Surf Life Saving Australia: Preventing drowning at unpatrolled beaches

More people are drowning on Australia’s beaches. University of Melbourne researchers partnered with Surf Life Saving Australia to co-design and test a drowning prevention program that effectively promotes safer beach behaviours that spillover to unpatrolled beaches.

The outcome

University of Melbourne research has demonstrated that an experience-based drowning prevention program co-developed with Surf Life Saving Australia, Life Saving Victoria, and local councils supports broader adoption of safer beach behaviours.

The research team conducted 12 skill development sessions with approximately 600 beachgoers with Life Saving Victoria at Lorne Surf Club. They also completed 34 beach safety lessons, attended by nearly 300 people at Umina beach with Surf Life Saving Australia.

A ‘spillover effect’ from the program participants also affected non-participants. Participants became ambassadors of safer beach behaviours within their family and friend groups.

The need

“Drowning prevention should be something that everyone takes seriously. Every time there's a drowning, Australia's reputation as the place to go and hang out at the beach is harmed,” says University of Melbourne Associate Professor Brian Cook.

More people are drowning on our beaches each year.

“Our research is showing that people are not drowning between the flags. We've been very successful at patrolled beaches – not just because we're watching, but also because we move the flags according to the changeable ocean conditions,” says veteran surf lifesaver, author and drowning prevention advocate Louise Lambeth.

But only around 6 per cent of beaches around the country are patrolled – and only at certain times of the day and year.

Lambeth’s local beach is a drowning hotspot.

“We have a beach nearby where a five-year-old boy was dragged off the beach and drowned. Our Surf Life Saving club members were part of that search and rescue, which became a search and recovery,” says Lambeth.

“I started to think, ‘How can we do things a bit differently? How do we reach people that don't access traditional pathways like Nippers or Learn to Swim?’ We need to be more creative about how we educate people and engage with them in water safety.”

The research

“Surf Life Saving Australia is an iconic organisation with lifesavers performing more than 2.4 million preventative actions and over 8,000 rescues last year alone,” says Dr Jaz Lawes, National Research Manager at Surf Life Saving Australia.

Drowning prevention media and social media campaigns often rely on the information deficit communication model.

In that model, the risk sector assumes that simple awareness of information results in a cognitive awakening. The sector hopes that that awakening causes a person to change their behaviours.

“And that model doesn't really reflect how people learn and alter their behaviours. Behaviour change takes time, it takes experience, and it takes capacity,” says Associate Professor Cook.

People don’t like being told what to do. Associate Professor Cook researches risk governance and public participation. For him, respecting what is important to an individual is the only way to partner with members of the public.

The researchers worked with Surf Life Saving Australia, Life Saving Victoria, and local councils to design an interactive drowning prevention intervention that meaningfully engages beachgoers.

“This engagement model made you step back and find out about the person. What knowledge did they already have? We could then tailor the engagement. And people appreciated the program because it was relevant to them,” says Lambeth.

“Learning from Brian and the team about how to engage with the community in that format was really powerful.”

University of Melbourne researchers interviewed program participants and non-participants about their experience and knowledge of beach safety. Their analysis, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, showed that the program supported learning and enjoyment, which correlated with participants who applied what they had learned at both patrolled and unpatrolled beaches.

Developing the solution

The researchers co-designed each step with their partners.

“We asked: ‘What do you need covered? What do you need us to measure? What would benefit you? How would you do this? What kind of questions would you ask?’” Associate Professor Cook says.

The partnership with the University of Melbourne enabled Surf Life Saving Australia to conduct the fieldwork that its small research team would otherwise not have had resources for.

“We wouldn't be able to do half the stuff we do without these strong, working relationships with universities,” says Dr Lawes.

“And being able to throw around ideas with the academic lens on is really helpful. Often in the industry, a lot of people do things one way because that's the way they've always done it. It's very helpful for me to build the evidence behind what we do.”

The University of Melbourne previously collaborated with Surf Life Saving Australia to study the risks associated with rock fishing.

“The partnership with Surf Life Saving Australia is entirely a product of Dr Peter Kamstra’s dedication and partnering with members of the rock fishing community,” says Associate Professor Cook.

Lambeth says the University of Melbourne researchers supported lifesavers to shift from one-way communication to engaging people on the beach without hovering or trying to coerce them.

“To have that whole team all on the same page was fabulous. I loved every minute,” she says.

Lambeth continues her drowning prevention work. Her local surf club is organising a separate tent for lifesavers to engage with beachgoers in chats about beach safety.

“People often won't go to the patrol tent, because they see us as being actively busy monitoring the beach – and we are. But if you have that little tent to the side where people can go – I'm excited to be going into the season to see how all that can play out.”

Partners

• Surf Life Saving Australia
• Life Saving Victoria
• Surf Coast Shire
• Central Coast Council

Awards

Finalist for the 2024 Resilient Australia Award from the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience

Publications

• Brian R. Cook, Peter Kamstra, Nicholas Harrigan, Jasmin C. Lawes, Robert Brander, James Bond, Tom Kompas, Normative learning generates behaviour change: The case of drowning prevention, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 114, 2024, 104942, ISSN 2212-4209,
• Kamstra P., Cook B. R., Brander R, et al., Evaluating the impact of skill development for drowning prevention: a relationship-building approach to community engagement, Injury Prevention 2023;29:425-430.

People

• Associate Professor Brian Cook
• Dr Peter Kamstra
• Dr Jaz Lawes
• Louise Lambeth
• Dr Nicholas Harrigan