Children love our Safety Team tent and our stickers, but what they seem to enjoy most is being engaged and challenged about the sport they love. Whether it is skiing or snowboarding, it’s not hard to sense how much they take pride in learning and knowing the safety practices that go along with the sport.
At a recent safety event, the children engaged in creating a safety chain. They each took a long, rectangular, precut paper and were asked to write advice for being safe while skiing or riding. They eagerly and creatively went to work. Each completed paper was stapled around in a circle linking with the circle before it thus creating a chain. They had produced their own Know the Code and had fun listening, reading, and learning from one another.
There are so many creative activities to enable young skiers and riders to
reinforce safety and teach them to be more responsible and more confident on the mountain. The impact we have as patrollers to leave an impression with children regarding safety is important and something these same children later in life may pull out of their tool box when pressured by friends to go faster or not sit back on a lift and use the safety bar.
All patrollers are part of the Safety Team. “Safety First” extends beyond scene size up during incidents to our everyday life especially when we don our patrol jackets and encounter our youngest mountain patrons. The next time you greet children in the liftline, on the slope, or in the lodge, ask them what they did to be safe while skiing or boarding today. Perhaps they attended a Safety event, and they will be proud to tell you!
