You never know when an emergency may strike you need to take action to help save a life. At The CFT, we strive to encourage our children and young people to be as prepared as possible for the things that life may throw at them.
Basic First Aid is one of the most important short courses that anyone can complete and we recently gave our young people in the North East region a chance to spend part of their Saturday learning how to administer basic first aid and be prepared for emergency situations.
The training event was held on Saturday 10th February between 10AM and 3PM. The course was facilitated by Julie from Langton Medical and the children were split into different sessions based on ‘age’ throughout the day.
The first group was to take place at 09:00 for an hour. It was arranged for any children age 5-8 years and the aims of the training were for all the children to be able to understand how and when to use the recovery position, how and why to dial 999 and how to bandage an injury. Initially soft toys were going to be used for this exercise, however due to the children’s keen interest for the activity, they were able to bandage each other! There were nine children who attended this age group and all of them were very willing to participate in learning and practicing their CPR compressions and breaths on the ‘Resusci Annie’ manikin. All of the children were able to count 30 compressions to 2 breaths. There was a high level of team work, listening and co-operation and the children all had a great time learning about first aid.
The next group to take part were the 8-11 year olds who showed no apprehensions and were just as keen and eager as the first group to participate in all the activities. In addition to the exercises mentioned above, this group also focused on abdominal thrusts previously known as the ‘Heimlich maneuver’, which involved taking turns in wearing the vest to enable everyone to have a practice. As you can image this was very funny at times and involved a great deal of laughter from those taking part! There was a positive attendance at this group with everyone enjoying themselves and learning great new skills.
From 12:30-15:00 children aged 11+ attended the session to build upon their previous knowledge which included all the above, as well as everyday situations that may occur such as choking, seizures, asthma attacks or situations which impact upon normal judgement whilst under the influence of alcohol/substances.
Julie was great in answering questions and providing reassurance. We would like to thank Julie and Langton Medical for taking the time to come and educate our children and young people on such an important topic.
Following the training, many of the carers have commented that their children and young people were willing and able to physically demonstrate what they had learnt when they had returned to their care and were happily bandaging up their soft toys or carers, laying them on the floor into the recovery position, were able to inform them of the procedure to call 999 and demonstrate that they had to give 2 breaths to 30 compressions. We found this course to be a really positive participation event with our children and are absolutely thrilled that they have gone away with lots of new information and demonstrable skills.
We would like to thank all the children and young people who attended this event and make it such a successful day!
