Supporting Safe & Inclusive Community Outings

The summer months bring increased opportunities for individuals receiving services to participate in activities and outings and to become more involved in their local communities.  

During this episode, we sit down with Erin Pinchbeck and Carisa Huble from Northern Rivers Family of Services to discuss the benefits of community outings, as well as best practices for planning and executing outings to ensure they are safe and inclusive.  

We'll explore how factors such as navigating social expectations and maintaining appropriate supervision can contribute to an increase in incidents. We also discuss a compelling case study from the Justice Center: a lake outing where a breakdown in staff supervision and communication resulted in an individual being left unsupervised. We'll dissect what went wrong and examine how learning from these incidents can create meaningful change in your program's safety protocols.  

Transcript

Erin Hogan (00:10):

Hello, and welcome to the “Could This Happen in Your Program?” podcast, where we find collaborative solutions for protecting New York's most vulnerable populations. During this episode, we sit down with Erin Pinchbeck and Carisa Huble from Northern Rivers Family of Services. Hi. Thanks for joining us

To discuss the benefits of community outings as well as best practices for planning and executing outings to ensure that recipients are safe and included. So, thank you so much for joining us. I know we're right in the summer months, so community outings are probably happening more frequently. So I think this topic is really top of mind right now.

Can I let you introduce yourselves and just give a little background on your professional history and your work with Northern Rivers?

Erin Pinchbeck (00:54):

Absolutely. My name is Erin Pinchbeck. I'm the Senior Director of Residential Services at Northern Rivers on our Schenectady campus. And I've been working in residential care for about 18 years in different roles. Some of the roles have been residential counselor, supervisory roles, as well as a risk specialist role.

Carisa Huble (01:12):

And I'm Carisa Huble, also been in the field for 18 years. I started as a residential counselor and have just worked my way up to supervising. Currently, I'm a program manager for the residential program in Schenectady for Northern Rivers.

Erin Hogan (01:29):

Awesome. Can you just tell us a little bit about Northern Rivers?

Erin Pinchbeck (01:33):

Sure. Northern Rivers has been supporting families and youth since 1829. We're primarily located in Albany and Schenectadyi, but we do serve over 40 counties throughout the state. We have over 60 programs throughout Northern Rivers. Some include mental health, special education, of course, residential foster care, as well as crisis response.

Erin Hogan (01:54):

Excellent. Awesome. So our topic today is community outings. Can you talk a little bit about the positives with community outings? I've been told by the leadership at Northern Rivers that you are the people to go to for this topic. So tell me a little bit about what your involvement with planning executing community outings.

Carisa Huble (02:14):

So we do a lot of planning for the community outings, but given the trauma and experiences that our children have had, providing them with opportunities to be in the community to do positive things, to get out with adults that they can trust and are supporting them, it just does so much in the treatment for them and it builds those positive memories for the kids and gives them those positive experiences so that they see that there is good, that they can do things, that they can be successful. So it's also important that we're providing activities that they can be successful in as well, and we don't want to give them activities that they may not enjoy or be good at. We want them to have that success.

Erin Pinchbeck (02:57):

And I mean, the range of activities is, I mean, from Yankee games to going to state parks and going camping, the kids do all different sports theater as well as also giving back to the community. We have to be planful about when we go to the city mission and serve food to people and we go to animal shelters. We also do fall cleanups, spring cleanup, different things that we also show that we want to give back to the community and show the kids that that's important as well.

Erin Hogan (03:30):

Excellent. So the focus of this podcast is on safety. And so can you walk us through a little bit about the preparation for community outings? What types of preparatory actions do you take to ensure the safety of the individuals you serve?

Carisa Huble (03:49):

I would say the first thing that we look at is what is the activity? Who would benefit from this activity? Also, the staff. What staff are going to enjoy this activity? Because when you have staff who are engaged, the kids become more engaged and they get excited about the activity as well. So we're looking at when is this taking place? Medications? Do they have medications? We need to talk to the doctor about that. What van are we taking? Who's sitting where in that van? What staff is driving? So there's all those little details that we're looking at. So it's not just about, oh, we're going to go to the Yankee game today. It's going, what are we bringing with us? Do we have sunscreen? All of those different things that we have to look at. And we're really being very planful with all of those things. It's sometimes two weeks in advance, three weeks in advance that we're talking about those big trips and figuring out all those little details so that hopefully when we get to that location and we're participating in the activity, it goes as smoothly as possible.

Erin Pinchbeck (04:51):

And I think too, as Carisa mentioned, we do two, three weeks in advance at times for activities. We do have a recreation coordinator that talks with the kids to see what are you interested. We have supervisors that also ask, what are you interested in doing? So we want to not only do what the kids are, but as Carisa mentioned, staff have interests and they have talent. So it's bringing that to the table to show the kids that there are things and having the staff engaged in that. And I do think as well, the planning of it, starting it so far in advance really is helpful because then we can make sure the proper staff are in place to really support the kids on the outings.

Erin Hogan (05:29):

Excellent. And I'd imagine supervision is not necessarily a challenge, but something that you have to keep top of mind, especially supervising youth when they're out in the community. What does that look like? What's your process or your best practices for supervising when outside of the walls of your communities?

Carisa Huble (05:50):

So some kids will require different levels of supervision based on where they're at. So we have different supervision plans that we will put in place for kids. Some kids may need that one-to-one. Some kids may do better with a two to one. Our ratio for our RTC is three to one. However, when we're going on an outing, that may be a greater ratio where we're going to have more staff to fewer kids just to make sure that we have that supervision in place and that we can meet the kids where they're at so that they can be successful with the outing.

Erin Pinchbeck (06:25):

And even we do serve youth ages five to 12 as well in one of our units, and they might need a one-to-one on an outing. If we're taking a five-year-old to the Great Escape, we can't have three other youth with them and only one staff, they're going in and out of water, they're going on rides. So it's really important we’re making sure that that staffing is in place.

Erin Hogan (06:45):

As someone with a five-year-old, I can say for sure. They need all the supervision they can get. Exactly. Awesome. Okay, well, I think we're going to take a quick break. What I would just want to mention for our listeners, we do have an entire best practices guide for community outings and activities that was just launched. So we will link that up in the notes. We'll see you after the break, and we're going to read a case narrative and kind of talk to you a little bit about what you would do in your program in this specific situation. So just take a quick pause.

(07:36):

Okay. Well, welcome back. Thank you so much again for joining us. For our listeners, we're sitting down with Erin Pinchbeck and Carisa Huble from Northern Rivers Family Services. Thank you so much again for all of your insights earlier on in our program. So now as our listeners know, we take a case narrative and we kind of break it apart, see what we could do differently. We have our experts take apart the scenario and draw from your own personal experience and professional experience to educate our listeners. So we'll get right down to it. I'll read the narrative and then we'll dive in.

Erin Pinchbeck (08:12):

Sounds good. 

Erin Hogan (08:14):

On a hot day in July program staff brought five people to their local lake to go. Swimming staff ensured that each person was provided a personal flotation device. Nancy, a program staff member, volunteer to stay on the beach and suggested that Kyle, another staff member, swim with Gerald, a person receiving services who required one-to-one supervision when swimming. Throughout the day, people would sit with Nancy for snacks and shade and then would return to the lake to swim. After swimming with Kyle for an hour, Gerald wanted a snack. Kyle told Gerald that Nancy would help him get a snack and to head to shore. Kyle waved and called to Nancy, “Gerald's on his way.” In response, Nancy waved back to Kyle. However, Nancy did not hear Kyle and assumed Kyle was just waving high. So Nancy waved back while Gerald swam to shore, Kyle. Kyle was called over by another person swimming in the lake and went to supervise that person. When it was time to return to the program, Gerald was missing. Kyle found Gerald in the bathroom, but no one was sure how long Gerald was left alone.

So I'd imagine this is kind of common if you have individuals at a lake, there's a lot going on, splashing a bunch of kids. What can you tell us? Where are some of the failures here?

Erin Pinchbeck (09:30):

Yeah, I can start. I think this goes back to some of the notes that we had mentioned earlier. Supervision really is key. So making sure that staff know exactly who they're responsible to supervise is the first thing that needs to happen when planning an activity.

Erin Pinchbeck (09:47):

So if somebody is assigned a one-to-one, that one-to-one needs to be with that one-to-one at all times. If a youth needs a one-to-one, that means they need somebody with them at all times. So a youth cannot leave to go get a snack without that person being with them, they cannot hand that person off to another staff member who's responsible for other kids because they no longer then have a one-to-one. So I think the first issue in this scenario is the fact that the one-to-one did not have a one-to-one the entire time, and nobody knew who was really responsible for the rest of the kids.

Carisa Huble (10:19):

I would say another issue too is just communication. So we always have to be talking to one another, especially in an environment where there's going to be a lot of people. I have to be able to say, if I'm supervising a one-to-one, then I'm giving that supervision to Erin. Hey, Erin, so-and-so wants a snack. Can you take that over? And then I'm going back and resuming the supervision of where the other staff should have been supervising the other youth in the pool. So it would've been helpful, as Erin said, to have more staff in this situation to just make sure that all of those things could have happened

Erin Hogan (10:55):

And never assuming. Right, exactly. Don't assume anything. Exactly.

Erin Pinchbeck (10:58):

We can't count on nonverbal communications to assume somebody knows supervision levels and then the amount of staff that were at the event. You had one who had a one-to-one, you had one with the rest of the kids. Some kids might need to go to the bathroom, some kids might need other assistance. So having only one other staff member with the remainder of kids does make it difficult to make sure everybody is safe at all times.

Erin Hogan (11:20):

Right, right. Anything else in this case that you would call our listeners' attention to?

Erin Pinchbeck (11:30):

I would really, when programs are planning activities and planning what kids, just ensuring that the kids together make sense, so not all kids should be on activities together, making sure that they're at the same level, the swimming, can everybody swim? Do we need more staff for the swimming? So I think the major things are really what supervision levels, making sure we're following that, the communication that Carisa mentioned, and just ensuring we have the right amount of staff. As much as people want to go on activities, if we're not planful and we don't have the appropriate amount of staff, that activity should not happen. There are always other options that could be done that day. Sure.

Carisa Huble (12:11):

I would agree with that.

Erin Hogan (12:11):

Yeah. Yeah,

Carisa Huble (12:12):

There's a lot of planning that goes into these types of things, and it's really all about safety

Erin Hogan (12:18):

At the end of the day. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I think this was very educational for our listeners, and we will link up all those materials along with the “Could This Happen in Your Program?” toolkit, which has a laundry list of case scenarios from swimming to choking hazards to supervision, lots of great info in there. So we'll link that up and of course, thank you to our guests from Northern Rivers. We really appreciate having you. We hope to have you back again.