Handicapped Scuba Association (HSA) Dive Buddy Training

Earlier this month FPAN staff from the East Central and Northwest attended the HSA Dive Buddy Training in Tallahassee. What exactly is the HSA Drive Buddy Training? Well, in a nut shell, it is a training that prepares a diver to work with another diver with disabilities or accessibly issues. 

The training consisted of lectures on different types of disabilities, how they happen, and more specialized to the training; learning to dive with accessibly issues. Each diver experienced a dive as a paraplegic, quadriplegic, and blind diver, as well as, diving as the HSA Buddy.  

Photo by HSA instructor Gabrielle K Gabrielli

The training was honestly enlightening. Not only by experiencing a dive as a disabled diver, but by learning the best way to engage with individuals with accessibility issues. In the past I have worked with a local blind school in Pensacola, but this training provided more insight in to how FPAN can make all of their programs more accessible.

Archaeology, and diving, is a sensory experience for most people. You see, feel, hear, smell, and even taste soils, artifacts, and the sites themselves, but up when I think about most of our programming we only highlight two of our senses, sight and sound. I believe this training has provided me with the skills to be a HSA dive buddy, but also just a buddy to those with accessibility issues.

I tend to think about my programming a bit more, trying to find a way to incorporate more of the senses. I hope that I can continue to use this knowledge to better my and FPAN's outreach potential.