PTC Colab 2026 Preview:
Learn How to Host a 2-Hour Drowning Prevention Workshop in Your Community
Recorded July 16, 2026
What if your paddlesports business or local organization could help bring practical drowning prevention training to your home community in just two hours?
That is the idea behind a new standardized training developed by members of the American Canoe Association’s Safety & Rescue Committee and Safety & Rescue Instructor Alliance.
During the recent Beyond the Booth: What’s New at PTC Colab 2026 webinar, Dr. Chris Davis offered PTC members a preview of the program and what Colab attendees will experience this October.
Davis, along with Dr. Stephanie Lareau and Jim Coffey, helped develop the new curriculum, which grew out of a free CPR and drowning prevention training specifically geared toward paddlers. The team was recently recognized with a 2026 Higgins & Langley Award for program development.
Two Hours. Standardized. Designed to Be Replicated.
The concept is intentionally simple: create a standardized two-hour training that can be easily reproduced in waterside communities.
Participants learn some of the fundamentals of drowning prevention, including understanding the drowning process, recognizing a person who is drowning, performing CPR and rescue breathing for a drowning patient, and managing paddlesports equipment such as life jackets and helmets during a response.
The program can also include simple techniques for moving an unconscious person from the water and beginning rescue breaths. It is not intended to replace a swiftwater rescue course. Instead, it provides targeted skills that can complement other training and give participants an opportunity to practice responding to a drowning emergency.
Just as importantly, it is designed to be adaptable. A kayak fishing community can train with equipment and scenarios familiar to kayak anglers. Whitewater paddlers can do the same in their environment. Clubs, outfitters and other organizations can tailor the experience to the people and places they serve.
The Bigger Idea: Take It Home
The goal isn't simply to teach one class. It is to create something paddling leaders can take back to their own communities and replicate.
Davis hopes participants will learn alongside the people they paddle with, then share that knowledge with others in their favorite waterside communities. While World Drowning Prevention Day on July 25 every year provides an annual opportunity to rally around the effort, the curriculum is intended to support training throughout the year.
At PTC Colab 2026, attendees will get a closer look at the program, experience the training firsthand, and get the opportunity to host a workshop back home in their own paddling communities for World Drowning Prevention Day 2027.
An Opportunity for Paddlesports Businesses to Lead Locally
For the paddlesports industry, there is another important piece to this story. Retailers and outfitters are often already community gathering points. They host demo days, organize river cleanups, support clubs and connect people who paddle together.
Drowning prevention training offers another way to play that community role.
As Davis explained during the webinar, this is an opportunity for paddlesports businesses to engage people, make an impact locally and do something positive that ultimately benefits the entire community.
A standardized, two-hour program makes that idea much more accessible.
It doesn't require every local organization to invent a program from scratch. Instead, paddlesports leaders can start with a replicable curriculum, adapt it to their community and help put potentially lifesaving knowledge into the hands of the people who spend time together on and around the water.
See It at PTC Colab 2026
This webinar clip is only a preview. At PTC Colab 2026, October 14–16 at Montgomery Whitewater, attendees will have an opportunity to learn more about the standardized drowning prevention training and how it can be put to work in paddling communities.
For retailers, outfitters, instructors, clubs and other paddlesports leaders, the question may be simple:
What could your business or organization do with two hours to make your local paddling community safer?
Featured Guest
Dr. Chris Davis – ACA Safety & Rescue Instructor, ACA Safety & Rescue Committee and Safety & Rescue Instructor Alliance
Next Steps
- Register to attend PTC Colab 2026 (FREE)
- Register to Exhibit at PTC Colab 2026 (and nominate Retailers for Retailer Engagement Fund)
- Register to attend 1-day ACA Instructor Update
- Register to attend 1-day ACA Instructor Endorsement-Paddlesports Fishing