Background Drowning is the first cause of death in children who are under 15 years old in Surin province, a province located in the North East of Thailand. Death rate in year 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 were 12.9, 11.1, 14.3, 14.2,12.2, 8.4, 10.6 respectively per 100,000<15 years old. In 2016, drowning in children<15 years were 28 cases, 32.1% of males and 67.9% of females. The percentage of drowning children age below 2 years old, 3–5, 6–9 and 9–12 years old is 17.9, 21., 28.6 and 32.1 percent respectively. The place where drowning occur are community ponds, pond in the field, canel and pond in home and can be calculated as 35.7 percent, 35.7 percent,10.7 percent and10.7 percent respectively. We found that 14.3%of children can swim, 85.7%of children cannot swim and all of them have no skill in survival swimming. The factor leads to drown is that 46.3% play in the risk water with friends, 42.86% was drops in the risk water, 7.14% was catch the fish and 3.57% was help their friend who drowning.

Methods The main factor is most of children do not know how to swim, have no skill to help themselves while drowning. In addition, there is few standard pool in local communities. Many schools have no swimming program for students. Also, parents cannot swim and there have many source of water near home and school where children can jump in. According to children behavior, they like to play in the water with friends during their school break or vacation. The main point we focus on is how children can float in the water and have a right skill to help people or their friends from drowning and have skill on primary resussitatation. Since there are not many standard swimming pool available. Mobile pool which is given from a supporter is one choice. We adapt survival swimming curriculum for trainer and children. The trainer taught children in easy steps and used easy equipment to help children floating in the water such as plastic bottle. This saves time and is not dangerous while training in mobile pool. We plan best practice school model in local communities. Children who have good skill can train another child.

Results More than 80 percent of students who pass15 hours of survival swimming curriculum can float in the water. The longest hour some children can float is 4 hours. The important technique is they need to learn the right way of how to breath by mouth, how to keep air in lung, make right position and use empty plastic bottle(1,000 ml) when floating in the water. By the knowledge management from team network corporation from Hospital, Health station, School, Local administration and another volunteers which work in Province, district and sub-district, they learn how to be a good teamwork to help children. Our team call ‘MERIT MAKER’Which stand for Management, Environment, Resuscitation, Information, Trainning, Media, Advocacy/policy, Kindergarten, Education and Research)MERIT MAKER Team in 2015,2016,2017 were 27.5%, 91.2%,95% of sub-district in Surin Province.

Conclusions Now, we have the best practice in school and set a leader student to be a coach helper and also help friends in survival swimming program. Moreover, we have developed a survival swimming program for trainers team, co-operate in school program. In community have prevent on risk resources, have poster Knowledge and equipment to help people who was drowning. All of this is a concrete success that all school can apply, teach in the process of teamwork and to solve the problem of drowning in Surin. The 7 years of success, between 2011–2017, is our proud. Everyone voluntarily to helps children from drowning. The goal is to reduce death rate of drowning lower than 4.5 per 1 00 000 childrens below 15 years old within 2018. Children can learn survival swimmimg in primary school, can float in water, and know how to help people who drowning. Their parents protect childrens and community participation to prevent childrens from drowning.