While we have different day jobs, we share a mission: keep Florida families safe. In August at the Prevention Convention in Orlando, hosted by the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida and Prevent Child Abuse Florida, we worked together to raise awareness about ways to reverse the trend of increased child drownings in our state.<\/p>\n
With summertime behind us, we are sharing four actions Floridians can take now to plan for prevention.<\/p>\n
Make sure every member of your family knows how to swim. Contact your city or community pool to learn how to register for child or adult classes. If cost is a barrier, there are options. Families on Medicaid are eligible for free lessons and should contact their local pool to learn more. Families not on Medicaid but with family income at 200% of federal poverty level can apply for swimming lesson vouchers for babies and children ages 1-7. This range recently expanded from ages 1-4 because of a bill that passed this session supported by myself (Sen. Smith), my colleague Sen. Clay Yarborough, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers committed to helping more children stay safe around water. Information on how to apply for a voucher and find approved lesson providers is available at FloridaHealth.gov.<\/p>\n
Designate a Water Watcher every time children are near or in water. From bathtime to water table play to pool parties, there needs to be one focused (not on their phone), sober adult who knows it\u2019s their job to watch the kids.<\/p>\n
Install layers of barriers around bodies of water and encourage others to do the same. Most youth drowning deaths happen when they are not expected to be swimming. Door alarms, child locks, pool fences, and self-latching gates prevent children from wandering or falling into water when they aren\u2019t being watched.<\/p>\n
Share resources with businesses, rental properties, apartment complexes, hotels, schools, and any other partners helping to keep kids safe. Anyone can order water safety materials from Prevent Child Abuse Florida on our website at PreventChildAbusefl.org.<\/p>\n
There is no single solution to drowning prevention. The strongest protection comes from layers of safety: active supervision, barriers that prevent unsupervised access, alarms and locks, and swimming and water-survival skills training. In a state surrounded by water, access to affordable swimming lessons should never be a barrier to giving every child the skills they need to be safer around water.<\/p>\n
Please join us in committing to active supervision around water, preventing children from accessing pools and other bodies of water when they aren\u2019t supposed to be swimming, and encouraging the people in your life to learn to swim. Every child deserves the chance to grow up, go to school, celebrate birthdays and milestones and make a lifetime of memories with the people who love them.<\/p>\n
Carlos Guillermo Smith represents District 17 in the Florida Senate. Chesley Richardson is the executive director for Prevent Child Abuse Florida, a program of the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida and the state chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While we have different day jobs, we share a mission: keep Florida families safe. In August at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[483,482,139,141,140,109,76410],"class_list":["post-418409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}