National Park Service

Trails Safe Lesson 4 - Mission Analysis

Summary

In Lesson about mission analysis, we're going to give you some tools, so that you'll be able to assess the risk that you have identified and reduce those risks to as low as reasonably practical.

Overview

TRAIL SAFE! is a unique safety training program designed specifically for National Park Service (NPS) Trail Volunteers but is useful to everyone! It's based upon NPS Operational Leadership Training, where the Human Factor of safety is explored. Trail Safe! captures the core learning objectives of the 16 hour Operational Leadership course while allowing volunteers to learn from their own homes on-line.

The Trail Safe! series is found below in eight video lessons, each ranging in length from 18 to 40 minutes long. Viewing the entire eight lesson series will take approximately three hours. Watch them over the course of multiple days, or "binge watch" the entire series in three hours—it's up to you—but please watch them in numeric order from Lesson 1 through Lesson 8.

Lesson 4

Welcome to Lesson 4 of Trail Safe, Mission Analysis. In the previous lesson, Lesson 3, we we saw how exposure to threats can lead to accidents. Back in Lesson 2, we saw how designated leaders and functional leaders can help to control threats. Now in this lesson about mission analysis, we're going to give you some tools, so that you'll be able to assess the risk that you have identified and reduce those risks to as low as reasonably practical. ALRP. To do that, let's first review the principles of operational risk management.

Operational risk management is the identification in control of risk according to a set of common factors that we all agree upon. Operational risk management applies to our individual and group activities, our missions out on the trail as well as our off duty activities. The word operational includes any volunteer who contributes to the overall mission of the National Park Service. All volunteer trail jobs, tasks, and projects have different levels of risk, but all have risks. Managing risk means we eliminate, reduce, or manage threats that can lead to accidents.

There are four key principles to operational risk management. The first is to accept no unnecessary risk. Unnecessary risk does not contribute any benefit to the situation at hand. Always accomplish your task or project by exposing yourself and other volunteers to risk levels that are as low as reasonably practical. ALRP.

Trail Types Covered

General. All trail types are relevant.