Conference schedule

Recent disasters have reinforced how emergencies damage and destroy critical personal support systems. Disasters have also highlighted the importance of resilience to build strong communities that can withstand and bounce back in the face of a disaster. The constructs of what leads resilient communities is still unclear. In this session, we will explore potential constructs of resilience such as self-efficacy, social support, spirituality and socio-cultural factors. We will pair each construct with a hands-on approach and collect the ideas from each group to produce a white paper on the concept of resilience.

We have spent the last several years emphasizing the importance of immediate rescue breaths to interrupt the drowning process. Some lifeguard groups even do rescue breathing in the water to get oxygen to the brain as quickly as possible. Late 2019 saw the emergence of a novel (new) virus, SARS-CoV-2, which caused a global pandemic of COVID-19. When faced with a resuscitation, Lifeguards become essential frontline healthcare workers. This session will discuss the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and how to stay safe during first aid and resuscitation, with an emphasis on drowning resuscitation and CPR.

With a growing body of evidence of healthcare disparities including bystander CPR, pain management and chest pain management many healthcare professions (e.g. emergency medicine and emergency medical services (EMS)) have started to look at contributing factors including cultural humility, awareness and competency of providers and educators. This session will examine the evidence related to these disparities, the definitions surrounding this complex issue and how cultural humility relates to the delivery of first aid education. Participants will engage in a discussion and activity related to unconscious bias allowing them to reflect on how a greater understanding of cultural competency, diversity and inclusion may positively impact the classroom. The session will conclude with a set of recommendations for instructors, program designers and providers.

This presentation will focus on what started out as an investigation into chronically low bystander CPR and AED use that quickly turned into opening Pandora's Box. During the first informal conversations with those who acted to save a life, lifeguards and lay responders communicated some form of mental trauma effects in their daily life, including a wide range of acute physical and/or psychological reactions to the event. For some individuals, acute stress reactions caused enough distress to interfere with everyday activities. These findings resulted in the application of Psychological First Aid principles and the development of the Lay Responder Support Model. This model now provides feedback to professionals/scholars in health sciences, aquatics, mental health, and first aid education. This presentation will explore our journey of learning, and realities as we opened Pandora's Box following up with sudden cardiac arrests.

We create connection through our stories: both those that encourage us to reflect on that which has happened and to project ourselves into the future.

Telling stories is an art of understanding. Through sharing our stories, we find ways to connect to one another and situate our own understanding within the context of storyteller’s world. This workshop requires participants to come ready to share stories with one another by providing a framework of both reflection and projection. Storytelling invokes affective learning that is an effective strategy to increase both engagement and retention.

The flip side of storytelling lets us look forward and create goals to which we can aspire. The process of describing the future helps us to envision challenges and determine what needs to be different in our lives today to reach our goals. As educators, it is important to examine our own practice in facilitating learning in order to innovate and grow.

Come prepared to share your experiences as educators.

In the Aquatics industry job titles, descriptions, and accountabilities vary significantly across Canada and even in individual provinces and areas. Discuss consistency and transparency in the aquatics job market. Network through discussions about creating aquatics professional job opportunities and how your organization can use job evaluation criteria to set the bar higher and be able to exceed it!

In this interactive session, participants will consider and build on CPR education research from the United States. With a focus on different learning outcomes within the Chain of Survival Behaviors - Knowledge, Skills, Intention to Aid, participants will develop their skills and knowledge in the following areas:

• Using directional feedback manikins/ devices in their class sessions
• Assessing participants confidence in achieving all or any outcomes
• View and assessing video that demonstrate actual instructors using feedback for outcomes
• Modeling and having participants model various means for achieving different learning outcomes
• Providing assessment tool for which they could assess outcomes at home and experiment with different approaches to feedback

Meaningful engagement with Indigenous communities is a big step forward on the path to reconciliation. Understanding that engagement is not a “one size fits all” endeavour and working from a strength-based approach which focuses on community assets to promote positive growth are key to developing a long-lasting partnership. By capitalizing on local knowledge, expertise and vision, this approach encourages sustainability by empowering communities to take ownership over project direction, prioritization and resource allocation.

Non-Indigenous community organizations have a role to play in supporting community resilience by increasing accessibility to programs and leadership training in First Aid and Water Safety, while still remembering to work with Indigenous communities, not for them.

CRC will present on how both communities can begin to work together by identifying strengths and needs, as well as, share strategies to work effectively and collaboratively with Indigenous communities. Delegates will also be provided with an opportunity to begin developing their own engagement strategy.

Do you believe that health decision making should be driven by robust scientific research? Have you browsed the International Journal of First Aid Education and started reading the papers, but got scared off by specialist terms such as "randomized crossover trial", "convenience sample" and "linear mixed models analyses"? Have no fear, Cochrane First Aid is here!

During this learner-based session, you will be familiarized with different aspects of scientific research. During the first part of the session, you will learn more on how high-quality scientific studies are conceived, conducted and analyzed. In the second part, you will learn how to read and interpret published articles and systematic reviews that report on these studies' (synthesized) findings. Third, you will be introduced to the Cochrane First Aid Field, a global independent platform that not only bundles the available scientific evidence related to first aid topics, but also tries to lower the bar towards the use of evidence and aspires to act as a bridge between science and practice. Last but not least, you will find out how you can contribute and get to share your ideas on how the Field may satisfy your needs.

You will leave the session room with increased knowledge, skills and confidence in how to retrieve, consult and interpret the results of first aid research. Moreover, you will know how Cochrane First Aid may help you to integrate the use of reliable evidence in your everyday first aid life.

Currently, there are spirited discussions amongst lifeguards and lifeguard training agencies regarding whether there is empirical research that supports using the prescribed scan patterns found in various lifeguard training textbooks. Further, the possibility/probability that following prescribed scanning patterns can cause lifeguard’s inattentional blindness during patron surveillance and lead to drowning will be covered during this presentation.

Inattentional Blindness (IB) is the incapacity to notice a fully visible person or object with a viewer’s perceptual field while the viewer’s attentional choice is directed to something or someone else in the visual field. The Invisible Gorilla video clip illustrates this concept and will be shown and discussed.

The behaviour surveillance techniques found in sweep scanning strategies is not a predictive location surveillance strategy. This sweep scanning technique assigns equal expected frequency of impending peril of swimmer in distress or a drowning person to all individuals in the area of a lifeguard’s surveillance responsibility. Descriptions and handouts of the prescribed scanning patterns will be discussed.

We will spend time talking about ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a lifeguard scanning strategy, take into consideration using prescribed scan pattern during patron surveillance and how it can contribute to a lifeguard’s inattentional blindness, and discuss lifeguard boredom as another alleged contributing factor to drowning at regulated facilities.

Think Pair And Share Examining The Challenges And Successes Of The Past 3 Years- It has been a few years since the launch of PFA at the Conference in Niagara Falls and the program is starting to take some solid roots now and interest is finally starting to take hold. The PFA Program is generating momentum in Canada and around the world. Let’s share our successes and challenges with the program so far. What worked and what did not in advertising and facilitation? Share your favorite teaching technique, share your lesson plans and at the end we can all share and pair our methods to make our facilitation better.

This session will engage multi sectoral experts in the creation of innovative approaches, recommendations and outcome statements linked to the following three (3) questions:

1. How can experts better engage with parents / guardians / caregivers to promote the importance of undistracted supervision to eliminate drownings among children 1 to 4 years of age in all settings?
2. • a. What programs / resources currently exist and are easily accessible to parents / guardians / caregivers to prepare them for unintentional water entry situations as rescuers?
   • b. What programs / resources are needed / have yet to be developed to prepare parents / guardians / caregivers for unintentional water entry situations as rescuers?
3. • a. What types of legislation / regulations / standards / by-laws are needed at the federal, provincial / territorial, municipal levels to promote undistracted parent / guardian / caregiver supervision of children 1 to 4 years of age while on / in / near water?
   • b. What types of legislation / regulations / standards / by-laws are needed at the federal, provincial / territorial, and municipal levels to support rescuer (i.e., parent / guardian / caregiver) safety in scenarios involving unintentional water entries?