International Life Saving Federation

Background

Lifeguards are employed in many Nations throughout the world to provide safety, surveillance and rescue services in a range of aquatic environments including ocean beaches, swimming pools, rivers and lake waterfronts.

In many instances, ILS Member Organisations provide the training of the Lifeguards.

ILS has identified possible career paths or lines of work and established a set of International Certificates to identify various achievement levels within each path. Each Certificate requires mastery of ILS-specified core knowledge and skill competencies.

The International Certificate concept serves two purposes:

• It establishes an international set of criteria that can be used by Member Organisations.
• It serves as an international standard or reference, against which existing awards and qualifications can be accredited.

The ILS Certificate is not a license that guarantees employment. Instead it simply provides an international benchmark of achievement, an indicator of potential performance level. It can be used to help determine at which level to slot appropriately into the programme of any member organisation the holder of an ILS Certificate.

The ILS Certificate demonstrates successful completion of approved knowledge and skill objectives. However, every Member Organisation retains the right to test for other skills and knowledge and to request other training. The ILS Certificate is not intended to supersede the existing National Certificate.

In many Nations, there are government regulations or legislation that controls the standards of lifeguards and their associated training requirements.  In a number of Countries, the regulations also vary between States or Provinces.

Statement

1. ILS encourages all Member Organisations to have their lifesaving Certificates accredited against the ILS International Certificate Guidelines.
2. ILS accreditation is NOT a license that guarantees employment
3. Lifesavers or lifeguards with National Certificates that have been accredited against relevant ILS International Certificates should NOT automatically expect their qualifications to be recognised by other ILS Member Organisations.
4. ILS encourages each Member Organisation to adopt a policy and/or a procedure on dealing with lifeguards trained by an ILS Member Federation and who enters another Country seeking employment as a lifeguard and where an ILS Member Federation exists. The policy should outline, as a minimum, the following items.
1. Whether or not government regulations or legislation governing lifeguards or lifeguard training exist in their Country.
2. Whether or not there are any mutual lifeguard training recognition of other Countries lifeguard training programmes.
3. Whether a full or partial training programme needs to be completed.
4. Whether or not a lifeguard license needs to be obtained before entering employment
5. What documentation is available outlining the special techniques (e.g. CPR rates) that may be used in their Country.
6. Summary of steps to be taken by a lifeguard seeking training recognition of prior learning (also often referred to as Recognition of Current Competency).

References

ILS International Certificate Guidelines – Issue 2, 31 October 2001, International Life Saving Federation. Leuven, Belgium.

Approved by the ILS Board of Directors: 20/02/2004