How Do Diveheart Buddy Courses Work?

Diveheart works with certified scuba divers and Adaptive Divers (individuals with a disability) to create Adaptive Dive Teams that allow everyone to experience zero gravity underwater. A Diveheart Adaptive Dive Team consists of the Adaptive Diver, and two Adaptive Dive Buddies. For certified scuba divers, taking a Diveheart Buddy Course is the first step to becoming part of a Diveheart Adaptive Dive Team.

Diveheart has several Adaptive Dive Buddy certifications, each building on the other in terms of the experience and responsibility needed by the buddy candidate. Diveheart prides itself on offering total immersion training for all of its Buddy Courses.

Diveheart believes in a duty to the adaptive diver, so all Diveheart courses are designed to provide buddies with the best knowledge base, training, and experience possible. This allows buddy candidates to create the safest Adaptive Dive Teams.

To accomplish this, the buddy candidate cannot simply enroll in a Diveheart course and receive a card, they will have to earn the certification. In the case of Diveheart’s Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy and Adaptive Scuba Instructor courses, the candidates will also need to complete a required 30 experiences diving with adaptive divers, prior to earning a certification.

Based on this logic, Diveheart does not consider the required “30 diving experiences with adaptive divers” a pre-requisite to the Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy or Adaptive Scuba Instructor (AADB/ASI) courses, but rather a *Pre-Requisite to the certification. A buddy candidate that meets all the hard pre-requisites (age, certs, etc), can enroll in these advanced Buddy Courses without having any experiences diving with adaptive divers.

When a candidate with no experiences diving with adaptive divers finishes the Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy or Adaptive Scuba Instructor course they will have earned a Diveheart Adaptive Dive Buddy certification. But, they will have the knowledge and training of an Advanced Adaptive Buddy or Adaptive Scuba Instructor. This allows the candidate to function as a more qualified and safer team member on Adaptive Dive Teams as they complete their 30 experiences diving with adaptive divers.

Diveheart has provided a way for these Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy and Adaptive Scuba Instructor candidates to log experiences diving with adaptive divers via the Diveheart Experience Log Page. Once the candidate acquires all 30 experiences, they submit the logs to their instructor or directly to Diveheart Headquarters, who then requests an upgrade for that candidate to receiver their Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy or Adaptive Scuba Instructor certification card at no extra cost whatsoever. They earned it!

Have questions? Email training@diveheart.org for more information!

All Diveheart Buddy Courses can be divided up into three basic components

1. Diveheart Manual – Diveheart has two manuals; one for adaptive divers, and one for buddies and instructors. Both manuals are sold via Amazon, and can be purchased as physical or electronic copies. Manuals can also be acquired directly from the dive shop or instructor offering the course.
2. Diveheart eLearning Course – Candidates register and pay independently. They take the course that their recreational certification qualifies them for, and they only need to take that course. Example: A candidate with a Divemaster certification and no adaptive diver experiences registers for the Diveheart Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy eLearning course.
3. Practical Portion – This is the part where the candidate actually shows up to meet and work with the instructor on land clinics, confined water, and open water scenarios.

The Diveheart eLearning courses have set prices and are to be completed prior to attending the practical portion of the course. The price of the manuals can vary depending on how the candidate chooses to acquire them. Manuals are also to be read prior to arriving to class. The price and schedule of the Practical Portion of the course is set by the instructor or training facility, not by Diveheart.

Diveheart Training Introduction

How Do Diveheart Adaptive Diver Courses Work?

Diveheart works with certified scuba instructors from all recognized recreational scuba diving agencies around the world to get adaptive divers (individuals with disabilities) underwater to explore the possibilities in zero gravity!

Adaptive Diver candidates interested in pursuing a certification will work with a Diveheart Adaptive Scuba Instructor. The agency that the Diveheart Adaptive Scuba Instructor is professionally certified through (i.e. PADI, NAUI, SDI, etc), is used to provide the Adaptive Diver candidate with all traditional open water scuba training knowledge, including physics, physiology, equipment, environment, and more!

The adaptive diver candidate will follow that agency’s open water course curriculum, completing the knowledge development, confined water scenarios, and open water scenarios according to that agency’s standards. If the adaptive diver candidate is able to complete everything, they will earn a certification through that respective agency.

However, if there are skills that the adaptive diver candidate is unable to perform on their own, or to that agencies standards, the candidate will no longer qualify for that agency’s certification. But that’s alright! This is where Diveheart’s Adaptive Diver eLearning Course and Adaptive Diver manual come into play. Through these tools, the Adaptive Diver candidate will learn all about how being a part of an Adaptive Dive Team can allow them to scuba dive!

The Diveheart Adaptive Scuba Instructor will work with the adaptive diver candidate and Adaptive Dive Team members to complete skills the adaptive diver candidate is unable to perform on their own. Together they will determine the roles and responsibilities of every member of the Adaptive Dive Team as it pertains to completing skills and exploring the underwater world!

Have questions? Email training@diveheart.org for more information!

Diveheart has created some simple log pages that our buddy and adaptive diver candidates can use to track their scuba diving experiences!
In order to earn a Diveheart Advanced Adaptive Dive Buddy or a Diveheart Adaptive Scuba Instructor certification, the candidate must gain real-world, hands-on experiences diving with adaptive divers. The Diveheart Experience Log Sheet is available to help them track these experiences so that when they reach the 30 required experiences they can apply to upgrade their Diveheart certification level!
The Adaptive Diver Log Book Page can be used by anyone to log their scuba dives!