Drowning Prevention Week

Drowning Prevention Week is deliberately timed ahead of the school summer holidays when children spend more time outdoors and when vital water safety skills can help keep children safe.

Drowning Prevention Week (DPW) is one of the largest summer water safety campaigns across the UK and Ireland.

Save the date for 2025: 14 – 21 June 2025

Get involved:

Drowning Prevention Week (DPW) is the RNLI’s biggest campaign of the year, targeting families, carers, teachers and instructors of children aged five to fifteen years old with the aim of educating them about water safety.

No child should drown, and with the right water safety education – such as knowledge of the Water Safety Code – accidental drownings are preventable.  Please help spread the word and encourage everyone to have the water safety conversation with children. DPW is critical in raising awareness and encouraging the public to enjoy water safely.

Royal Life Saving Society UK's Drowning Prevention Week

Share the water safety code The Water Safety Code | Royal Life Saving Society UK ( RLSS UK )

which includes a video Water Safety Code Cartoon on Vimeo

Some staggering facts:

A lack of supervision remains a contributory factor across all accidental child drownings, and where recorded, 86% occurred when the child was unsupervised by an adult.

In four years 2 in 3 children that drowned at home did so in the bath – this totalled 35 deaths in four years.

In total there were 125 child drowning deaths in England between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2023. Of these:

43% were aged under 5 years old

16% were aged 5 – 12 years old

41% were aged 13 – 17 years old

Of the total 71% were male children.