Focus:
Focus The focus of this PSA is to inform parents of young children about the dangers of swimming pools and the importance of pool safety.
Target Audience:
Target Audience The target audience of this PSA is parents of young children. More specifically, those who own their own pools, but certainly it applies to all parents equally.
Relation to Developmental Concepts:
Relation to Developmental Concepts This PSA, in it’s emphasis on implementing safe behaviors for parent and increasing personal awareness for the child, could help play a crucial role in potentially life-threatening situations. Swimming lessons are a must for adolescent youths, particularly in Arizona, but during infancy, familiarity with information like this could mean the difference between life and death.
Background:
Background As the parent of a 2 year old son, and owner of a backyard pool, I take these lessons quite seriously. Far too often we hear on the local news of another infant drowning. Through the creation of this PSA, I was able to double-check my own facilities and make sure they were up to safety standards.
Research:
Research I visited several local news sites and watched a number of informative pool safety videos. I also spoke to a very helpful sales associate at Mesa Pool Service who gave me some great ideas.
Focus Group:
Focus Group The focus group for my PSA consisted of my wife, sister, and mother-in-law, as well as my two year old son Elijah, who I made pay extra close attention. Reactions were mixed. My wife felt I could have presented more statistics and done a little more with the filming aspect. My son seemed to enjoy it. I feel it achieves its intended outcome in pointing out the dangers associated with pools and offering some ways to prevent accidents. I think the video portion could have been improved with better equipment/know-how, of which I have neither.
What did I learn?:
What did I learn? Regarding pools, I learned that even though I thought the problem was serious, it’s much worse than even I imagined. Regarding this PSA, I think I learned these kinds of things work better when two minds are in collaboration. I had a difficult time figuring out how to present this information and feel I may not have captured it as well as I wanted to. I do think this PSA, if tinkered with a bit, could be used by others as a way of informing new parents, maybe through daycare facilities and other toddler-friendly environments.