About WaterWiseKids

Who We Are

WaterWiseKids is a free water-safety education resource published at waterwisekids.com, serving families across the United States. We are a dedicated water-safety and swim-education organization, not to be confused with the many local “water wise” conservation initiatives that share a similar name. Our safety guidance is evidence-based.

WaterWiseKids was founded by a team of certified swim instructors and water safety educators who are passionate about water safety for kids and adults, with years of hands-on experience teaching all ages and abilities. We created this platform to make expert water safety education free and accessible to every family in America.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 1 to 4. We built this platform because every family deserves access to practical, reliable water safety information — no matter where they live.

Everything on this site comes from real experience: teaching thousands of families, coaching instructors, and running swim programs day in and day out. Our safety guides are never paid for. Paid placements are labeled and kept separate.

Our Mission

Make practical water safety education free and accessible to every family — and help parents find swim programs they can trust.

We publish free water safety guides on topics such as drowning prevention, choosing a swim school, and adult swim lessons. Our swim lesson directory helps families compare programs. We check each listed location against the operator's published information, and families should confirm current details directly.

For Families

Whether you're researching when to start swim lessons, preparing for your child's first day in the pool, learning to swim yourself as an adult, or getting ready for summer travel — our guides are written to give you clear, practical answers from people who do this work every day.

Our water safety guides and directory are free for families. Swim schools can buy separately labeled promotional placements. Payment does not determine our safety guidance or the order of standard directory results. Families should compare schools using the same questions regardless of whether a school advertises here.

For Swim Schools

If you run a swim program, you can request a standard directory listing at no cost. Schools seeking additional visibility can ask about paid promotional placements, which are separate from standard results and editorial content.

The WaterWiseKids publisher also operates swim-school businesses, which gives the site direct experience with parent questions and creates a financial conflict that we disclose. It does not make WaterWiseKids an independent evaluator of those affiliated schools.

Where We're Headed

We started with a handful of articles and a mission to make water safety knowledge accessible. Today we offer hundreds of guides and a swim lesson directory covering all 50 states. We continue to add and review resources for families throughout the year.

How WWK Is Funded and How We Choose Content

WaterWiseKids offers paid advertising and promotional placements to swim schools and other aquatics businesses. These are purchases of visibility, not charitable donations. We label promotional placements so families can distinguish them from standard listings and safety guidance.

Advertisers do not choose our safety recommendations or purchase a position in standard directory results. We check directory locations against operators' published information, but that check is not an inspection, accreditation, endorsement, or verification of instructor qualifications. Schools provide some profile details; families should confirm current credentials, prices, schedules, and safety practices directly with each provider.

Corporate affiliation: VTL Holding LLC owns WaterWiseKids and the British Swim School of Jersey Shore and Northwest Philadelphia operations. Enrollment with these schools may financially benefit VTL Holding LLC. Their presence in our lesson resources does not constitute an independent endorsement. We identify this affiliation near relevant school links and in school profiles. If a listing is inaccurate or a promotional placement is not clearly labeled, contact us.

Read the full Editorial Policy, Medical Review Policy, Ownership and Advertising Disclosure, and public Corrections Log. The responsible publisher is identified on Michael Plotnikov's profile. Developers and researchers can use the read-only Open Data API and MCP reference.

Join the Parent Community

Our free Facebook group is where parents ask questions, share what worked, and get a new printable checklist every week. Join WaterWiseKids on Facebook.