{"id":8433,"date":"2017-04-27T20:59:28","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T20:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/water-safety-part-ii-water-watchers\/"},"modified":"2017-04-27T20:59:28","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T20:59:28","slug":"water-safety-part-ii-water-watchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/water-safety-part-ii-water-watchers\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Safety – Part II: Water Watchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, we covered Water Safety: Prevention, which is a really good first line of defense against childhood drownings. Now we want to talk about the Water Watcher <\/strong>program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWater Watcher\u201d is a simple program that any household can implement to make their children and\/or adults safer. The program is designed around the idea of never leaving a child alone in or near the water, even for a moment<\/em>. There should always be someone watching the water with children at all times.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, drowning is still the number 1 cause of accidental death for children aged 5 and under.\u00a0 Sadly, the majority of drownings that take place are accidental, and occur with someone who could have helped within 25 yards of them. Drowning is a quiet affair that often occurs without anyone noticing.<\/p>\n

Clearly, what we need are \u201cWater Watchers.\u201d The Water Watcher has one function: to act as a drowning prevention tool.<\/p>\n

At British Swim School, we distribute “Water Watcher” cards on lanyards to all of our families and we explain how to use them. We encourage everyone to use the \u201cWater Watcher\u201d cards at your home and water outings. Assign one adult as the Water Watcher and insist they wear the badge and lanyard. They can\u2019t relinquish their \u201cWatcher\u201d status until the pool is empty of swimmers, or the badge is handed on to another adult, who then becomes the new \u201cWater Watcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWater Watchers\u201d don\u2019t play cards, or read or leave the swim area. \u201cWater Watchers\u201d focus on swimmers and are ready to act if someone goes into Aquatic Distress or worse. \u201cWater Watchers\u201d are ready to jump in the pool, ask swimmers if they need help, and extend a hand to someone in trouble. If the “Water Watcher” has to pick up a phone or go to the bathroom, he\/she hands the lanyard over to the next person.\u00a0 And, \u201cWater Watchers\u201d can also enforce overall safety by halting running on the concrete and stopping unsafe horseplay in the water. Often times, there can be confusion about who is watching the kids in the pool. With the \u201cWater Watcher\u201d card and lanyard, everyone knows who the designated person is, so no more blaming each other!<\/p>\n

BSS \u201cWater Watchers\u201d Community Outreach<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the Drowning Prevention Coalition our goal is to share the \u201cWater Watcher\u201d card with as many families as possible. We believe that when correctly used, the \u201cWater Watcher\u201d Safety Program may save many lives. We ask that responsible adult(s) wear the \u201cWater Watcher\u201d badge on a lanyard at all pool\/lake\/beach gatherings; including kids\u2019 birthday parties, family reunions, and during everyday water time.<\/p>\n

We will be distributing the Water Watcher cards to the public at our pool location at LA Fitness 121 Main St. in Stoneham during the entire month of May. Come pick up your water watcher card and get your own \u201cWater Watcher\u201d program started this Spring!<\/p>\n

Take the Water Safety Pledge at britishswimschool.com\/water-safety\/<\/a> and download other useful water safety tips!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, we covered Water Safety: Prevention, which is a really good first line of defense against childhood drownings. Now we want to talk about the Water Watcher program. \u201cWater Watcher\u201d is a simple program that any household can implement to make their children and\/or adults safer. The program is designed around the idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-safety"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}