First aid is an essential skill, a vitally important life skill, even for children!
My youngest daughter, nearly 13, is our in-house nurse. She’s the first to run to our bathroom and apply whatever first aid is needed to anyone who is injured on the farm. She loves to clean wounds and apply dressings and plasters.
Two years ago, when I was seriously burnt, she attended to me during and after the accident, and had the stomach and guts to hold my hand when my dressings were changed. She can cope with the sight of blood. Some people just can’t.
When in teacher’s training college, every first-year student had to take the official St. John’s Ambulance First Aid Course. There were several scary opportunities during my 10-year teaching career when this knowledge helped me assist pupils. Once a pupil fell from the grandstands and broke her spine. Thankfully, because of my first aid training, I was able to stabilize her and prevent any movement to her spine, and she went on to fully recover!
Today, Lara and I sat to do a 30 minute, free online first aid course with Click to Save St. John.
The course layout is extremely clear, simple and basic. They present each lesson with brief explanations, some slide shows and several lessons include short video clips. One or two lessons include multiple-choice questions.
During a few of the lessons, I added practical demonstrations, and at the end of the course, I even lay on the floor as an ‘unconscious’ patient for Lara to practice all her newly learnt skills in “DRSABCD”. Then, after giggling and dusting ourselves off, we sat down to click through the quick 8-multiple-choice online exam.
When you correctly answer all 8 questions, you receive a certificate! Lara clicked too soon on one answer and had to re-do the exam, but after sitting through her exams, I believe she has learnt some very good basic skills.
Note:
- This course is an introduction to first aid, and first aiders still need to do practical lessons to correctly access, prioritize strategies, do CPR, apply pressure and splint or bandage injuries. With this in mind, I am sure that Lara and I will enroll in a full course in town in the future.
- This course is based in Australia. Apply their emergency numbers when answering the exam, but teach your children your local emergency numbers.
- There are photos of a staged accident. Some images where blood or injuries are shown may seem gruesome to some folk. Please preview before your children take the course.
- Parents should sit and read the course aloud for slightly younger children and allow them to click the answers.
Knowledge is powerful! First Aid empowers one to be an effective help in times of crisis.
Blessings,
Practical Pages 
First Aid has been featuring in our house this past month also. I organised for a First Aid teacher to come and do some sessions with home schooling groups and it was fantastic. We are now planning to have her back for 4 more sessions in different categories. They get a certificate at the end also. You have made me think though, how we spend so much time teaching our children, but I think it is also time for me to do a refresher course as well. We never know when we’ll need these skills and will be thankful we took the time to learn and teach our children.
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@Kym, refresher courses are essential, especially because we don’t work with our first aid skills regularly. Yesterday, when Lara and I did the CPR section, I realized that I had my heart compression rates wrong! It must have been changed since I did my course so long ago. I think many co-op groups should consider inviting a trainer to come and do sessions with their groups! Keep going strong! Blessings.
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