For many Australians, Nippers is a rite of passage. Now, for Dippers

Sydney’s Bronte Beach is a mere 250 metres wide, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in an abundance of what the late artist Brett Whiteley called “optical ecstasy”. Its bottlegreen breakers – which can be wild and dangerous – are wedged between two sandstone cliffs in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, studded with multimillion-dollar homes. To one side are the Bronte Baths, built in 1887, and behind it lies a verdant swathe of bushland filled with paperbarks, she-oaks and wattles.

It is a progressive as well as a startlingly beautiful place. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel uplifted by the new surf education program the Bronte Surf Life Saving Club has recently embraced. On Saturday mornings over the summer months, the participants of the Dippers program – many of whom are neurodivergent and often terrified of the beach – are gradually encouraged, week by week, year by year, to put their toes in the sand or dip their hands at the water’s edge. With equal doses of patience and encouragement, they may learn to relax enough to put their face in the water for a few moments.

Sydney’s Bronte Beach, one of the locations offering the Dippers program.Credit: Wolter Peeters

For Chloe Alder, taking her two sons, Harley and Jasper, to Dippers has been life-changing. Chloe felt “blindsided” the day a paediatrician gave her the diagnosis that Harley was on the autism spectrum. “You worry about everything. How is he going to cope in life? Who is going to look after him when I’m not here?” she says. “I knew it was a long, rocky road ahead.”

When her second son, Jasper, received the diagnosis that he, too, was on the autism spectrum, she became doubly determined to find as much help as she could for her sons. Speech therapy, occupational therapy and group therapy followed in quick succession. She joined a carers group and a disability playgroup. She took both her sons to classes at the local swimming school, but they were unable to filter out the raucous sounds around them and concentrate on the teacher’s instructions. They’d end up having a tantrum or getting into an argument with others.

“You desperately want them to have the same opportunities as everyone else,” she says. “I was at my wit’s end, wondering what could help them.”

When she found out about Dippers, she signed up in a heartbeat. At first, Harley was daunted by the group sessions at Coogee Beach (south of Bronte Beach). “He gets sensory overload easily, and finds free time difficult,” Chloe says. “He likes structure and routine.” But each Saturday morning, a Dippers volunteer would patiently spend hours by Harley’s side as he explored the wooden fishing boats that had been pulled up onto the sand at the north end of the beach. He would walk around with a stuffed toy, fascinated by the signposts saying Swim Between the Flags or Dangerous Rip. His favourite place on the beach was the giant rainbow painted on the semicircular steps leading down to the sand; he would lie down on it every week, grinning madly.

“Those few hours after we come home would have to be the happiest few hours we have all week.”

Chloe Alder, whose son Harley attends Dippers

There was never any pressure for Harley to take part in any of the activities, or any rush to succeed. Slowly, week by week, he grew accustomed to the sound of the waves, and the seagulls, and the sounds of other people, and began enjoying himself on the sand and in the water. He now regards Dippers as his favourite thing in the world. Ask him about his Saturday mornings with the group, and it’s like turning on a tap. “Dippers,” he says, beaming, “is totally awesome. I wish it happened all the time.”

One Saturday morning, with the volunteers helping him, Harley scrambled up onto a boogie board and rode a small wave back to shore. “I just couldn’t believe that was him,” Chloe recalls. “I seriously never thought I would see him do something like that.”

The benefits have flowed through to the rest of Harley’s life. “When he’s out near the water now, that’s the most content and at peace he ever is. And those few hours after we come home would have to be the happiest few hours we have all week. Getting in the water just seemed to have such a powerful effect on him. He’s become a much happier person, much more confident with people,” she says.

It wasn’t long before Dippers was working its magic on Chloe’s second son. Jasper’s needs were very different to his older brother’s. “He was just champing at the bit to get in the water. If we didn’t hold him back, he would have jumped in and started heading to New Zealand.” Born with low muscle tone, Jasper tires quickly, and needed to build his fitness as well as learning the ins and outs of water safety skills. “The Dippers team slowly taught him to calm down, build up his strength, and become more confident in the water,” Chloe says.

Helping children to enjoy the beach can provide benefits for the whole family.Credit: Getty Images

The miracle worker behind Dippers is Erika Gleeson, a 35-year-old behaviour specialist working with those who are on the autism spectrum or have an intellectual disability. She grew up in the small coastal northern NSW town of Port Macquarie, and spent her childhood riding bodyboards in the whitewash with her friends. When she began supporting people with disabilities, she was hooked. Her eyes glint like the sea when she talks about her work. “I knew this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I find people I work with more fascinating than neurotypicals. I definitely don’t see them as ‘inspirational’.” She frowns at that idea. “I just love identifying where they need some additional support in order for them to reach their potential.”

Erika was shocked to discover, during these first few years in the disability sector, that 90 per cent of deaths of autistic children are the result of drowning. “Their need for water skills was actually far greater than most.” To her dismay, though, the swim schools and surf clubs she approached seemed unwilling or unable to include people with diverse needs into their classes. So Erika took matters into her own hands. She set up a training course for aquatic professionals called Autism Swim, to give them the knowledge, skills and resources to help people of all ages and abilities. Soon after, she set up her first Dippers group, run in conjunction with Coogee Surf Life Saving Club.

Unlike the Nippers program, which teaches children basic lifesaving techniques, to swim in the open water for hundreds of metres and to race on boards, Dippers has much simpler, but equally important, goals. Some of its students are on the autism spectrum, others have Down syndrome; some have epilepsy, an intellectual disability or visual or hearing impairments. Sometimes they have a combination of these conditions.

“The water should be for everyone, no matter what their needs, goals and preferences,” Erika says. “Everyone has the ability to swim and surf with the requisite support. People with disabilities should be able to do what everyone else can do. It’s about society becoming more inclusive and more adaptive to everyone’s needs.”

The parents of Erika’s first group noticed that their children seemed to make huge headway in a relatively short amount of time. Word spread quickly; within a few years, her program had been adopted by progressive surf clubs such as Bronte, Coogee, Bondi, Port Macquarie, Warriewood and Coolangatta.

The backbone of the Dippers program is its volunteers, who are trained to vary the routine to suit the participants’ needs and goals. Often the youngsters have trouble communicating or concentrating, or are unsettled by a change in routine. Some don’t like loud sounds. Others don’t like to be touched. Some have delayed learning and are highly anxious. Some, with no sense of risk, want to paddle out towards the horizon on a boogie board and need to be watched like a hawk. To communicate with their young charges, especially those who are non-verbal, the volunteers sometimes use visual storyboards, showing the activities of the day – tug of war, relays, board riding.

Peter Daly, who has been volunteering at Bronte since the program began, says it’s enormously fulfilling to build a rapport with the kids and watch them grow in confidence as the summer unfolds. “We get as much out of the program as the parents and families themselves,” he says.

As always, the healing powers of the ocean are at work. One recent Saturday morning, after gazing at it longingly for years, Harley finally plucked up the courage to go for a ride on one of Coogee Surf Life Saving Club’s inflatable rescue boats. After securing him, the lifesavers zoomed about at the back of the beach. Harley is almost lost for words as he tries to describe the euphoria of bouncing and skimming over the glittering waves that day. It seems to be on par with the excitement of landing on the moon. “I went into the deep, deep water so I swim and go on the boat,” he says. “That was awesome!”

Edited extract from Saltwater Cure (Murdoch Books) by Ali Gripper, out now.

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