The first thing I notice when I go to a summer pool or George Mason’s Aquatic Center is the lifeguard staff. Things I notice are that the lifeguards cross their legs in the stand, fiddle with their fingers, or doing something else that doesn’t look professional to the average patron.

Most lifeguarding facilities that are like this don’t enforce their guards to have a constant scanning pattern or a five minute strategy to ensure that the guard isn’t starring off into lala land. So facilities can continue to leave their staff looking like they don’t want to be there or they could switch to Ellis

Ellis and Associations demand that their guards maintain a constant scanning pattern. This is called a 10/20. 10 seconds to scan your entire zone and notice a kid drowning, and a total of 20 seconds to respond to that kid. Another strategy that Ellis demands ALL guards do is a 5-minute strategy. Every 5 minutes the guard in the stand MUST stand up to ensure that they are doing their job. This makes a guard on the stand look 100% more professional.

Having up-to-date training is important!

The Red Cross class I took was one 8 hour session and I was certified for two years. I did not need to update that certification each month, or even take a re-certification class after a year. Like I said previously, I was clueless in the stand. Remembering little from my training. Where in comparison to Ellis:

The initial licensing class for Ellis and Associations is 40 hour. Every month an Ellis guard must obtain a minimum of 4 hours of in-service. After a year of your license, an Ellis guard must take a re-certification class of 20 hours to ensure that an Ellis guard is knowledgeable in lifeguarding

Audits! An audit is an evaluation of a facilities staff to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to emergencies.

RedCross does not do audits on their facilities

Ellis and Associations do audits on their facilities. They want to make sure that Guards are doing their job by testing their skills,scanning and vigilance. One way to test this vigilance is by a vigilance awareness test or VAT is done on a guard. A silhouette of a human thrown in, a dummy or a live drowning is put into the water. The guard under their 10/20 must recognize the guest in distress in under 10 seconds and respond within 20 seconds. If a guard exceeds an audit then he or she could receive Ellis apparel which could be a wrist band or a piece of flare.