Do your children know first aid?

[sethorly]

Good ideas. Who volunteers to get the government to stump up the cash for an instructor to come in? :S

[PreppingPingu]

Our primary school that i work at teach a heart start session once a year to years 5&6 ( run by british heatt foundation), and we now have a public access defib outside our school gates. The st john unit i volunteer at has a trainer that does a lot of school stuff at secondary school level. However, i do feel it needs to be part of the health and social care lessons as part of the curiculem just as sex education is.

[Deeps]

Our primary school that i work at teach a heart start session once a year to years 5&6 ( run by british heatt foundation), and we now have a public access defib outside our school gates. The st john unit i volunteer at has a trainer that does a lot of school stuff at secondary school level. However, i do feel it needs to be part of the health and social care lessons as part of the curiculem just as sex education is.

On the back of this thread, so do I, I think its a great idea.

[Zunzuncito]

As I said there is a petition on going about exactlty this i.e. making it mandatory to teach First Aid in schools - see link below:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/162605

You could also write to your MP about it (as I did, but I wouldn't hold your breath)

[sethorly]

Primary schools at least have no money these days for the basics let alone extras. Any mandatory extra subject needs to come with extra funding for teacher training and/or for first aid peripatetics. As a teacher and parent I'd love to see it as part of a curriculum, perhaps scheduled during the PSHE lesson slot. In the first instance, however, the first responsibility for teaching children life skills lies with the parents. It may be preferable to have some sort of government supported course available to children outside of the school system, leading to a "qualification" or badge for the child.

[sniper 55]

Both my boys are FAW trained and have med gasses and defib training, although their med gasses and defib are out of date now.

[Hamradioop]

There was a bill in parliament last session to make first aid part of the curriculum, I t was I believe a private members bill and it was talked out by a MP Philip Davis http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 42251.html

[SooBee]

All my Guides and Brownies were taught First Aid on a 'What if this happened to Granny?' basis. This broke them in for a proper course of lessons so they could get a badge. We had our own instructors, including local ambulance people and nursing staff and even our doctor looked in on it. It was almost a community teaching project but properly monitored and tested. After all, the more people who could do the right thing in an emergency the better. This was some years ago but the girls could do a lot more than roll bandages. One or two even managed to be helpful on occasion.

[Mad Scientist]

I sent my daughter to St. John's ambulance Badgers from when she was 5, for a few years. It was great at first but they ran out of funds. Still we keep a First Aid book around and a stash of bandages and things around the house.

[PreppingPingu]

Any little that you can instil into your kids help. Sometimes I wonder if my eldest has ever taken on board anything I say/taught over the years but she has twice stepped in to help/save a friend. Once a friend had an asthma attack that became a panic attack and then the friend lost consciousness. While her mates were running about panicking, my daughter put her mate in the recovery position, phoned for an ambulance and assisted the paramedic when they arrived, travelling to hospital with her. She was amazed that none of her mates (all aged between 13-16 at the time) knew the recovery position or what to do in that situation. The second time was during her GCSEs and a mate had smoked something that is illegal which had been "added to". (Laced with something known as spice.) My daughter again had her wits about her enough to realise that he was seriously ill and needed immediate help when the others around were either too high or too clueless or too worried about what the police might say. After a night in hospital the lad in question was released home. On Monday he then waited for my daughter to finish her exam at school and told her that that if she hadn't done what she had done, the hospital said he might not be standing here today. I know we think about it being important for kids to know first aid in case their granny was to have a heart attack or someone have a diabetic turn but the teenage lot are a menace to themselves - basic first aid can go a long way to saving a life in their own peer group.