Your Journey with ExploreAbility
We are your guide to disability inclusion in outdoor adventure.
Here's a map for what your journey could look like:
Plan to Peak Workshops
Our Plan to Peak workshops are a comprehensive approach to help your organization provide access to outdoor adventure for people with disabilities. There are three levels of workshops that provide a clear progression towards reaching the summit of outdoor adventures.
Disability Awareness helps individuals and organizations understand the unique needs and abilities of people with disabilities.
Inclusion teaches basic adaptations and accommodations that can be made to include people with disabilities in outdoor activities.
Adaptive modules provide specialized training in technical skills for specific outdoor activities.
By following this progression, participants can build a solid foundation of knowledge and skills that will enable their clients to reach their peak potential.
At ExploreAbility, we are committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment where everyone can enjoy the thrill of outdoor adventure.
Adaptive Products
We provide assistance in sourcing adaptive products to help people with disabilities fully participate in outdoor activities.
Contact us to learn more.
Our Practices
Person First Language
A person’s disability is not their primary defining feature. When discussing a person, they are referred to as their ‘person’ first, with any particular diagnosis as just one part of their full identity.
Person First Programming
A participant’s abilities and desires are the foundational determining factors in creating and delivering adaptive programs. Active listening and unbiased observation are key to discovering these factors and planning accordingly.
Experiential learning
There are five typical senses that are used by the average person. Hearing, Sight, Taste, Touch, Smell. People who have disabilities have a either a variation on these senses or do not have them at all. Experiential Learning is utilizing the whole self, even the senses that might not work ‘typically’ to expand the paradigm of learning.
Challenge by Choice
Participants set their own goals, and are free to adjust those goals at any time as they see fit. We are present to support their achieving those goals by offering encouragement and expertise, but never by pushing someone to involuntary start or continue an activity.
Incremental Gains
We do not expect people or organizations to change overnight. However, we do expect that through providing our products, training, and expertise there will be some degree of change. Our goal is to help people travel one step further down the road of awareness to accessibility to inclusion.
Andrew Galster
Founding Director
Andrew has a passion for adaptive programs that facilitate adventure experiences for children and adults with physical, cognitive and medical needs.
His professional adaptive experience comes from:
Easter Seals’ Camp Horizon, where he developed and managed programs that enable accessible experiences ranging from traditional camp activities to multi-day backcountry excursions.
The Canadian National Institute for the Blind, where he led a complex re-design of its core program offerings as the Executive Director in Alberta, then served as their first national Director of Program Development and Evaluation.
ExploreAbility, where he creates and delivers workshops, develops and tests products, and consults for organizations working on their inclusiveness.
But most importantly, Andrew is also a proud father of two children, one of whom lives with special needs. His son was born very premature at 26 weeks, 515 g (1 lb. 2 oz.) and lives with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy and autism..
Andrew's greatest hope for his son is that he will always see and explore his own ability.