The Wilderness Experience for Adolescents with Type 2 Diabetes (WE-AD) Program
Creators: name: Brown, Michael
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2011

description: In the following, I describe a detailed program plan and evaluation strategy for a new program: The Wilderness Experience for Adolescents with Type 2 Diabetes (WE-AD) program. The WE-AD program seeks to utilize wilderness experiences to help adolescents with type 2 diabetes to improve their decision-making skills and increase their self-confidence/sense of self-efficacy in an environment of peer support. In their description of the wilderness challenge model, Kimball and Bacon describe wilderness experiences as adventure therapy that is a "frontal assault on learned helplessness, dependency, and feelings of low self-worth." The wilderness challenges people to push their boundaries, learn new skills and adapt to new and changing situations. In doing so, these experiences have the power to build self-confidence and foster a strong sense of self-efficacy. Wilderness experience also necessitate an ongoing assessment of the potential risks presented by physical challenges, terrain, animals and weather and requires travelers to make decisions with immediate and serious consequences. The tangibility of their decisions helps to improve decision-making capacity. In addition to improving decision-making capacity and self-confidence, the third focus area of the WE-AD program is the creation of an environment of peer support. Throughout the trip, participants will benefit from the encouragement of others as they struggle to complete the expedition. Participants can also provide support for one another in their efforts to self-manage their diabetes and achieve positive lifestyle changes. Participants empowered with the decision-making capacity and confidence to travel in the wilderness with peers may return to their daily lives and transfer these skills to help them take control of their disease. Through improved nutrition, increased physical activity, medication adherence, and the avoidance of tobacco and alcohol, participants can reduce their risk of diabetic complications and improve the longevity and quality of their lives. In the first section of this paper, I have conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify programs with similarities to the WE-AD program in order to inform the planning and evaluation of the program. Lessons learned from other programs have been applied in the development of the WE-AD program plan and evaluation strategy. In the second section, I describe the WE-AD program plan including; the rationale for the program, relevant program theories, its goals and objectives, the plan for implementation, a detailed budget and a plan to provide for its sustainability. In the third section, I detail the WE-AD program evaluation plan in which I describe; the rationale for the evaluation, my approach to the evaluation, the study design and methods, and present a logic model. Detailed evaluation planning tables and a plan for dissemination of the findings are also included. I conclude with a discussion of potential challenges and outline the next steps to be undertaken.