How can a public agency take the first steps toward developing a drowning prevention campaign within the community?
I imagined a school district would make an ideal place to start. Just think: There’s access to thousands of impressionable minds, all energized, active and ready to learn. I envisioned teachers enthusiastic in promoting our mission through water-safety presentations in the classroom and swim lessons at the high school pool.
It would be easy, and everyone would be happy … But it’s not. It’s not easy and everyone is not happy. Not at first, anyway.
Schools and school districts are a different beast. They function like a city within a city, managing their own unique obstacles and opportunities. Everyone — whether students, teachers or administrators — have full plates. So they weren’t necessarily as eager as we’d expected at the opportunity to learn about swimming and water safety. But with time, patience and a willingness to challenge some of our own assumptions, we found ways to accomplish our objective — helping protect the kids and building a more water-literate population.
It’s a process
We thought that bringing swimming and safety education to school-aged children would go a long way toward safeguarding our community against drowning. Not only that — we needed to create a strong connection to potential future employees. And what quicker way to engage a population that is at risk?
But we hit a major obstacle right away — just getting someone to answer our phone calls or reply to emails. It required multiple attempts over the course of weeks. Sometimes I had to show up in person and explain, “Hey, I want to participate and partner with you.” Once contact was finally made, it still took flurries of emails flying back and forth, along with multiple cancellations and rescheduling of meetings.
I wish I could say that, once you make it to the classroom, everything will be smooth and streamlined. Far from it. Trust needs to be established with both teachers and students before the drowning prevention campaign can be initiated. Trust building takes time but is necessary to move forward.
Furthermore, if you want to work with schools, you have to find out their needs and meet them where they are. You can’t expect the school to accommodate your original idea. And you may need to lower your expectations.
Classroom obstacles
Here was my vision for a drowning-prevention campaign: For elementary and middle schools, a class presentation that included water-safety story time, students donning a lifejacket and doing a reaching/throwing rescue. For high schools: learning how to don a lifejacket and perform a reaching/throwing rescue, participation in a two-to-three-week PE swimming class; then high school students would provide a water-safety presentation at elementary and middle schools.
This should be an easy and reasonable implementation process, right?
Well, it didn’t go as planned. Let’s talk about high school. Learning to don a lifejacket and perform a reaching/throwing rescue: hasn’t happened. Providing water-safety presentations to elementary and middle schools: hasn’t happened. That PE swimming class? Sort of. But that doesn’t mean everyone is in the water. Some students don’t bring a swimsuit, others hang out on the bleachers. Some don’t want to participate because of body-image issues, or they won’t have enough time to redo their hair and makeup in time for the next class.
It can get frustrating. It was for me. I thought that if you provide it, “They will come.”
But building trust and changing behavior is a process. It took six months to increase student participation. Word of mouth from participating students helped. Then the high temperatures probably incentivized some. But we did make some changes: We had found that if we just focused on providing instruction, we didn’t get the best results. So we try to make sure the students enjoy themselves.
Every one of them who makes it in the water is one step closer to becoming water-safe.
The role of responsiveness
When working with teachers and administrators, we had to be flexible, in both the planning and implementation of the classes. It’s about what the school or school district wants to pursue and what is realistic to implement.
If a certain time doesn’t work, or if you have to change plans on short notice, it’s really about how we can support them. If that means we have to be more flexible, or we’re going to teach different content than we had planned, we go with it.
For instance, we had an unexpected twist: One high school wanted to train and develop a cohort of students to become CPR instructors. Their goal was to certify the entire student body. It wasn’t my first choice, but expanding CPR into the school environment aligns with the United States National Water Safety Action Plan. Five months later, overcoming challenges such as supply shortages, poor internet connectivity, bell schedules, and even a called-in bomb threat, we got 26 student instructors trained. After receiving mentorship and guidance in equipment logistics and classroom management, those student instructors went on to train and certify more than 400 others. This year, the students want to train and certify more than 600. My task is to support them however they need.
By supporting their priorities, we create an opportunity for us to present our own priorities — drowning prevention, increased safety education, and a means for us to start recruiting a seasonal workforce. So it’s give and take.
Building for the future
We also have to look at sustainability — setting schools up to provide water-safety instruction without us. It will be teachers becoming instructor trainers. It will be that every high school has its own library of instructor and participant manuals for each course. And every high school will have their own training supplies: CPR
manikins, swim lesson equipment, and First Aid/AED equipment. It will be mean high schools will have a donor or method to cover the perishable expenses, such as gloves, CPR manikin lungs, cleaning supplies, pocket masks, and certification fees.
And it means my agency transitions from a provider of all things to a supporter that offers guidance and expertise to accomplish those goals.
We’re taking another step. I learned that many high schools have Career Technical Education (CTE) pathways, focusing on subjects like Bio-Med, Construction, Criminal Justice, and Teaching. We’re now working with one high school to get students in its Teaching CTE to become water-safety ambassadors and give the presentations. It goes back to sustainability. I don’t have the staff to consistently make presentations, but if I can get CTE students interested in presenting to elementary classrooms annually, I think we would be one step closer to reducing the drowning rate.
Rewarding work
Now we’re doing good work with the schools.
Between two high schools in one district, we have roughly 1,000 students actively in the water for PE swimming. Before, there was no swim class, let alone instruction that could prepare them to become lifeguard candidates.
It’s slow progress, but it’s meaningful. It just required adjusting our delivery system. Now we go to them and start where they are to work with them, as opposed to figuring, “Hey, if you want to work with us, you need to jump through this hoop and this hoop and this hoop.”
Schools and school districts are a different beast. The work is hard, stressful and fulfilling.
Good luck and keep training.
