Guidance to Support Local Action Planning
The National Action Plan includes a 12-step process to help water safety professionals create and implement action plans at the community, county, or state level. The 12 steps are divided into 2 phases: a reflection phase to assess the current situation and an action planning phase to build on your findings and develop a data- and evidence-informed local action plan.
Reflection Phase
The purpose of the reflection phase is to start action planning from an informed place. During this phase, you’ll explore and review the key factors that influence drowning in your local context.
The steps in the reflection phase are:
1
Getting started. Gather a group of participants to think through the process and start reflecting.
2
Partners and collaborators. Identify who should be engaged in the reflection and planning process.
3
Waterscape and hazards. Review your aquatic environments and any drowning hazards.
4
Drowning data. Explore available data to identify groups at risk and discover relevant trends.
5
Current efforts. Identify current drowning prevention policies, programs, and resources.
6
Putting it all together. Complete a reflection matrix using the information collected.
Want more information?
- Download this resource for more details about each step: From Reflection to Action — Phase 1: Guidance on Doing a Reflection Exercise to Support Action Planning [PDF – 9 MB]
- Check out these reflection phase tools [DOCX – 84 KB], a collection of checklists and questions to guide your work.
- Use the Reflection to Action Workbook [XLSX – 24 KB] to keep track of your efforts
Action Planning Phase
The purpose of the action planning phase is to build on what you learned during the reflection phase. During this phase, you’ll identify data- and evidence-informed actions to improve or expand upon current efforts; prioritize actions; and develop, launch, and monitor a comprehensive and coordinated action plan.
The steps in the action planning phase are:
7
Critical issues. Synthesize information in the reflection matrix to identify key issues and gaps.
8
Potential actions. Explore potential actions to address each key issue, including infrastructure and capacity.
9
Prioritization. Review potential actions against certain criteria to select your priorities.
10
Plan generation. Develop S.M.A.R.T. objectives, roles and responsibilities, and implementation steps for each priority.
11
Launch and implementation. Share the final plan with all partners and collaborators and begin implementation.
12
Monitor momentum. Measure, communicate, and celebrate progress to maintain momentum.
The detailed guidance resource for this phase will be available soon.
