Calpol or Casualty?

DURATION: 3.5 Hour Course

This is a First Aid mini - course designed for parents/carers of young children.

Most courses focus specifically on life threatening injuries and events. We do cover these situations as well but we have also added some course content that is applicable (and valuable) in day to day life.

Taught exclusively by Paramedics or Specialist Children’s Nurses we cover the following topics to try and ensure that our delegates are familiar with more common events. We aim to give parents and carers confidence that they can deal with the more mundane issues that have the potential for more serious consequences.

In the old days wider family were on hand to advise and Health Visitors would have time to share this information. Sadly, this is very often no longer the case. We train people how to recognise the red flags that indicate a child is deteriorating, we explain how children look and behave when they are becoming ill and we give strategies on how to respond appropriately. This is about enabling parents and carers to have confidence and relax when they are trying to establish the best way of dealing with potentially sick children.

Calpol or Casualty? Has been very well received by those who have attended the mini-course. We are getting feedback from delegates that, as a result of the training, they now feel far more able to take care of the children in their care in a confident and well-informed way.

Topics covered are :

Where can I get help?

Some ideas about many different care pathways and places |I can access help

Trauma

• CPR and Drowning – How to manage an Airway, give rescue breaths and compressions
• Choking – Its all gone quiet!! How to help a choking baby/child
• Burns and scalds – How to treat and what needs further treatment
• Concussion and Head injuries – Recognition of concussion and more serious injuries

Medical

• Red Flags – an introduction to the signs and symptoms associated with very unwell children
• Allergies and Anaphylaxis – How to recognise and what to do (even without an Epipen)
• Breathing – Croup, Asthma, Epiglottitis – it’s horrible but is it dangerous?
• Diarrhoea & Vomiting  - It’s going to happen at some point but when does it become serious?
• Temperatures and the unwell child – Reach for the Calpol or the telephone?
• Chickenpox and Meningitis - It’s a rash, but is it THE rash? Looking at ALL the symptoms of these two conditions which often helps reduce a parent/carer’s blood pressure!