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Water Watcher Program

The Water Watcher program is designed to augment Swimming Swan’s Aquatics Lifeguarding Services to help maintain a safe swim environment for each camper at the swimming pool. The goal of the Water Watcher program is to train camp counselors to recognize and assist with pool rule enforcement to reduce the number of incidences at an aquatic facility.

The required camp staffing ratio is one adult counselor, 16 or older, per ten campers. If a child is under the age of seven, the enforced ratio is one adult counselor for each camper throughout the aquatic facility. The counselor is NOT a part of the 1 to 10 ratio for children 7 years and older.

An orientation to the pool and review of the rules occurs on the first day of pool attendance. The Water Watcher is responsible for supervising campers within their assigned station and the enforcement of the pool rules to help create a safe swim environment. Water Watchers are trained to respond to an emergency and evacuate campers safely from the aquatic facility if necessary.

The Water Watcher (counselor) receives a badge to wear after the orientation and will be assigned a poolside station. There are multiple stations for the Water Watchers and a rotation occurs every 15 minutes. At the end of the swim session, badges are collected by the head counselor and returned to the Pool Clerk. Badges are given to the Head Counselor to distribute to the assigned Pool Watchers each time the camp visits after the initial orientation. We highly recommend counselors wear a brightly colored shirt or hat that differentiates them as counselors.

Benefits from the program include a safer environment for campers to recreate, an increase in aquatic safety knowledge for the counselors, and transfer of safety concepts gained to other aquatic related outings.

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