Heart Beat Clubs for multicultural communities
First aid and CPR are vital skills for all community members, but this is especially true for parents. In most child drownings the parent or carer is the first person on the scene, and their ability to respond with CPR is vital to a child’s chance of survival.
For this reason Royal Life Saving WA’s Access and Equity team works hard in at-risk culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) and Aboriginal communities to host Heart Beat Club first aid sessions for parents and other community members.
The Heart Beat Club is a short three hour program that covers first aid for common child injuries including burns and scolds, choking, drowning and provides information on how to perform child resuscitation or CPR.
One of these was recently held through The Clan Midland at the Aveley Community Centre, and another at the Royal Life Saving head office in Mount Claremont. A total of 28 participants took part in the sessions with most saying they now feel far more confident in providing first aid in an emergency.
One participant stated after attending the course that they had a far better understanding of water safety issues as we continue through the summer months. “Water safety is incredibly important because children can drown in as little as 20 seconds in only 3cm of water. Water safety means supervising constantly, being aware and knowing how to save a life.”
Royal Life Saving offers Heart Beat Club sessions across the metropolitan area, and in regional WA throughout the year and is always looking for interested aquatic facilities and community groups to run these sessions for people in their community.
We’d like to thank our key partner, the Office of Multicultural Interests, for assisting us in providing these opportunities for our CaLD communities to learn vital life-saving skills. Thanks also to Caroline Morris-Brown who organised the Heart Beat Club at The Clan in Midland.
If you’d like to know how you can take part in a Heart Beat Club course and learn vital first aid, CPR and water safety skills this summer click on the link below.
