HFSD-Webinar Series - Cave/CCR/Tech Divers

To facilitate maximum global uptake, the webinar is being run twice per day on the days of the class, 12:00 GMT and 20:00 GMT, make sure you select the correct time. There will still be some for whom these times still don't work, but the webinar will be available in the Human Factors Academy website to view at a time suitable for you.  


Why do the course? 

Every one of us makes mistakes every day, even the experts. For that very reason, the aviation, nuclear power and medical professions have invested huge resources in helping their personnel to get better at not making those mistakes, and if they do, how to capture them before it gets really bad. Now it's your chance to learn how they do it. It's a new way of thinking and planning to avoid the errors that even the best of us make, errors that can cost lives.

This is a 10-part weekly webinar programme which runs twice per day with a different group in each. The times are split to gain maximum global coverage so pick the time that best works for you. This class will run on a Monday 12:00 and 20:00 GMT.

The aim is to: develop your knowledge, give you skills to make your diving more fun, your team work more effective, and improve your safety in the process.


Non-Technical Failures

The majority of accidents and incidents that occur in diving are not a result of undetectable technical equipment failures, or the physical environment; they are down to the performance variability of humans. What? Ok, we all make mistakes and sometimes break 'rules'!!

Despite popular websites links such as (#3 Google hit!) that list decompression sickness, embolisms, narcosis, oxygen toxicity, and marine life as being the 'biggest dangers in scuba diving', the greatest problem divers face is the grey matter between our ears. The same brain that allows us to do amazing things - like operating in high-tempo situations where uncertainty and ambiguity are the norm - also leads to errors and mistakes because of the mental shortcuts that we take.

We cannot remove human error; it is an intrinsic part of being human. Seeing as we cannot remove it, why not look instead to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitude to reduce the likelihood of errors or lapses occurring in the first place? It is the same approach to reducing accidents that the Civil and Military Aviation, Nuclear Power, Healthcare, and Oil & Gas industries have all taken. Such skills include understanding why humans make the decisions they do; how to be effective in communications, especially assertion skills; what stages every team goes through when they come together; and how leadership is present in any diving environment. In some domains, they are known as Crew Resource Management, or non-technical skills. Both terms are likely to cause confusion, so we've called them Human Factors Skills in Diving.


Your own pace if you can't make the webinar date/time

While this is a webinar-based class, the sessions will be recorded and can be watched later on from within the website. Following sign-up, access to the contents will remain available for as long as they are hosted on the Human Factors Academy. The website is specifically designed to work on all Internet-enabled devices like mobile phones and tablets, giving those who undertake the webinar-based course the freedom to learn wherever and whenever it suits them (as long as they have a data connection, Wifi or GSM/3G/4G).


Targeted Reading List

Each module has a reading list specific to the module of the course.  Where possible links have been provided to open access documents as it is recognised that access to journals can be an issue for the majority of divers. These are additional reading items and not required for the certificate to be issued, just mark the section 'As Complete'.


Reduce the risk. Improve personal and team performance.

These human factors classes are globally unique. $250 for over 10 hours of training is great value, especially considering that the skills and knowledge learned can also be applied in non-diving situations. Besides extending your diving knowledge, the webinar-based class will help to determine if the full, two-day course is what is needed to deliver a higher performance in diving. 


Guarantee

We are so confident that the webinar-based class delivers great training and value for money, that we offer a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee. If you decide to take this offer up, all we ask is that you provide a comprehensive reasons so we can improve the class for other people - we make mistakes too!



Who is my trainer?

Gareth Lock is a retired Royal Air Force senior officer Navigator of 25 years, who was both a senior supervisor and a tactical flight instructor on an operational C-130 flying squadron. He has a MSc in Aerospace Systems from Kingston University and spent the last 5 years in the RAF as a Requirements Manager for Defensive Aids Systems working across all levels of industry, reseach and the military from front-line user to very senior officers, both in the UK and in the US.  

Shortly after leaving the RAF in 2014, he delivered eight months of Well Operations Crew Resource Management (WOCRM) training and coaching to oil workers in an offshore environment, the results of which were presented by Gareth and Phil Smith (Managing Director of Critical Team Performance) at the oil and gas industry's international (IADC Human Factors) conference in Houston. In June 2015, Gareth completed the TOP-SET three-day Senior Investigator root cause analysis course, considered an industry standard in Oil & Gas, heavy industry, and rail incident and accident investigation.

In 2012, Gareth started his PhD, examining the role of human factors in scuba diving incidents. He is published in a number of magazines and journals, has presented at nine international diving conferences on Human Factors in diving, and manages the Diving Incident and Safety Management System incident database.

In terms of diving experience, Gareth is an Open Circuit advanced trimix diver (Technical Diver Level 2 with Global Underwater Explorers) and normoxic trimix CCR diver (JJ-CCR with TDI) with around 800 dives over 12 years of diving. He is also an accomplished underwater photographer with a deep interest in cold, green water wreck diving.

He was recently appointed Global Underwater Explorer's Director for Risk Management, responsible for developing the performance of instructors and instrcutor trainers and building a Just Culture within this learning-cultured organisation.

Finally, Gareth is now certified as a trainer in the Process Communciation Model (PCM), a tool used for more than 20 years by NASA as part of their astronaut selection programme. This model has identified predictable outcomes for different types within personalities* when they encounter distress - this means that by recognising these signs in non-stress behaviour we can predict what individuals are likely to do when under distress. It also provides the means by which we can bring individuals back into a stress-free zone. 

*these are not personality types - everyone has these six types within them, one is the one they were born with (base) and the other in which they shows signs of eustress or distress (phase).