Success!!! - I've finally confinced my older brother to take a first aid course!

I've also submitted a proposal to our school counseler to include basic first aid training as part of the life-orientation syllabus. She has given me the go-ahead to do more researh (Prices, type of course, length of course, organisation, etc.) I really need help on this one though.

My situation:

We have @ 800 pupils at school
The school is very tight with finances
Their are @ 30 pupils per class
Life orientation classes occur once a week

My Ideas:

We have a St John cadet division at school, so we will use ST john for the training. I will contact ST Johns about doing a "custom made course" to suit our time table and numbers.

Realisticly, i don't think the school will finance training for 800 people. So maybe start with the grade 8's, and make it part of THEIR syllabus. refresher course can be organised periodically for those that complete the course. unfortunatly, the grade 9-12 will miss out, but then in 5 years time, everybody (who attended grade 8) will have training.

I also hope this will advertise to people that are trully interested that they can further their knowledge by doing the other courses offered by St Johns.

I havn't thought this out preoperly yet, as I'm writing exams. (so please don't feel offended if I don't reply to any comments <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />)

I really would appreciate all the help (criticism included), as I hope to see this idea take off.

In the states the American Red Cross will provide free training in CPR - Not an entire First Aid course but a start nonetheless. Don't know if that helps at all in SA.

This is from a Canadian SJA Instructor (me) so your national protocols/curriculum may differ, but I think the general advice will be sound.

Think about what you want to provide. Do you want everyone to have an official SJA Standard First Aid certificate? Will Emergency First Aid training suffice? (EFA is essentially the first half of the Standard First Aid 2-day course.) Do they need a formal certificate or just the training?

One solution may be to get a school teacher certified as a SJA instructor; he/she could then teach the course as part of their normal teaching duties. (They could also pick up some extra money on the side by organising and teaching their own courses, so it may be an attractive option.)

In Canada, there is a $31 fee (includes $13 for the workbook) to register a student on a course. For recognized youth groups, they give (or used to) a $10 per student discount. If you don't need to register the course, you don't need to pay the registration fee, just buy the workbooks. Once you've bought the workbooks, they belong to the school and could be re-used for the next class. If students want the certificate (as opposed to just the training with no certificate) they should be expected to cough up the registration fee (which could be as low as $8).

In Canada, SJA has a group liability insurance policy that provides $1 million liability coverage to anyone with a current certificate, in the event that they get sued; SJA will also provide lawyers to defend you in court. (So far in Canada, only 3 SJA First Aiders have ever been sued; all three lawsuits were tossed out.) But this wouldn't apply to someone who took an unregistered course, or whose certificate had expired.

You may consider drafting the SJA cadets at your school to assist; we commonly ask our more senior cadets/crusaders to assist us in evaluating the practical skills of students, particularly when we have a large class. This may count towards their Grand Prior's Award, if South Africa has this program, so it may be attractive to the youth members for that reason.

In Canada, we have a course called "We Can Help". It's aimed at 8-year olds, so your Grade 8 students may find it condescending (especially the free colouring book <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> ) but it's designed to be taught by anyone with a Standard First Aid certificate and teaching experience, and it does cover the basics of First Aid, so a good teacher should be able to adapt it to an older audience.