Children living with sickle cell disease (SCD) face a variety of challenges, including pain and fatigue, that can have a profound effect on their day-to-day lives. For many, that means avoiding the swimming pool – yet learning to swim safely and with necessary precautions can enhance their physical, emotional, and mental health.

In 2024, The Cigna Group introduced the Safe Swimming with Sickle Cell program in Atlanta, Georgia. The program will return to Atlanta in July and in August, it will launch in a new city: Memphis, Tennessee.

The Safe Swimming with Sickle Cell program served 80 children with sickle cell disease in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2024. The program will return to Atlanta and expand to Memphis, Tennessee, this summer.

Ivy Bryant, a senior director of client relationship management for The Cigna Group’s Evernorth Health Services and the mother of a teen daughter with SCD, developed the program with guidance from her daughter’s hematologist. The program, which has been supported by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, aims to educate kids and caregivers about swimming safely with SCD.

“We’re giving these kids – like my daughter – a greater sense of belonging and connectedness, so they can see it’s possible to just be a kid and thrive beyond their disease,” Bryant said. The children receive swim packs containing goggles, towels, and more and learn from YMCA instructors. (Pictured left: Ivy Bryant with her daughter.)

To provide the program, The Cigna Group is collaborating in Atlanta with the YMCA of Metro Atlanta and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In Memphis, the Safe Swimming team has established partnerships with Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the YMCA of Memphis & Mid-South.

This year’s programming also includes Accredo Specialty Pharmacy’s Junior Care Force, a super squad of health heroes offering games, exciting activities, and resources to help kids understand and manage SCD and other chronic conditions.

Elevating a critical life skill into life-saving opportunities

Also new for 2025 is the program’s powerful role in “When Everyone Swims” a feature-length documentary that explores the complicated history of disparities in swimming, how drowning has become a public health crisis, and how people of all backgrounds can have a healthy relationship with water. This documentary is the catalyst for a movement that sheds light on the often-overlooked intersection of swimming, public safety, and social inequality.

The documentary features a compelling sequence with participants from The Cigna Group’s Safe Swimming with Sickle Cell program. “In 2024, we collaborated with Magic Johnson to post about the program on his social media channels,” Bryant said. “The producers saw his posts and reached out.”

“When Everyone Swims” is being released in May, coinciding with National Water Safety Month. Water safety is a public health issue. In the U.S., an average of 10 people die from drowning every day – about 3,500 to 4,000 people a year – and drowning is the No. 1 cause of death for 1- to 4-year-old children.

Safe Swimming with Sickle Cell spotlights The Cigna Group’s community-driven efforts to improve the health and vitality of local communities, said Eric Martinez, senior vice president and chief business marketing officer. “What makes this program unique is not just that it was created by one of our own – Ivy Bryant – it’s also creating true, tangible change in these communities. Safe Swimming with Sickle Cell is a catalyst to building camaraderie and confidence among these kids through a life skill that is absolutely essential and is giving each kid every opportunity to live well.”