PROPEL SUMMER PROGRAM TEACHES KIDS TO SWIM

In Florida  the  beach and pool are in season all year.  But a new study released by USA Swimming shows that many Black Americans can’t safely join the fun: 70 percent of African-American children have little to no swimming ability, nearly twice as many as white kids, the report found. In addition, Black children 14 years old and younger are 2.6 times more like to fatally drown than white children in the same age group.

These disparities are what led PROPEL to make sure its participants lean to swim while at summer camp. PROPEL  aims to reduce drowning statistics among minority youth by providing access to swim lessons at no cost during the participants stay at summer camp. 

USA Swimming’s study found that, rather than the cost of swimming lessons, lack of parental encouragement is actually the main barrier to minority children learning how to swim. It’s generational. Parents don’t know how, and don’t find it very high on the priority list,  That unfamiliarity breeds a great deal of fear, which explains much of parental hesitation to send their kids to swim lessons.

“Some parents think of water just like fire: ‘Don’t go near it,’”. As a result, many Black and Latino kids never learn to swim. Others children try to self-teach swimming, and develop a false confidence that can be dangerous. To measure whether a child is truly water safe, PROPEL uses the swim test by the BSA which questions include: “Can you swim 20 yards? Can you swim the length of a pool? Can you swim four lengths of the pool? Can you hold yourself above water/ float  for 1 minute? Can you do the backstroke? If you were to fall into the water, could you get yourself to the shallow end? The children are tested and then taught specific skills to improve their swimming performance.

Ultimately, PROPEL's  focus is teaching essential Life Skills and one our our outreach programs is to teach participants to swim at summer camp.  The partnership with the BSA Gulf Stream Council for the Learning for Life program gave PROPEL access to a set of  standards used by the BSA to assess ability and tools to teach swimming skills. Parents will see the value in making sure their children are able to swim. Apart from fear of water, other barriers the study found were concerns about image—the effects of chlorine on hair and skin—and the availability of free or low-cost lessons and good pools.

“It’s important to take the time to learn. You wouldn’t allow kids to get into a car without a safety belt,” said Jones, and water safety is no different.

But Jones is quick to add that learning to swim isn’t all doom, gloom, and drowning statistics.

“Knowing how to swim opens up a completely different world of fun in the pool,” he said. “If you’re water safe, water can be your best friend.”

There are no plans for swimming lessons other than those offered at summer camp but if the need presents itself we will look into additional lessons on a case by case basis.

9 people drown each day in the U.S.

In ethnically-diverse communities, the youth drowning rate is more than double the national average

Nearly six out of 10 African American and Hispanic/Latino children are unable to swim, nearly twice as many as their Caucasian counterparts

The key indicator in this was not race, but family -- Children from non-swimming households are eight times more likely to be at-risk of drowning

While about 1/3 of white children from non-swimming families go on to learn to swim, less than 1/10 of children in non-swimming African American families do.  By teaching these children, PROPEL is breaking the cycle and creating generations of parents-to-be who will know how to swim

* The USA Swimming Foundation commissioned a national research study as a part of its national Make a Splash anti-drowning initiative.  The survey was conducted by the University of Memphis.  1,772 children ages six to 16 years old were surveyed in six U.S. metropolitan area in 2008; Chicago, Houston, Memphis, Oakland and Philadelphia.