Effective supervision by Lifeguards is a critical preventative step in ensuring patron safety. Unfortunately, with limited time for training and ongoing professional development it is often overlooked in favour of focussing on rescue and emergency response skills. While we can all understand why, this situation is not ideal.

This online learning module will:

- ask Lifeguards to reflect on their knowledge, skills and training so far

- ask Lifeguards to analyse their experiences supervising a pool and the internal and external challenges they have faced

- define these challenges, familiar and unfamiliar, and explain why they exist

- provide a range of strategies and solutions to overcome these challenges and outline a range of best practice techniques; some of which should be known to Lifeguards and others which will be new and can be added to their skill set.

Cost: $50

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The safety and wellbeing of children should sit at the heart of any organisation’s values. However, this does not mean that development and implementation of child safe practices is always as good as it needs to be or that improvements can’t be made. Further to this, ensuring children’s safety in an aquatic industry context can present a range of additional and specialised challenges.

This is why Royal Life Saving have developed two online child safety modules; one targeted at frontline workers and the other at management level staff. The chief purpose of the modules is to assist the aquatic industry, and its workforce, to develop a clear understanding of the expectations, legal requirements and best practices relating to child safety.

Frontline staff: This is essentially designed for swim teachers, program instructors, pool lifeguards, and any other staff that come into regular contact with children through their role at an aquatic facility, swim school or similar. It focuses on equipping learners with knowledge and skills around appropriate and inappropriate conduct, identifying abuse-including identifying grooming behaviours, and obligations and best practice around responding to and reporting abuse or suspected abuse. It should take around 30 minutes to complete.

Management Staff: This is essentially designed for those in leadership and management roles within an aquatic industry organisation and for any role that requires leadership and oversight on child safety, e.g. Child Safety Officer. It covers the same content as the Frontline version, but also looks more closely at what can be done at an organisational level, in terms of instilling and promoting a child safe culture, using the 10 Child Safe Standards as a guiding framework, and effectively managing risks to children’s safety at all levels. It should take around 45 minutes to complete.

The modules are ultimately designed to give those that work in the industry confidence and clarity in managing this extremely important and at times challenging part of their roles.

Cost: $50

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It's quite simple, effective communication is the lifeblood of any organisation! How all levels of staff communicate with each other and how they communicate with your patrons and external stakeholders shapes the daily operations and overall success of any business. This online module aims to take this key skill to a higher level; to give your staff the knowledge, skills and techniques to communicate more effectively.

Like many of the professional development products on offer through Royal Life Saving the communication skills module has been written in response to feedback from the aquatic industry and with aquatic industry employees firmly in mind. The module should take around 30 minutes to complete and is broken down into four main learning themes:

• Why communication is important

• What good communication involves

• Types of communication within an organisation

• Communication scenarios

Each of these themes is explored in detail through a range of stories or scenarios relayed through characters in typical aquatic industry roles: swim teacher, swim school coordinator, customer service officer/manager, lifeguard, lifeguard duty manager, facility manager. The characters and scenarios are used to explore key concepts that will lead to a better understanding of communication. They are also used to demonstrate strategies and techniques, in authentic settings, that outline how to adjust your communication techniques, how to communicate effectively in a range of situations, and what can be achieved when these strategies are used well.

The module will lead to a better understanding and appreciation of the fact that even though communication is a skill we all have, it is very much a skill that can be improved, especially in a workplace context. Beyond that, it will give you practical tips and techniques that will serve you well in any professional or personal setting.

Cost: $50

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The course has been produced following feedback in the 2019 National Aquatic Industry Workforce Survey in which industry professionals cited managing conflict high on their list of preferred professional development topics.

The online course is broken down into four main learning themes:

• Understanding conflict

• Identifying conflict

• Personality types and conflict

• How to manage conflict situations

Each of these themes is explored through several animated scenarios created in familiar aquatic industry settings. Each scenario examines various pathways of a conflict situation depending on the actions and responses of participants to help guide them through the key steps and strategies for managing conflict and support them to understand the potential outcomes.

The focus of the course is on managing conflict situations through to a positive outcome to lead to a better understanding and appreciation of the challenges, thereby building stronger relationships between colleagues, customers and employers.

This course will give aquatic industry employees the knowledge, tools and techniques to understand and manage conflict so that they can approach difficult situations with confidence and bring about better outcomes for themselves, the organisation they work for and the aquatic industry in general.

Cost: $50

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The Swim Teaching for Participants on the Autism Spectrum PD module is designed for swim teachers that are starting out in this area of specialised teaching, or those with experience looking to test and update their knowledge and skills.

The combination of knowledge building and practical tips and strategies will give teachers the ability to move forward with confidence and clarity and deliver highly effective and enjoyable lessons in this rewarding but sometimes challenging area.

Cost: $50

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The course upskills current teachers by developing their skills and knowledge for teaching lifesaving. It is targeted at teachers of swimming and water safety, and physical education, and acts as a conduit to growing participation in grassroots lifesaving programs and sport, while providing further career opportunities.

The course acknowledges that teachers have varying degrees of prior knowledge and skills but the intention is to extend their expertise, improve understanding of the context and theory that underpins skills, address gaps to improve learner outcomes and program quality, as well as provide an opportunity to reflect on personal teaching practices.

After completing the Teacher of Lifesaving course teachers will be better able to:

• Adapt lessons to suit the learning environment, the cohort and program objectives

• Explain and demonstrate lifesaving techniques with technical expertise

• Select appropriate activities, equipment and resources for teaching

• Identify errors and provide feedback to improve and motivate students

• Apply best practice teaching principles and strategies in a lifesaving context

The Teacher of Lifesaving is an e-learning course that consists of four modules:

1. How to Teach Lifesaving

2. Personal Survival Skills

3. Teaching Rescue

4. Teaching Basic Resuscitation

The learning approach focuses on the key elements of: Context, Technique and Teaching. The content covers:

• Why the module is important

• What students should be thinking about

• What techniques to teach

• What strategies to use to ensure a quality lesson

A range of learning activities are used to provide an interactive and educational experience, including video, hypotheticals, knowledge prompts, true/false, drag and drop, click and reveal tiles, and scenarios.

The course duration is approximately 90-120 minutes (20-30 minutes per module).

On successful completion, participants will receive the Teacher of Lifesaving Award and the course has been recognised by AUSTSWIM for 2 hours of professional development.

Cost: $50

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