Aquatic Mentors
Aquatic Mentors warmly welcomes aquatics business owners, swim school teachers, allied health professionals, and those committed to making a positive and expert impact on young lives while advancing profitable businesses and professional aquatic careers.
For parents and carers, inclusion and well-being for your child are your top priority. Aquatic Mentors understands your commitment to ensuring your child thrives and recognises that water safety is essential to a healthy, fulfilling childhood.
Founded by Ruth Smith and Lyn O’Brien in Australia, Aquatic Mentors is responding to an international need to enrich and extend swimming instructors’ skills—especially when faced with distracting, disruptive, or challenging behaviours in swim lessons. Increasingly, the recognition of ‘challenging behaviours’ coincides with research showing a rising prevalence of Autism and other neurodiverse conditions.
Aquatic Mentors is proud to partner with professionals across aquatics, education, and allied health fields in four key areas:
• Professional Development & Training: Specialised programs for swim schools and teachers.
• Aquatic Therapy Delivery: Individual or group-based sessions tailored to participant needs.
• Aquatic Therapy Research: Collaborative research with Western Sydney University.
• Public Speaking: Sharing expert insights and knowledge with international audiences.
Our practice is driven by an uncompromising commitment to collaboration, inclusion, respect, and thought-provoking engagement in each component of our work.
Disclamer
Aquatic Mentors acknowledges that while disruptive behaviours in swimming lessons are increasing, any child—regardless of background—may present behaviours that challenge typical class expectations. Our team asserts that there is no inherent association between neurodiversity, ADHD, or Autism and challenging behaviours in aquatic environments.
Intention
Our ‘stand’ is to enrich the lives of children who require and deserve additional, specialised and professional nurture, support and enablement.
We achieve this by leveraging water and safety in aquatic environments.
Each child is to be seen, supported to be capable of thriving in and around the water.
We transform uncertainty into progress and reduce the drowning risk among vulnerable populations. Our measure of success goes beyond swimming skills to confidence gained, fears overcome and lives changed.
To inspire confidence, unlock potential and equip aquatic professionals with strategies that foster empowerment and success when they work with children needed specialist support.
We are a demonstration of collaboration and interdisciplinary cooperation designed to educate and empower aquatic professionals and businesses to make the lives of children, families and communities – healthier, happier and easier.
Vision
By 2030 Aquatic Mentors is known as the ‘go to’ business globally, in the aquatics industry for:
Swim teacher education for ‘children with challenges’
Delivering 1:1 Aquatic Therapy
Training and licensing of Aquatic Therapists
Leading researchers – with the aim of Aquatic therapy being a component of professional, tertiary training for swim and allied health professionals.
Our goal is to:
Annually Train:
500 x swim teachers.
50 x Allied Health professionals
Impact x 1000 children directly with 1:1 Aquatic Therapy
Grow a team of 20 licensed Aquatic therapists globally.
Mission
To innovate without permission to reimagine aquatic education as contemporary, experiential and personalised.
We partner with families, swim schools, allied health professionals and communities globally to positively impact the lives of our clients.
Our methodology for amplifying our impact exponentially is to train others to be better teachers and therapists and, to ultimately have our research deliver an accredited tertiary qualification in aquatic therapy.
Training
Online
Self paced
Professional Development
Face to Face or Webinars
Swim Centre
Face to face training for up to 20 teachers & Consultancy
Aquatic Therapy
Aquatic Therapy is a specialised, transformational intervention that harnesses the unique properties of water to support people, usually children with additional needs, who live with physical, developmental, sensory, neurological or behavioural challenges.
Aquatic Therapy Research
A collaborative pilot study with Western Sydney University assessing the delivery, effectiveness, and future potential of Aquatic Therapy for individuals with complex needs, aiming to evaluate its impact and identify areas for improvement in therapeutic practices.
Testimonials
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