Lee Heard, Charity Director at the Royal Life Saving Society UK (RLSS UK) has sent his thanks to those who engaged with the charity’s annual Drowning Prevention Week as the campaign drew to a close on 25th June.
Drowning Prevention Week which has just ran for the ninth consecutive year aims to proactively raise awareness of water safety ahead of a summer outdoors. Throughout the week the Royal Life Saving Society UK asked people to engage and share posts, including a brand-new animation, across social media platforms, engaged with MPs at events at Westminster, and also offered schools, leisure centres, swimming clubs and parents a range of free educational resources to ensure that families are well prepared for a safe summer enjoying water safely.
Lee said “I wanted to say a huge thank you to all our members, staff, supporters, and strategic partners who have played a role in sharing our vital water safety messaging this year. I cannot communicate how grateful we are for the support and are still seeing lots of activity coming through.
“Since January I have been calling for a concerted effort to give everyone the skills to enjoy water safely this summer. It’s a message that requires everyone to roll up their sleeves and find ways to get this vital message out into their communities.
“It takes individuals, small and large organisations, water safety partners, leisure partners, local authorities, MPs, emergency services, schools, landowners, water companies and many more. We are exceptionally proud of everybody that has taken the time to make our vital campaign grow again this year.”
For the 2022 campaign, the charity aimed to take a slightly different approach to their national media campaign, working hard to better understand the claims that are often made about water safety and drowning prevention.
They aimed to shine a light on the importance of swimming but further explore the need for parents to invest additional time in themselves and their family understanding water safety.
These conversations are ones that the charity want to continue post Drowning Prevention Week and explore further. Another vital topic that the charity focussed on was the issue of cold water shock. Royal Life Saving Society UK analysed fatalities leading from cold water and stressed the importance to continue to highlight this critical factor in drowning and leverage tools to educate the public using expert knowledge that the charity holds.
Drowning Prevention Week saw great success with the campaign, with thousands of views of their brand-new 60-second animation encouraging everybody across the UK and Ireland to enjoy water safely, which meant it appeared over 173,000 times across social media networks.
The animation directed children and parents to free educational resources and this year, the charity exceeded the number of downloads during Drowning Prevention Week when compared to 2021, and the estimated number of children to be taught is over 300,000.
Lee added: “We have worked with national and local news agencies to support the delivery of over 150 Drowning Prevention Week press articles and over 150 radio and TV broadcasts, to raise awareness of the importance of water safety.
“We have attended parliament with Olympian Professor Greg Whyte OBE, Paralympian Ellie Robinson MBE, and over 50 other Parliamentarians to discuss the importance of spreading water safety awareness, as well as what practical steps could be taken in their constituencies to address the issue.
“There have been over 3,500 social media posts relating to #DrowningPreventionWeek, reflecting the fantastic engagement generated by the campaign. We have been able to draw on our recent survey and analysis to encourage discussion on Twitter around important water safety debates, for example ‘Is Swimming Enough?’ acknowledged by English former competitive swimmer, Sharron Davies as ‘a great thread’ and our other messages have shown resonance with victims’ families.
“At the Royal Life Saving Society UK, our aim is to ensure as many people as possible are safe in the knowledge that they, and their children, have the skills and understanding about water safety to keep them safe. Now that Drowning Prevention Week is over for another year, we will continue to work hard to raise awareness of water safety.”
Water safety campaigns continue throughout the year and the next comes direct from the National Water Safety Forum and partners for World Drowning Prevention Day on 25th July 2025.
Visit our website at rlss.org.uk
Follow us on Twitter – @RLSSUK
Visit our Facebook page – facebook.com/RLSSUK
Call – 0300 323 0096
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