It’s become a cliché to compare a sports team to a family; nearly every functional team labels itself as such. But it would be a mistake to believe that a team deserving of such a label can’t still be truly extraordinary.
The Splash swimming program, held each Saturday at Farmingdale High School, is proof positive of that fact. Started in 2010, it focuses on providing swimming instruction to kids with special needs, something that the program’s supervisor, Barbara Blair-Reade, takes very seriously.
“First and foremost, every child must learn to swim,” she said. “This is drowning prevention at its best. Each child is seen as a unique individual. There’s no generalizing. Parents are so appreciative of that individual attention.”
The program is comprised of 40 kids, grades 2-12, across two teams. The Splash team learns the basics, learning how to float and get acclimated to the water. The O’splash team gets more advanced instruction, learning the breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle and butterfly, along with using gear. The program also provides training for “de-escalation,” which helps each kid to remain calm in the water. While the coaches may sound as though they have their hands full, Blair-Reade points out that a first-time observer may have difficulty distinguishing a Splash team practice from any other swim practice.
“It’s transparency,” she said when asked what makes the practices run smoothly. “This is what I’m most proud of. The key for the kids is lots of reward and lots of praises.”
Also helping is the array of volunteers who give their time to Splash each weekend. There are at least 30, and each is a high school swimmer and most are from Farmingdale High School, Massapequa High School or the Farmingdale Aquatics club.
“The success of our program is due to our dedicated coaching staff and volunteers,” Blair-Reade said. “We’re blessed with a large group of volunteers who brave the chilly waters of the Farmingdale High School pool for three hours a day, on their own time.”
The volunteers do get community service hours for their efforts, but they also gain something possibly more valuable.
“You can read about someone who has epilepsy, or someone who’s on the autism spectrum,” said Blair-Read. “But [the volunteers] get to meet them and learn about them not by reading. They get life skills.”
As several of the parents point out, the swimmers benefit from the interaction as well. Jessica Aliendro credits Splash with making her son, Gabe, excited for the day he finally gets to go to high school.
“You have sixth-graders hanging out with ninth-graders,” Aliendro said. “Age difference doesn’t matter. It takes the edge off of transitioning to a new school. And it’s put me at ease. I never have to worry. [Gabe] knows how to swim.”
“It’s a unique thing we have going,” added Ralph Burney, whose son, Ralph, has progressed to the point of being on the high school swim team. “The kids share a lot of activities and are constantly around one another. The parents all know each other. One of the good things is that typical kids are working with our kids. It’s great for [Ralph] to model his behavior after them.”
Despite the work Splash has done for kids with special needs in Farmingdale, Blair-Reade says that there is an unfortunate lack of similar programs in other towns. Though most swimmers on the team are from Farmingdale, there are a few from other towns, such as Massapequa, Plainview, Babylon and Seaford. Since Splash is a Farmingdale Youth Council program, residents of Farmingdale are given priority, meaning that, with limited space available, several kids from outside of Farmingdale don’t get to participate.
“For safety’s sake, we can’t have more than 40 kids,” said Blair-Reade. “It breaks my heart to have to turn them away. But we are more than happy to speak to other towns if they want to start a program. We would tell them our mistakes and our successes.”
The successes for Splash have been plentiful. For the fifth time since the program began, the team will participate in an upcoming Special Olympics competition. In addition, special-needs swimmers who age out of the program are sometimes hired to assist the coaches.
Blair-Reade gave a shout-out to “Honorary Team Mom” Jean Brown. “Jean, you are missed by your Farmingdale Splash family,” she said.
“It’s morphed into something I never could have dreamed of,” Blair-Reade said.
