As agencies, we develop and cultivate our lifeguards’ skills through policy and in-service. The guards’ proficiency and effectiveness are maintained and improved with regular in-service sessions.
But, sadly, all the skills your lifeguards learn are perishable and will erode, even within the short time between in-services. That’s why it’s vital to follow up training with skill audits.
A skill audit verifies a lifeguard’s readiness to respond. When performed between in-services, they indicate skill erosion, allow leaders to know the level of their lifeguards’ readiness, and provide a means of determining the strength and effectiveness of the agency’s Emergency Action Plan. Let’s review the basics of a skill audit.
The ABC’s
The skill audit should support what was recently covered in the in-service sessions. It can be designed to gauge a single skill or multiple skills from the training.
The audits can be done at any time within the hours of operation, and any lifeguard should be ready to participate. This is a quick check-in administered when the guard is away from the chair — say, when they’re staging. The supervisor approaches and may say, “We’re going to do a quick skills audit. Show me CPR.”
Skill audits should be performed frequently and feel like just another part of the operation. The idea is to perform multiple audits everyday so that, in a month’s time, every lifeguard will have participated in at least one audit covering skills from in-service trainings held earlier in the season.
An audit should be quick, streamlined and efficient — no more than 3 minutes long with 1 minute or less of feedback, for a 4-minutes maximum. Transitions between skill audits should be about 1 minute. If you can make them quicker, I encourage it.
Why should they be so quick? You’re verifying the skill proficiency and speed of your lifeguards, as well as the effectiveness of your EAP.
Your audits also should show the connections between the most recent in-service and those held earlier in the season, and how they come together.
Real-world example
Below is a breakdown of three months’ worth of in-service sessions, the skill audits that come from the in-service topic and, lastly, how to merge multiple monthly in-service topics into skill audits.
March
In-service: Single rescuer CPR, which includes initial assessment of the victim, activation of EMS, opening an airway and giving effective ventilations, effective compressions, and single-rescuer CPR
Skill audits: • Initial assessment
• Activation of EMS
• Compressions
• Ventilations
• Single-rescuer CPR
April
In-service: Rapid extrication of a passive victim from the pool to the deck
Skill audits: • Rapid extrication
• Rapid extrication followed with an initial assessment
• Rapid extrication followed with initial assessment, EMS activation, and ventilations
• Rapid extrication followed with initial assessment and CPR
• CPR or components of CPR
May
In-service: Ventilations with a BVM (adult, child or infant)
Skill audits: • Ventilations with a BVM (adult)
• Ventilations with a BVM (child)
• Ventilations with a BVM (infant)
• CPR with BVM ventilations
• CPR with a pocket mask
• Ventilations from pocket mask to BVM
• Rapid extrication with initial assessment
• Rapid extrication with initial assessment followed with ventilations
• CPR or components of CPR
Notice how each month’s audits blend skills from the most recent in-service with those taught in the previous months.
Implementation
Skill audits should be transparent. The lifeguards should know why the agency performs them: Verifying the effectiveness of both the Emergency Action Plan, and the lifeguards’ role within it.
The agency should emphasize that skill audits present an opportunity for lifeguards to demonstrate their readiness and ability to respond to a critical incident. Here's an example of an in-service training and a skill audit.
As a part of the leadership team at your agency, your priority is to record and track all the skill audits done within your operation. The tracking should show consistency and frequency of skill audits; that they are done on multiple topics; that all staff participate; and they are done at all hours when the facility is open.
Remember: Skill audits make up an effective prevention and readiness measure within the larger operational scope. As a leader, you are expected to know the team’s readiness level at any given moment. Your lifeguards also should know their own the level of readiness, as well as the agency’s expectations. This awareness helps you strengthen your EAP.
Good luck, and keep training.
