About Infant Swimming Resource

For more than 50 years, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) has been teaching children critical Self-Rescue skills -- giving children the competence and confidence to safely enjoy the water. ISR’s technique teaches babies from 6 months to 6 years of age how to save themselves if they were to end up in the water alone.

Going beyond traditional swim instruction, ISR teaches children how to survive in the water. Depending on your child’s age, your child will learn different levels of Self-Rescue skills, including a roll-back-to-float and/or a swim-float-swim. 

At ISR, your child’s safety is our first priority. Each lesson is uniquely tailored to your child’s needs based on comprehensive assessment and continual monitoring of your child’s health and skill attainment. Because every child learns at his or her own pace, your child will be gently guided through each skill level.

ISR has safely delivered over 8,000,000 effective lessons teaching water Self-Rescue skills to more than 300,000 infants and toddlers and has educated parents and medical experts nationwide on water safety techniques and proven instruction methods. To date, ISR has 800 documented cases of children using ISR techniques to save themselves from drowning.

Your child is not the only one who will learn during lessons. Infant Swimming Resource’s program includes comprehensive parent education on aquatic safety and drowning prevention. For more information on keeping your family safe in and around the water read tips on ISR’s Family Aquatic Safety List.

The idea behind Infant Swimming Resource was born in 1966 when its founder, Harvey Barnett, Ph.D, was just 18 years old. As an active lifeguard, Barnett witnessed the tragic aftermath when a neighbor's child drowned. At that moment, he vowed to do everything possible to ensure "not one more child drowns."

Barnett began teaching young children to swim and observed how they responded to certain types of communication, instruction and different techniques — even with non-verbal infants. This was the beginning research phase for what is now Infant Swimming Resource’s comprehensive infant swimming education and Self-Rescue program.

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ISR complies with all federal and state laws and regulations and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, age, religion, or disability.  It is the policy of ISR to provide reasonable accommodations to its disabled applicants and students, with the provision of appropriate documentation of the need for the accommodation.