ABOUT ISR

 

OUR HISTORY:

Founded by Harvey Barnett, Ph.D., in 1966, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) strives to put an end to a preventable tragedy: childhood drowning.  Barnett witnessed the aftermath of this tragedy after a neighbor’s 9 month old son reached the water alone.  From that point on, Barnett vowed to do everything possible to ensure that "Not One More Child Drowns."  Barnett, a behavioral scientist by trade,  adapted his theoretical knowledge of learning to pioneer the Self-Rescue method used by ISR today to teach infants and young children to save themselves should they reach the water alone.  One man’s mission has transformed into a worldwide organization that is continually making large strides toward the day that "Not One More Child Drowns."  The ISR Self-Rescue® instruction our students receive today is the product of over 60 years of research and achieves unparalleled results.  ISR is nationally recognized as the safest provider of survival swimming lessons for infants and young children.

 

NOT ONE MORE CHILD DROWNS:

Today, our mission, “Not One More Child Drowns,” is the foundation of everything we do and is the driving force behind ISR’s employees, our independent ISR Instructors, and our major corporate partnerships. We believe the successful prevention of the leading cause of accidental death for children under the age of 4 in the U.S. will require a large group of caring and capable professionals whose sole focus is to save lives.

 

To date, we have delivered more than 19,000,000 ISR Self-Rescue® lessons. ISR believes in multiple layers of defense against aquatic accidents which include pool fences, alarms, and active adult supervision. However, traditional lines of defense break down, and the over 4,000 drowning deaths per year bear a grim testament to the fact that traditional approaches are missing a key component: the child. ISR’s core conviction is that the child is the most important part of a drowning prevention strategy and our over 450,000 ISR graduates and hundreds of documented survival stories, are proof that children can, and do, save themselves. Children are curious, capable, and have an uncanny ability to overcome obstacles like pool fences; at ISR we take that ability and teach them skills to potentially save themselves if they find themselves in the water alone.