The headline last week “Ofsted warns over first aid risk at Highbury School Club” is a good reminder to everybody working with both younger and older children to check their first aid certificates are still valid.
It is this time of year when we get lots of calls at Safe and Sound from summer camp organisers who suddenly realise that they have a load of new temporary staff joining for the summer season and they need training.
If you are unsure of your first aid requirements click on the link below:
https://www.qualsafeawards.org/calculator/26bb8ab3a98240737f9b8b15e5364f27
I believe that anybody working with children should not just stick to the mandatory first aid training requirements, but ensure that everybody has some basic life support training. If a child has an accident you don’t want to be waiting for someone to locate the first aider.
From my experience having provided first aid training for over 15 years I think that the majority of summer camp organisers are very vigilant with training their staff. There are however a few exceptions and usually this is more a lapse of memory although sometimes finances do come into play.
It reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with my children’s head at their primary school. It was a large school with a 3 form entry and a nursery and I had offered the school first aid training. The head had said that there were sufficient people within the building so they didn’t need any more staff trained. He was quite dismissive adding that it was about resources and allocation.
“I have to make tough decisions” he said.
“But what if one the children swallowed a rubber or something else and started to choke,” I asked “by the time they had run around the school looking for the first aider, it could be too late.”
I always worry when people put finances in front of safety.
The thing about first aid is that you just never know when you might need it. Look what happened to the footballer David Ginola last week during a charity football match in France. He would be “brain-dead” had it not been for a fellow team player trained in CPR tending to him in the minutes after his collapse.
It is not always the worst case scenario that we are confronted with and knowing what to do in a first aid situation can stop a minor accident turning in a major one.
Let’s face it — First Aid just makes sense.
