How Senior Staff Expert Training Elevates Outdoor Adventures

Parents entrust Calleva with their children’s outdoor education and adventure experiences, and we take that responsibility seriously. One of the key components of providing safe, memorable, and enriching experiences is the preparation and training of our senior staff.

We want parents to know exactly what measures we take to train our team. Our team is equipped to handle the excitement and the challenges that come with outdoor leadership.  

Rock Climbing Instructor Training

A great example of Calleva’s commitment to staff training is the recent participation of our senior staff in the East Outdoors Top Rope Instructor Leadership Certification course. This rigorous two-day training specifically meets the State of Maryland’s requirements for institutional rock climbing facilitators.

A great example of Calleva’s commitment to staff training is the recent participation of our senior staff in the East Outdoors Top Rope Instructor Leadership Certification course. This rigorous two-day training specifically meets the State of Maryland’s requirements for institutional rock climbing facilitators. I took this course, along with seven other senior Calleva staff.

Training Preparation

First we prepared for the certification exam by focusing on key instructional and rescue best practices, including:  

• Building and inspecting top rope and rappel anchors.
• Managing institutional rappel facilitation. 
• Practicing essential rescue techniques.  

We all already have a necessary foundation in climbing skills. This includes proficiency with climbing knots, belaying techniques, and anchor building, before attending the course.

Hands-on Instruction

We started with two full days of hands-on instruction at Carderock, Maryland. Then we demonstrated our skills in a thorough certification exam lasting about five hours. 

Through this course, myself and the seven other senior Calleva staff, learned the skills listed above. Additionally, we learned the reasoning behind every choice that we had to make in the process. Not only did we learn to build and inspect the top rope and rappel anchors, but we also learned to explain why we chose that specific tree, or that specific rock to use as an anchor point, and why our system was “set up” the way we did it. Each step we took in the process had reasoning and logic behind it.

This course had its challenges. For example, before this course I was really only expecting to learn how to set top rope anchors, but to my surprise, we also learned how to facilitate rappels and essential rescue techniques. These skills were not easy at first. We saw the skill once. Then we executed it to the best of our ability with the help of our Instructors.

By day three, we demonstrated these skills. This caused me stress. I normally do not test well, and this felt more important because it is a skill I would be using with children. Having my fellow Calleva staff doing this course with me, and starting at the same level of experience helped me a lot. It put us in a “we are in this together” perspective, and it definitely made the class a lot more fun and valuable.

As Calleva staff, we know how to have fun. While learning these new skills, we played the part of not only facilitators, but as campers too. This made the process a lot less intimidating. We had lots of laughs, and that helped relieve some of the tension.

Lessons Learned

Overall, I found this course well taught, and efficient. We were able to learn all of these new knots, hitches, anchors, and facilitation techniques in 2 days. Then we demonstrated proficiency on them on day three. When I think about that, it seems crazy.

To our East Outdoors Instructors, Tim and Eunny, Thank You. You both were so great to learn from and have helped us expand our interests and knowledge for climbing and rappelling with such ease.

Through this course, myself and the other Calleva staff gained invaluable knowledge and skills that ensure the highest level of safety and professionalism during our climbing and rappelling activities.

This is just one example of how Calleva invests in the training and expertise of our senior leadership team. If you’re interested in joining our team check out our work with us page.