Water Safety Research with Occupational Therapy student Jodi Sarno

 Water safety is an essential topic for every family, especially those caring for young children and children with developmental disabilities. In this episode of Early Childhood On-The-Go, host Kayla O'Neill talks with occupational therapy student, researcher, and lifelong water safety advocate, Jodi Sarno, about her research exploring caregivers' perceptions of water safety, water play, and drowning prevention. Together, they explore how early childhood professionals can support caregivers through a strengths-based approach while promoting safe, positive experiences in and around the water. 

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Welcome to the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast, where the Early Childhood Center team shares ideas and strategies for professionals and families. Dream big. Start early. Welcome to the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast, where we explore topics that support young children's development and help professionals and families navigate the early years with confidence. I'm Kayla O'Neill, and today we're diving into an important conversation about child safety, caregiver concerns, and the role that trusted information plays in helping keep our families safe. Our guest is Jodi Sarno. She's a researcher and a child safety advocate whose work focuses on understanding the questions, concerns, and decision-making process of parents and caregivers. So welcome to the podcast, Jodi. We are so excited to have you here today. Can you go ahead and tell us just a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Kayla. I'm so excited to be here, and I'm excited to share my research and my findings so far. So my name is Jodi, and I am a student of occupational therapy at Huntington University. I am in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and right now I'm in my capstone project semester for school. So this is like my final step before graduation. So a little bit about me before getting into OT school. I taught swim lessons at the YMCA in Fort Wayne. I am a lifeguard. I'm a lifeguard instructor. So I learned a lot about water safety and drowning and what that looks like and then teaching kids how to be safe. And then at one point in my career there, I got into teaching adaptive swim lessons. And so I got to work a lot with children with special needs, and it was actually open to all ages. So I worked with individuals with special needs and teaching them how to swim. And it was really interesting to see how different teaching water safety was for different populations. And so I've always had a passion for water safety and aquatics. And so even before getting into the program, I knew that I wanted to do a research project that addressed training or education for lifeguards or swim instructors. And I eventually, once I got into the program, did research and saw that there might be some gaps in understanding of what water safety looks like for parents and caregivers. And especially for parents and caregivers who have children with developmental disabilities or intellectual disabilities. And I didn't know for sure if that was a thing. So then I wanted to do research into that and create a podcast or a multimedia project that addresses and helps parents who don't understand water safety completely and provide resources for them. So that's how I got here. Wow, that's such an interesting history that you've had so many kind of different avenues with water safety and a lot of different experiences that really kind of formed this project for you. So as you're going through it, what were some of the most common themes or concerns that you found among parents and caregivers during your research? Yeah, so my research addressed the perceptions of water properties, water play, and water safety. So those three avenues were, I formulated questions in my survey that I had sent out addressing those three areas. And so I looked through the data that we had gotten. It was a lot of data. It was so great to hear so many different things from so many parents. And so we came up with themes for me and my professor, Dr. Patricia Hinton, who's fabulous. She's my professor here at Huntington. She's been helping me with my research. And I just wanted to give her a shout out because I love her so much. And she's been super helpful in this process. but the two of us we came up with these themes from the responses that we got and water properties so that looks at what water offers so a lot of parents reported different sensory experiences with water so tactile experiences vestibular from like you know tipping or sitting on a tube that kind of you know rocks or the slipping slipping on water on like you know slick concrete things like that or you know you probably hear this a lot kids not liking water in their face that's its own sensory experience yeah so a lot of parents talked about that um they also talked about the experiences with water that water can be unpredictable um that water is a unique learning environment so water does offer you know a specific very different kind of compared to you know being on land because there's so many different like the sensory component the unpredictability. It's just a fun but different learning environment. With water play, we found that parents understand that water offers more than just swimming. It's exercise. It's a huge social learning experience. We had some parents that were talking about the negative consequences of horseplay with peers at the pool, but also a lot of them also mentioned that when they think about water, they think about their grandparents' house because their kids love going swimming at their grandparents' house. So I thought that was cool that there are, you know, different types of water play, but that they also bring togetherness among families. And then regarding water safety, I was very surprised how much parents knew about the risks. And they even mentioned things that not even I could think about. Yeah, some parents mentioned dry drowning or silent drowning, which are probably people hear it a lot, but don't know exactly what it is. Risks like bacteria or infections. and another big thing that stood out to me was the need for preparedness and lack of resources for a lot of parents out there especially for parents who is children with special needs who don't have access or can't afford access to learning water safety skills and then the biggest one of the other biggest things was like the joys and challenges of supervision so a lot of parents yeah a lot of parents reported they love seeing their child have fun or seeing them play or the joy that the child has and brings them joy or their confidence or their building skills it's it's rewarding um but then there are also challenges there are some parents that took my survey that had four plus kids and it's hard to keep track of so many kids yeah in a in an aquatic environment nonetheless like at the pool it's busy it's crowded uh another sensory component's loud and it's busy so it's hard to keep track of things like that um so it's hard to supervise when there's just so much going on which but it's you know it's a barrier nonetheless so those are some of the big themes that we had come up with um from our research that's so interesting i have two kids my own um and they are they're total water kids so it's like I can relate about all the different experiences they have with water from like this weekend we set up like a small little pool in a regard and that play in there looks very different from when we go jump in the lake and we swim in the lake exactly yeah that come with each and different you know how you're going to navigate navigate that situation with your kiddos safety it's different conversations and you know sometimes maybe you didn't talk about things that you know, happened to come up. And so I love that you're just covering all of those different kiddos have, or, you know, and especially that sensory piece too. Um, like my daughter has tubes. And so that's something that we have to be, you know, in some places we have to wear the earplugs and some places the water's okay. And so it's all these different things that you have to continue to navigate. Right. Right. Um, so many parents today receive information from so many different sources. What did your research reveal about how families navigate conflicting or maybe overwhelming safety information that they may run into? Right so going into my research of course I had to figure out what I wanted to make water safety resources accessible but of course I needed to know how parents and caregivers receive their resources and so I did some research on it Like, I did a needs assessment before deciding to do a podcast. And it's really interesting that parents and caregivers will turn to social media or online sources or their peers before going to, like, their primary care physician. Of course, I don't know if this is regarding their own health or their child's health. But especially with social media and technology nowadays, it's a lot easier to just go to a media source before going in person or waiting so long to see a doctor or primary physician, you know, to get information. So I wanted to create a digital multimedia platform or something to provide digital resources because it's easier, it's more accessible, that parents could just download something. And podcasts are a growing resource and there's research online that show that podcasts are projected to become more popular over time and in like and maybe double by, you know, in 10 years. It's just becoming more popular and a more go to because you could just listen while you're in the car. and it's just especially for parents who are very busy being parents um it's it's efficient um so i that's kind of what i've seen and noticed is digital resources are becoming a lot more prevalent um yeah that's yeah that's kind of the route i was hoping to take yeah and i can think of that too as my own you know experience as a parent like i don't see the pediatrician that often um and like I remember even like with my daughter in those tubes we had to think way in advance of swimming you know when we were luckily we remembered to ask about it but if we would have forgotten then we would have had to take an extra step to go in and you know um and it is easy as a parent to you know and especially with different learning styles some people prefer having something that they can just listen to while they're cooking dinner or driving in a car or on social yeah short little picture where you get that quick hit of maybe something you weren't researching that you needed to know and i feel like that's something with water safety that um sometimes it's something you stumble upon like oh i didn't know that and maybe social media can be great for that awareness piece too right right great um because many of our listeners work in early intervention or support children with developmental um differences were there specific findings related to families involved in early intervention services? So I was not aware if there were any parents actively receiving early intervention services, but we were able to split up our results and we were able to review them based off of their age range. So we were able to look at ages zero to five and then six to 17 was our, um, older end. Um, but so related to ages zero to five, it was really interesting. We had parents rank priority of different water safety measures. So, uh, making sure that my child's wearing a life jacket or making sure I could see my child from where I'm sitting or within arm's reach or wearing bright colors. And parents had ranked parents of ages zero to five and ages six to 17, uh, ranked them differently. So they both ranked having an adult present as number one and being able to see my child from where I'm sitting as number two. So like adult present was the most important thing, which makes sense. It would be difficult to have, or to be able to help your child if you're not there. And then, and then And parents with children ages zero to five ranked within arm's reach as the third most important. And then life jacket was after that. And then bright colors was last. With older children, life jackets was last. And then within arm's reach. And then bright colors was number three. So making sure that their child was wearing bright colors. So we thought it was interesting that, I mean, I guess it makes sense if you think about it. children zero to five are going to be younger and will need more support so having them there within arm's reach is more important than having you know a child who's six to 17 uh who doesn't need that same support um another interesting finding was that we also looked at parents uh swim levels because there is yeah there is research that there is some uh correlation between how well the parent knows how to swim or how comfortable they feel in the water and how that carries over their child. And we found that parents with children ages zero to five and who are a beginner level, so don't go in the water very often or like don't go swimming very often, don't know how to float on their back, you know, the safety skills. They ranked life jackets and being able to see my child as extremely important, but they ranked within or they ranked children staying within arm's reach as the least important so there i i don't want to make any assumptions but there could be some correlation that parents who don't know how to swim themselves or don't feel comfortable in the water in deep water might not feel comfortable in the water with their child so would resort to like you know life jacket and just being able to watch from afar um of course i don't want to make any you know right assumptions or like you know final uh you know generalizations but this is kind of what we had observed and could be you know could be something yeah but yeah those are those are a couple of the findings that we had found uh specifically for ages zero to five interesting um yeah that's all interesting hearing about the different um types of things that people were looking for for that water safety like the bright colors i feel like that was one that i actually learned you know I didn't know about that actually when I think back to when my kiddos were itty bitty it wasn't until the last which they're eight and ten now I feel like it was the last few years where that was something that I learned probably from social media that I had never thought about before right yeah you know and I guess it makes sense usually bright colors is for like you know being able to see your child but if your child is within arm's reach then you probably don't have to see them from afar which would make more sense for ages 6 to 17 that you'd be able to see them from afar so it was just yeah it is interesting to see how like the different priorities um but yeah and then you have to also have to take into account um we looked at what aquatic areas uh the participants frequented most often and bathtubs and showers were number one And it was also number one for ages zero to five. But also, you're not going to give a life jacket to a child in the bathtub versus versus at the pool versus at the lake. You know, it's it depends on the the situation is what we had also observed. observed. Interesting. So how can early childhood educators, early intervention providers kind of approach child safety conversations with families in ways that really feel supportive and nonjudgmental? Yeah. So I actually kind of experienced this while writing up my survey as a student. I'm still learning um and my professor dr henton who was there um was encouraging encouraging me to include certain questions and i was writing questions like i'm trying to find these gaps in understanding like how can i word this this this and then she's like oh maybe we should include um what they enjoy most about being in the water or what do they yeah what what um what makes it easier for them to participate or what makes it more enjoyable for them to participate or what do they enjoy most about seeing their child in the water but I was more focused on you know what can they not do what's difficult what's hard what's you know and I feel like going into care whether I mean what multidisciplinary going in with an open mind but also ready to address strengths not just not just gaps um it's huge because if you want to be supportive and non-judgmental i think it's important to address and recognize what what they're doing well um and kind of approaching it from there instead of observing like oh you did this wrong you're not doing this um because there are i was surprised from my research how uh different parents like you know handled different aquatic situations um but you know it they were all doing something well and I think it's easy to get caught up in you're not doing this right or you're you need to be doing this so I think definitely um appreciating and recognizing what they're doing well I think um is and like the those small wins, I think is important for professionals to, you know, if you're going to address water safety, you want to still come from a non-judgmental supportive perspective. So that's, that's from what I'd gotten from my own experience. Yeah. And I love that idea of really starting off with the strengths to start that conversation. You know, what is it that you love doing in the water? Any, you know, caregivers going to be able to talk about that and then building upon the strengths that they already have um that's such a great um tip for care for providers and early childhood educators who are looking to kind of talk about this with families um which then brings us to oh yeah so were there certain you know as a provider i think this is really interesting as i provide services in early um intervention so were there topics that certain kind of safety topics that families consistently wanted more education or support around so i had more just from a uh they didn't request specific like cert or you know strategies or for these but they did ask questions about certain things like um some of them didn't know how to recognize different like there's like i had mentioned earlier dry drowning and silent drowning. Right. I think that's a scary one that pops out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some people might not know what that is. And I think that a lot of them were, had actually mentioned that that was their concern was not recognizing when their child needed help, or not recognizing the signs, or you know what they don't know what to look for um they had also mentioned that they don't know where to find resources or um or affordable resources or good resources for you know to help their child um and that could be like swim lessons or just you know any you're having things pop into my mind i have had those conversations with family of i want my child to be safe in the water where can I get swim lessons how can you sign up for those what are the best ones and then trying to help them navigate because there's a lot of different options across communities yeah yeah yeah and and someone had brought up um had even gone so far as to mention uh like insurance coverage for some lessons especially for children with special needs who you know require that specialized attention sure uh but it's not cheap so yeah finding those resources was another big one especially among uh parents with children with developmental disabilities interesting um so you're developing a new podcast called safety splashcast can you tell us a little bit more about that project and what listeners can expect um when you're launching it in august yeah so uh now that I've complete well okay I've finished the survey collection part of my research project I um I'm in the analysis piece of it and from while analyzing um the themes and identifying the gaps I am hoping to uh create my own podcast addressing those themes and gaps um and maybe to help some of these parents answer those questions? What does dry drowning or what does silent drowning look like? How do I recognize when my child needs help or where can I find resources? And so in this podcast, I will be, I have already lined up some multidisciplinary professionals. So yeah, I have a BCBA, like a behavioral analyst. I have a representative or a trainer from the American Red Cross. I have a couple of occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech language pathologists, and I'm going to be interviewing them on skills to help parents learn how they can address some of these difficult situations like how to communicate with your child, how to communicate these safety skills or rules to your child, or how to, you know, recognize certain behaviors or mitigate certain behaviors or the sensory aspect of, you know, water or how to move in the water. So on the splash cast, I will be interviewing each individual and be talking about things like that and address these themes and the gaps and hopefully share this information and resources with parents. And it's going to be public. I will be publishing it in August after i graduate um and it'll hopefully be available anywhere on spotify itunes apple podcasts it's yeah that's that's amazing that's so cool to hear about the whole kind of um starting off with surveying going through the research and then really finding a practical way to get this information out to anyone that needs it um that's just such a cool thing what do you hope parents caregivers professionals take away from listening to the the safety splash cast and i love that name. Thank you. I was really trying to be creative with it. Yeah. So I hope that parents and caregivers can take away resources and tips and valuable advice from professionals, from different professionals to maybe support them and help them keep their children safe, especially for those who don't have resources or don't know where to look or don't know how to find resources. I also hope to advocate for like children who don't have access to those resources. And as a student, there's only so much that I can do, but I just want it's, you know, this is very important. You know, water safety is huge. Like drowning is one of the leading causes of death in children. And it's hard. So I really hope that parents and caregivers get resources, but I also hope that parents and caregivers who don't have children could still also understand how important this is. And I hope that clinicians or professionals that do listen to this podcast could also maybe help me out and maybe share some tips on my podcast if they want to connect. But also like advocate with me that, you know, it is important and in whatever discipline that they work or that they serve in, that they can also support them, you know, or support the children that they care for. That's amazing. We've talked about so many important things today, especially hearing those statistics around how water can impact children and all the safety information. If listeners could take away one key message from today's conversation about child safety, supporting families, if we can narrow it down to one thing, what would you hope it is next time? No, yeah. I want professionals to be able to approach with the strengths first approach and to support them from, meet them where they're at and support them and celebrate the, you know, those small wins. And, yeah, I think just being open and supporting them from where they're at, I think, is the biggest thing that clinicians can do. And if parents are listening, I also think that parents should also look out for their child. And same thing, strengths first, supportive and supervised. there are so many you know there's so many benefits to watching your child it um it's rewarding and it keeps them safe so um yeah i i know it's like full of two things but um i kind of just put them together hoping that they would go together as a parent of children that love the water i just really appreciate that this information is getting out and we just really thank you jody for sharing your research your insights with us today you know child safety can feel really overwhelming for families, especially when they're sorting through all the information that's out there from multiple sources, and they're trying to really make those best decisions for their children. So your work reminds us that, you know, listening to caregiver concerns, providing evidence-based information, building trusting relationships are all essential parts of really supporting families. So we just really appreciate your important perspective that you shared about families that are looking for information about water safety. To learn more about Jodi's work and to stay updated on the launch of the Safety Splash Cast, be sure to check out the links in our episode notes. I'm Kayla O'Neill, and this has been Early Childhood on the Go. Thank you for joining us. Until next time, remember that supporting children begins with supporting the adults who care for them, and together we can really help to create a safe, healthy environment where children can thrive. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast from the Early Childhood Center team at Indiana University. Learn more at iidc.indiana.edu.