Do you have a backyard pool at your home? All backyard pool owners must ensure that their swimming pool area is one that’s completely safe for all who enter. They can do this by installing one or more pool barriers, posting swimming rules for pool safety for all to follow, and by creating a swimming pool safety checklist that’s specific to their swimming pool area. 

Your Pool Safety Checklist

Anyone who’s in charge of pool safety needs to create a pool safety checklist, as this checklist can save the lives of both children and adults. The list below is a safety checklist that can be printed out by those who are in charge of pool safety, making it easy for them to see at a glance whether or not all of their safety checklist boxes have been checked. Because every pool area is unique to each home, it may be necessary to add or subtract items from this checklist to make it customized for any particular backyard pool area.

• Make Sure Rules for Pool Safety are Posted Correctly. Any pool safety rules that need to be followed while swimming in a backyard swimming pool, or even hanging out in a pool area, not only need to be easy to understand, they also need to be posted in an obvious place for all to see.
• Teach Children How to Swim. Children can be taught how to swim by their parents, or by taking a local swimming class that offers swimming lessons for young ones.
• Check Ladders, Rails, etc. to Ensure All are Working Properly. Performing a safety check on all parts of a pool is necessary before allowing children to swim. If any problems are found, they need to be addressed immediately. 
• Make Sure an Adult is Always Watching. An adult should always be watching pool swimmers, they should also know how to perform first aid, including CPR.
• Install Self-Closing and Self-Latching Gates. These common safety barriers should be checked often in order to ensure they’re working properly, as they help prevent unauthorized pool access. 
• Keep the Pool Area Free of Clutter. Too much clutter in a swimming pool area does not support a safe pool area. Removing clutter helps prevent pool accidents from happening, as it’s much too easy to trip over swimming pool toys, etc.
• Install a High-Quality Pool Alarm. Swimming pool alarms are installed to ensure that no one is able to enter a pool or pool area when they’re not authorized to do so.
• Install a Pool Safety Fence. The most important pool barrier is a pool safety fence, which needs to completely surround the pool area and be at least 4 feet tall.
• Have Emergency Numbers Easily Accessible. Anyone who’s in charge of a swimming pool area needs to make sure they have a list of emergency numbers preinstalled in their cellphones. Since no one knows when a pool accident may occur, having these numbers easily accessible is important. Examples of numbers to include – emergency room, doctor’s office, family, and neighbors.