation trial. So in 2027-28, we basically need organizations to sign up and use the tool, and then we can we'll gather evaluation evidence from you. Um, so I'll skip next slide, Matt. Um and I want to talk specifically, I've got a bunch of other slides, but I can skip over them in the interest of time. I want to talk really about phase one, which is where we are now. So this involves the development and validation of the risk assessment tool, or what I've put on the side as the digital net harms platform. And so, where we are at the minute with this is we've developed we're developing kind of a design spec for this, but shortly we're going to advertise a bunch of workshops uh which we want to get um and they'll be online. Um, let outdoor activity practitioners to come along and tell us basically what their needs are for a risk assessment tool. So we kind of have an idea around the method, but we want you guys to tell us, you know, what are you, how do you do risk assessment, what's important to you, what needs do you have around it? Does it need to be quick? What outputs do you need, and so on and so forth. So that will really help us in designing a tool that's really usable uh by the sector. And then once we've designed that, once we've engaged a developer who will build the tool for us, we then want to again a bunch of outdoor activity practitioners that we will train in the tool and we'll provide them training, and then we'll ask them to do some test analyses and we'll do some kind of you know validation of those measures. And the reason for doing that is we need to be able to show that the risk assessment method works really well, and there's there's ways of doing that that I don't need to go into. Um, so that's really what we what we need during phase one. Um, next slide, Matt. I'm gonna skip over what NetHarms actually does, I think, because I think that's for another day. Um, I will I will touch briefly, sorry, just go back, but I will touch briefly on the background to NetHans. So as I said, the risk assessment tool will be based on the NetHarms tool, which um Claire Dallet, um, which you all probably know developed during a PhD. Uh and basically it's a it's a taxonomy-based approach where you take a list of tasks that are happening on the activity, you apply these risk modes, and you basically use your subjective judgment um to determine whether they're going to happen. Next slide. We can skip over that, that's fine. Um skip over that one. So that we'll put that into a tool and you know, lots of involvement. Once we've built the tool, um, phase two of the project is then to integrate the NetHans platform with the uploads platform. Um, and basically this gives us the opportunity to redesign uploads. Um and so here we want involvement from people in the sector who um, you know, people have used uploads and and understand its limitations and its problems, but also people who have wanted to use uploads but couldn't for any particular reason because effectively what we're doing here is redesigning uploads to make it much more usable by the sector and to increase the number of people who are reporting their instance with it. Um, we'll then put the two tools together and make the STARS tool. Um, and then again we'll repeat that process of formal testing. So we'll train a bunch of Led Outdoor activity practitioners in using both the tools and we'll do some more testing just to prove that the tools were. Um next slide. And then phase three, as I said, is the big one, an 18-month implementation evaluation trial. Once we and the partners are happy with the tools, um, what we're going to do is get 15 let-outdoor activity providers, five small, five medium, five large. And we do have a definition about what constitutes small, medium, and large. I forget that. And they will basically use stars over the 18-month period. We'll have a matched cohort of providers who just use their current processes, and we'll basically compare the outputs for each organization. So the injury instance, and we'll use something called the re-aim framework, which we use to gather information and evaluate and you know, safety science tools. So that's a long way down the track, but that's just a real heads up that we're very keen to talk to organizations who want to take part in that trial. Um, because effectively we need 30 providers. Next slide, Matt. Um, so in summary, and I'll finish up there, uh, open up for questions. Uploads will continue in the short term. So people who use uploads continue to report your incidents. We'll analyze them and report things back to the sector as we always have done. Um, the new project, though, will be running alongside that, and we'll basically develop the STARS system. So, this will include a new prospective risk assessment method and a refined version of uploads or instant reporting and learning system. Um, as I said, lots of involvement from the sector is encouraged in the design of those tools, and we're very keen for that. And do get in touch with us if you want to express your interest, but we will advertise those initial design workshops very soon. Um, and then the new SAR system will be tested as part of an implementation trial in 2027-2028. I'll say that numerous times. I'll say it again. There's a real critical requirement for lead-up to activity practitioner input for all project phases. I think the more involvement that we can get from practitioners, the better and more usable um the tools will be. Um, I'll just finish with a slide, I think, to acknowledge.

Webinar Details And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Sorry. Um, first slide before I acknowledge the funders, um, is uh there's an upcoming webinar, so Wednesday, the 10th of June, um, where we'll basically give a more detailed account of you know what we found in the project and where we're going to be going. So please do attend that. That's online, and you can register with the link there on the slide, um, or contact us as the project team at the address on the slide. Um, next slide, Matt. And then I'll just um acknowledge the funders. So the new the uploads program has always been funded by the Australian Research Council and co-funded by the sector. The new project is funded by the Australian Research Council and Sport Outdoor Reparation Victoria, Belgrave Outdoor Education, the Outdoor Council of Australia, YMC at Campic, Risk Resolve, and the Australian Camps Association. And as always, we're extremely appreciative of the support from those people and the broader sector who also provide uh funding through some of those organisations. So thank you very much. I'll stop there.

Closing And See You Next Week

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Thank you. Um that was wonderful. I know that there's going to be a lot of questions. So, what I'm just gonna do is I'm just gonna close. Off the um just close off the connect and share and then um let everybody ask their questions if that's okay. So let me find the final slide on the connect and share.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

Um that one is thank you for joining the weekly outdoor industry connecting share forum. Brought to you by Outdoors New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, your peak body for the outdoor industry, together with our members who are shaping the future of the outdoors. See you next week for more insights and collaboration.