Policy & Practice: Soapbox - Matt Healey, manager, Outward Bound Options - The outdoors is a great environment in which to learn

Some clued-up youth workers do come to us with the right sets of objectives, and they know what they are trying to achieve by taking groups of young people away, but a large majority have got a fairly informal approach to the activities. As informal educators that is fair enough, but I feel sometimes they are selling themselves a little short. They could certainly get more from the process than they currently do.

We give young people an experience of the outdoors but try to relate the experience back to their lives. With rock climbing, for example, we would look at what the activity was, how it felt, what the hazards of that activity were, then what we did to minimise those hazards. Then you would relate that back using it as a metaphor for issues such as teenage pregnancy, drugs, or crime. It is about trying to make a strong link between the power of outdoor education and other subjects while also making it relevant to young people.