IANTD and The Human Diver recently announced that they have teamed up to provide a specific IANTD website offering a new online program that teaches the “Human Factors” of diving.
IANTD is one of the first agencies to publicly and formally recognize the benefit of learning and then applying this topic to diving to improve diver and team performance and as a consequence, diver safety.
Diving always has an inherent risk of death or injury due to the environment we expose ourselves to. However, despite this risk, the rewards are often very much worth it, which is why we continue to dive and explore. Technical advances, such as rebreathers, cold water regulators. lights and thermal protection, have improved safety by addressing the technical component, and training materials now facilitate greater learning with a modular approach and lessons learned from science and practice being applied.
However, until recently, nothing has been done to improve our understanding of human performance and cognitive failures in a coherent manner when considering situational awareness, decision making, communications, teamwork, leadership and performance shaping factors, lessons which the aviation, nuclear, healthcare and the oil and gas sectors have recognized for decades when it comes to improving safety and performance.
That changed when Gareth Lock from The Human Diver launched his Human Factors in Diving programs in January 2016. Since then, he has taught more than 210 divers face-to-face across the globe and enrolled more than 1000 divers on his online micro-classes. The online micro-class won the TekDiveUSA18 Innovation Award “For innovation and/or product design that has increased the safety and extended the field of technical diving.” Additionally, Lock has worked with Instructor Trainers and Instructors as well as senior leadership from numerous agencies to improve their performance, along with the scientific diving and military diving communities to improve diving safety and a “Just Culture.”
Additionally, Lock has twice been nominated for the Divers Alert Network’s DAN Rolex Diver of the Year.
Phil Short, UK Training Director for IANTD, said:
“This (Human Factors) course instilled in me the importance of this additional knowledge and skill set within diving. With this in mind, as Training Director of IANTD UK, I highly recommend the microclass as pre-learning for Diver, Instructor and Instructor Trainer candidates at all levels.”
The “Human Factors” program can be accessed online via a portal that allows different regions to access the program and is highly recommended as pre-course learning for diver, instructor and instructor training.
While only an English language video is currently available, the aim is to produce subtitled videos and specific language versions in due course.
For more info, check out the video below or go to iantd-hf.com.
