ESTEVAN –
Estevan’s leisure services division has announced the introduction of the StarGuard Elite and Starfish Aquatics Water Safety programs.
In a news release, the City of Estevan said this decision was made following the January announcement by the Canadian Red Cross that it would end its water safety programming as of Dec. 31. The city added that its aquatics program has proudly utilized the Canadian Red Cross Water Safety program for many years, for both lifeguard training and swimming lessons, and it will continue to use the Canadian Red Cross for first aid and CPR training.
“This decision did not come lightly,” said Erin Wilson, program manager and aquatics specialist for the City of Estevan. “We have done a substantial amount of research to find a program that feels familiar to the community to allow for a comfortable transition. We’re very excited to take this next step with StarGuard Elite and Starfish Aquatics and are confident that the community will find this shift very manageable.”
StarGuard Elite is an internationally-recognized aquatics risk prevention agency with over 20 years of experience in comprehensive training and certification for lifeguards, while their Starfish Aquatics will be introduced through swimming lessons programming.
Both provide what the city called very progressive formatting with the introduction of digital accessibility of report cards for parents with youth in lessons, and an online platform for lifeguards in training.
The training methods used by StarGuard Elite to create future lifeguards are very similar to the previous Canadian Red Cross program, Wilson said. There are digital components and online learning, which is how youths are more engaged and can manage their busy schedules.
“It really assists us in creating those future staff that we want to bring on board,” said Wilson.
As for Starfish, it also has similarities to what the Red Cross offers.
Wilson said they spent a lot of time reading different materials and participating in a lot of virtual meetings to ensure the city was making the right decision.
“We didn’t take that decision lightly. It was really important for us to find what we felt was the right option for our community,” she said.
Estevan will be the first in Canada to run the StarGuard Elite program.
“It’s not that we’re not looking at continuing to offer the LifeSaving Society advanced lesson courses because we want to continue to help grow other facilities or other communities, so we’ll always try to provide both,” said Wilson.
The LifeSaving Society announced earlier this year that it would assume responsibility for advanced lifeguard training in Canada. The city is still working out how training will work with both, but the city doesn’t want to be exclusive to one program.
Many communities have had both Lifesaving Society and Red Cross programs for their staff.
StarFish Aquatics is also starting to make its way into Canada. There are a few other communities involved, Wilson said, but they have yet to be announced.
It will be a progression program, very similar to what people have seen in the past from the Canadian Red Cross. It will start with Star Babies and Star Tots, all the way to swim schools. Then they will focus on swim techniques.
“It’s an easy transitional program, and we’re just working on all of those transition charts so that we can make it easy for parents to understand what level their child will transfer into,” said Wilson.
