Hi, I'm
Nina Irving
A Bit About Me
I started this journey in 2018 as an ISR parent, sitting poolside watching my then nine month old learn life saving skills. At the time, lessons were held in Massachusetts and there were no ISR instructors teaching in RI. I was blown away at the invaluable skills my little one had learned in such a short time and knew that I wanted to be involved in this mission of preventing drownings. Fast forward to today and I’m in my fourth year of being an instructor and am one of the first to teach ISR in our state! Over the past four years, I’ve had the pleasure of teaching over 200 kids self rescue skills here in Rhode Island. I adore getting to know your babies and love my daily pool time with each of them!
I have two beautiful daughters that keep me busy. I spend most of my time at home with my girls - crafting, playing, and homeschooling. Mom life has taken over (what are hobbies?!)... and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I look forward to the year ahead and meeting many more of you at the pool. I have big goals for drowning prevention in our state. We must armor our children with layers of protection in and around the water. Together, we can avoid the unimaginable.
Why I Teach ISR
ISR is the global leader in the industry it pioneered in 1966: survival swimming lessons for infants and young children. Our team of highly-trained ISR Instructors provides the safest and most effective survival swimming lessons available. The ISR lessons our students receive today is a product of nearly 60 years of research and experience to achieve unparalleled results each day in pools around the world.
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.
ISR Lesson Overview
Infant Swimming Resource’s Self-Rescue™ program teaches children how to survive if they were to reach the water alone. ISR lessons are one-on-one and customized to the developmental level of each child.
What will my child learn?
Rollback to Float
Babies who can sit on their own – generally six months to 18 months old--learn to hold their breath underwater, roll onto their backs to float, rest and breathe. They learn to maintain this posture until help arrives.
Swim-float-swim
Older children--generally 20 months and older (up to around six years)--learn to hold their breath underwater, swim with their head down and eyes open, roll onto their backs to float, rest and breathe, and roll back over to resume swimming. They are taught to complete this sequence until they reach the side of the pool.
Scheduling Structure
Each session runs approximately 6-8 weeks (depending on each student), scheduled 5 days per week (you bring your child to the pool every day - Monday through Friday), for 10 minutes maximum each day.
Location and Availability
McDermott Pool, Warwick, RI - (Evenings, year round)
Maintenance/Refreshers
An integral part of ISR is maintaining the skills your child learned. To do so, we recommend maintenance and refresher lessons after the completion of their initial ISR session.
Maintenance lessons are typically suggested 1-2x per month. These are used to keep your child's skills sharp, just like any other sensorimotor skill, and to ensure that “bad habits” are not formed.
Refreshers are recommended every 3-6 months, lasting 2-3 weeks. Refreshers are crucial in order to refine your childs skills to suit their growing bodies. They allow instructors to make any necessary adjustments as students reach new developmental and physical milestones.
Parents should work with their instructor to determine a Maintenance + Refresher schedule that is right for their child.
