The Strathcona Gardens pool is back up to pre-pandemic staffing levels, thanks to a push to train more lifeguards over the past year.
“Thoughout 2023, we ran 281 candidates through our advanced courses,” said Sarah Madelung, aquatics manager at the facility.
Over 30 of those candidates have completed their training, and 16 lifeguards have been hired on either a full-time (four guards) or part-time (12 guards) basis. There are also six people who have been hired through the facility’s assistant lifeguard program.
That is a far cry from the situation this time last year. when the facility needed to close down certain days to ensure patron safety.
“The community really stepped up, they’ve heard our need and they’re registering for courses in droves, which is fantastic,” Madelung said.
The pandemic cancelled many of the courses to train new lifeguards, leaving pools across the province understaffed. To meet the need, the SRD ran the courses at a subsidized rate in 2023, giving people the chance to learn the skills needed with less of an impact on their wallets.
“Throughout 2024 now we’ll continue our reduced rate model,” she said. “So we’ll be running our courses at a break-even cost for our residents (Campbell River and Electoral Area D residents), and then just slightly higher than that for non-residents.”
Madelung also said that the USW Local 1-1937 union has also worked closely with the regional district to “create a new staff culture.”
“There’s been a real good cooperation with our union … being really flexible around what does this job look like, and the creation of the assistant lifeguard position … creating a safe fun work environment, trying to make it the kind of place where people want to work.”
The assistant lifeguard position is new. Madelung said that people who have completed their bronze cross and standard first aid can work by playing games with participants during family swims and attend the waterslide and other features. They also help swim instructors during lessons.
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“While they’re doing that, we’ll help support their training to become lifeguards, and then move them up into the lifeguard position,” she said. “It’s a benefit for them in that they get early employment and part of their courses paid for, and it’s a benefit for us as the staff have three months to a year of experience in the facility before becoming a lifeguard.”
With these new staff, the pool is able to be open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. from Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. There will also be additional lane swim times, fun swim times and hot tub times as well.
“We get a lot of requests for to offer more water fit classes,” Madelung said. “We’ve actually got five of our lifeguards currently going through training to become aquafit instructors. It’s a significant process. It involves two courses, exams and a significant period of apprentice teaching. These instructors are over halfway through the process. We hope to have them out and to be able to expand our fit services as well coming in the spring.”
