The Association of Aquatic Professionals (AOAP) and the International Lifeguard Critical Incident Response Alliance (ILCIRA) have formed a strategic alliance to address an issue that often eludes aquatics managers: How to
help staff process the psychological impact of rescues and other traumatic or critical events.
The partnership will focus on ILCIRA’s core mission of strengthening the aquatics industry’s ability to provide critical incident support and foster mental health for lifeguards and other aquatic professionals.
“By doing so, the organizations acknowledge that lifeguards and aquatic professionals are first responders who carry the emotional weight of their work long after an incident ends and deserve resources to manage that burden,” ILCIRA and AOAP said.
AOAP will bring its capacity to provide education, professional development and operational support with ILCIRA’s expertise, the organizations said. They plan to expand availability of training and resources, and development of best practices to help deal with severe or traumatic incidents and promote mental wellness of lifeguards and other responders.
“For too long, the aquatic industry has focused almost exclusively on the physical skills of rescue, while neglecting the internal aftermath those rescues leave behind,” said ILCIRA President Tyler Anderson. “By adopting response frameworks consistent with internationally recognized emergency service standards, we are ensuring that lifeguards are no longer expected to ‘just get over’ a traumatic event. Our alliance with AOAP is a pivotal step in treating aquatic professionals with the same respect and psychological safeguards as any other first responder.”
This training comprises not only showing how to respond and provide support after an incident, but also to better prepare staff in advance to recover from trauma. This helps build resilience. “That is the proactive portion of the … continuum of care,” Anderson said.
He hopes the new alliance addresses one of the reasons the aquatics field has come later to adopting critical incident stress management [CISM] — a lack of resources. Where cities can fund such care for their fire and police departments, a stand-alone aquatics center can’t do the same thing, especially considering that such incidents occur much less frequently than for their fire and police counterparts.
In addition to easing access to training for aquatics professionals across the spectrum, Anderson also hopes to form a team through AOAP that will provide assistance to the industry in general when needed.
He expects this to take a few years to build.