“Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are 160 times more likely to drown than their developing peers. Autism Swim is on a mission to change this disproportionate statistic and ensure aquatics becomes inclusive, worldwide.” Source
Founded by Erika Gleeson, Autism Swim (AS) has grown to be an award-winning international charity. Their mission is to change the hugely under-reported drowning statistics for those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and to make aquatics inclusive.
Children with autism are often naturally inquisitive and nearly half of all children with autism wander into dangerous water situations. In addition, they find joining in normal lessons difficult and challenging. By providing special training and certification to aquatic professionals around the world – occupational therapists, swimming and surfing teachers – AS mitigate the risks associated with drowning for people with ASD.
To expand their reach in the global community of aquatic professionals, AS needed to digitise their training content, and to put a scalable corporate learning management system in place.
Key Needs and Challenges
In October 2018, Autism Swim reached out to Catalyst IT Australia to help them with their transformation to online learning delivery.
The key goal was to develop an easy to navigate and engaging learning management system, keeping in mind that many of their learners had very little, or no online learning experience.
The new platform had to:
- encompass all certification elements
- cater to different learning styles
- ‘drip feed’ new content, including quizzes, on a regular (monthly and three-monthly) basis
- provide analytics and reporting functions to track learners progress, ensure compliance and allow for continuous improvements
Findings and Solutions
Totara Experience Platform was chosen as suitable solution for AS Team’s key needs.
Hosted on Catalyst IT’s secure, optimised and scalable Cloud infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the new Totara LMS was fully customised to AS requirements. Catalyst recommended and implemented a streamlined dashboard for enhanced learner engagement, while Totara’s dynamic audiences improved enrolment experience.
The new platform could support all types of content – PDFs, images and videos.
Catalyst’s re-engagement plugin was implemented to release content monthly, as well as the mandatory three monthly mandatory quizzes.
Proper reporting and analytics was another key success factor on AS digital transformation journey.
Catalyst IT team worked closely with AS to built custom reporting that would help track users who do not satisfy all of the certification criteria. The reports pull data from different sources, and allow for the best view of where learners are at in their certification journey. Scheduled course completion reports are then sent to relevant stakeholders (generally leaders or managers of the organisations that sign up for AS training).
Being open source, the Totara platform has great community support resource. We interact regularly with the different forums online. Catalyst’s support has been rapid and responsive during the continuous version upgrade process of our LMS. We have reliable ongoing LMS support which offers assurance and peace of mind, as all security and functionality improvements are added quickly to our instance.
Results
The transition to online learning, supported by custom, scalable, Cloud based LMS has provided Autism Swim with many measurable benefits.
The logistical constraints of traditional classroom had been removed significantly, increasing the accessibility of AS certification courses and allowing for AS expansion goals to be realised.
A centralised Learning Management System, which also serves as a powerful analytical tool, means that AS Administrators can create and modify courses easily for their global community of learners; and course content can be improved as informed by the new analytics and reporting features.
AS is now in a much better position to cater to different learning styles and continue to pursue their mission worldwide.
Within a few months of launching the new LMS platform, Autism Swim expanded into Malaysia, with Singapore, UK and US to follow.
When AS partnered with Catalyst IT in 2018, they delivered courses to 1000+ learners in 15 countries. Seven years on (as of 2025), AS has doubled their geographic reach, supporting a growing number of learners across 31 countries.
World leaders in inclusive aquatics, Autism Swim (AS) were able to realise their mission and goals thanks to powerful online learning tools and support from their sponsors and partners, including Catalyst IT Australia who have provided hosting and 24/7 monitored managed service for AS Totara Solution for 7+ years.
Autism Swim was founded in 2016, and since our partnership with Catalyst, it has supported our growth from a local initiative into a world leader in inclusive aquatics. Having a scalable, reliable platform has been critical to reaching more learners and expanding our impact internationally. We are beyond grateful to the Catalyst crew for creating such a solid and successful solution to our needs.