Impacting far and wide

YMCA South Australia (The Y) has been South Australia’s leader in aquatic facility management for safety, performance and compliance when benchmarked against industry standards. Following the successful mobilisation of the redeveloped Thebarton Aquatic Centre, the Y was approached by our partners the Department for Education for further support in an industry that they required external expertise and experience.

This support was in the form of aquatic facility and operational safety review at the newly constructed Pukatja Community Pool in the APY Lands. Pukatja, formally known as Ernabella is 330km southwest of Alice Springs and 1,300km northwest of Adelaide with a population of 512 residents. This is considered a remote area of South Australia with limited access to internet and the broader comforts of living in metropolitan or even regional areas.

The project brief provided was to attend the Pukatja Community Pool and provide a consultation report on the systems and processes that would need to be implemented to enable the pool to open safely to the local school, water safety program and local community.

To successfully deliver this project, Leeann Ksiezak (Centre Manager – The Parks Recreation & Sports Centre) who is one of our organisation’s leading experts in aquatic operations was accompanied by Alistair Baird from Surf Lifesaving SA to attend the site in September and conduct a comprehensive audit of the facility. They reviewed processes and procedures along with a formal Surf Lifesaving SA pool safety assessment to identify the gaps to be presented to the Department.

To get there, our team had to fly from Adelaide to Sydney, then fly on to Uluru and drive via 4wd for a further 4hrs south to Pukatja guided by local experts to ensure a safe passage and necessary land permits for entry to the park.

Commenting on her experience Leeann noted “It is a very different world up at Pukatja and a real eye-opening experience”. “I’m so thankful and glad my employment with the Y has given me so many valuable opportunities, and this experience is a once in a lifetime chance to have a greater impact in the remote areas of the country that has made me appreciate how lucky we are”.

The report was provided to the Department for Education with a full presentation on the key findings and recommendations with supporting assessments, operating schedules and template supervision plans for implementation. The report highlighted to the Department how much compliance, risk management and governance from all levels of management is delivered on a day-to-day basis. They were appreciative of the report, which gave them the tools and expertise required to successfully manage the pool operations going forward.

Head of Sport & Recreation, Craig Hortin commented “We’re extremely proud of our team’s expertise and delivery of world class facility operations and programs “We want to be recognised as the go to organisation for all things aquatic and recreation in South Australia, and always welcome opportunities to collaborate with the community and partners in order to provide high quality recreation programs for all South Australians.”