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Volunteer

Join our charity and learn bystander CPR skills for yourself, then practise them by teaching local school children in a 70-minute face-2-face session in teams of 3.  

We’ll provide:

  1. Online sign-up and training
  2. Session organisation
  3. Vidoes to support session delivery
  4. CPR manikins to teach with
  5. Resources and support

Volunteer Process

Although it’s helpful, our volunteers need no formal first-aid, medical or CPR training to join us. Our simple “we-show-you, you-show-the-children” model means volunteers need only learn our simple script then replicate it in their local school as part of a 3-instructor team.

  • Watch the Training videos
  • Click “Volunteer Signup” button and complete the online volunteer agreement
  • Complete the safeguarding check (small donation to cover 3rd party check costs may be required)
  • Attend volunteer training (online)
  • Receive your Welcome pack
  • Access our Booking system to offer your availability and see school requests

Quick Points

  • Skills are bystander only
  • Our training confers no formal qualification
  • We aim to share skill and knowledge that’s useful in the event of witnessed collapse or choking.
  • Our skill assumes no prior specialist knowledge
  • Sessions follow a script wherever they are taught
  • Volunteers never teach alone

Pioneer Volunteers

Volunteers who are the first to join us in their area become Pioneer Volunteers; an elite group of dynamic individuals personally supported by our founder and lead Pioneers who start creating Little LifeSavers in new areas around the UK.
By taking some simple additional action to share the news of our work locally and create new volunteer groups to start teaching, Pioneers are key to our success so far.

If you would like to find out more about how we support our Pioneer Volunteers, please email: info@littlelifesavers.org

What Skills Will I Teach

With focus on rescuer safety, summoning help effectively and taking the first action that might help the casualty, our session delivers the following bystander-rescuer actions:

  1. Recognition of casualty in difficulty (choking or collapse)
  2. Rescuer safety (safe approach)
  3. Rapid assessment (“Are you ok?” then if no clear response, shake-and-shout)
  4. Summon help (how to call an ambulance and what to say)
  5. First action to help casualty (Hands-only CPR* or back blows)
  6. *Stop if casualty responds. Place responsive casualty in recovery position.

Still have some questions? Here are the answers to the ones we most often get asked:

Yes absolutely.

Our session takes approximately one hour to deliver to the children. We ask volunteers to offer a minimum of four sessions a year to practice these vital skills and equip and empower children across the country.

Of course, we are always delighted if volunteers are able to offer more. But think about it… Only four hours a year to teach young people how to save a life!

We welcome people who are formally CPR trained as volunteers, but it is not a requirement to be a volunteer instructor with Little LifeSavers.

Learning our simple model and agreeing to teach it exactly as it is laid out is all that is required.

Formal CPR training provides far more than our simple bystander skills model and is therefore not necessary to become a volunteer instructor. It is our aim to reach as many children as we can with our simple skill set, and we need to recruit as many volunteer instructors as possible throughout the UK. It is neither feasible nor necessary to formally train thousands of adults in CPR when the model we teach is so simple.

Yes absolutely. If you believe as we do, that learning and practicing basic bystander rescue techniques is important, then you can volunteer.

We have considered the needs of our volunteers very carefully and want everyone to feel valued and supported when delivering our sessions. Watching the training videos is the first step to seeing how simple our skillset is. One you have been through the DBS check procedure and have read and signed our volunteer paperwork, you will have access to the following:

  • The training videos to watch and refer back to.
  • A live zoom training session with our medically qualified trustees.
  • A written script of the session to refer to.
  • A quiz to test your knowledge and a certificate.
  • Standard answers to FAQ’s the children may ask.
  • An account on our automated booking system.

Along with these steps, the schools are asked to have the capability to show the “Introduction and Skillset Demonstration” video at the start of the session. This also serves as an immediate reminder of the skills and means you will not have to demonstrate the skills live, until you feel comfortable to do so.

The short, easy answer to this is as often as you can. This is because it means that we can teach more children; and it is good practice for you as a volunteer instructor, especially if you have just started with us. Ideally we would ask for all our volunteer instructors to be available for one day, or a half day, once a month. We only teach during the school day and in term-time. Volunteers who do not teach for six months will be required to attend a Zoom Training session again to refresh their memory for the training model.

Volunteers need to be able to travel to sessions, move around the hall and kneel and sit on the floor. If mobility is limited and it’s difficult to kneel, the choking skill can be taught with the volunteer sitting on a chair to demonstrate the skill and whilst the manikin is passed from child to child. If mobility is very limited please consider joining as an Ambassador. Ambassadors are volunteers who attend sessions to support their smooth running and who promote and fundraise for us. Please email barbara@littlelifesavers.org for more information.

We have a state-of-the-art online Booking System which will coordinate your geographic location, travel distance and the dates you can offer teaching, with every other volunteer near to you. This means that when dates and travel radius overlap for three volunteers, a date is marked as
“available” on the system. A school located in that radius can then go ahead and book.

For an enquiring school, the booking system shows when volunteers who are geographically near to them can come and teach. So availability of volunteers in Aberdeen, will not be shown to a school looking to book a session in Kent for example. If there is no marked availability, schools can use the
“request a session” facility, and geographically relevant volunteers will receive an email asking if they can be available for a specific date.

In the past, sessions were organised by a single volunteer emailing or messaging their local volunteer pool, and asking for availability on certain dates. We found this method of organising the sessions
very laborious and time consuming, so have moved to a centralised and automated system. Schools can simply see dates that are available and choose.

However, this does require all volunteers to engage with the system and tick the dates they can offer the charity; either a morning, or afternoon, or both, as well as keeping a regular check on their emails.

The system will message and email when one of your dates has been booked. This will include the details of the school and numbers of children.

We have a duty of care to safeguard both the children and communities we serve, as well as our volunteers to the best of our abilities.

To fulfil this, each of our volunteers must undertake an enhanced DBS check. If you have one already AND are already a subscriber to CRB online, you can simply grant us access to your ‘update service’ and there is nothing to pay. If you are not, we will ask you to have new check and subscribe.

Whilst there is no fee from the DBS for checks for volunteers, we have to use an umbrella body to do our checks. As an organisation we do not, yet, undertake enough checks per annum to be able to do this ourselves. So we ask you to pay the administration fee please.

This helps us to ensure that new volunteers go on to commit to teaching, rather than volunteering simply to obtain a free DBS check without any service to Little LifeSavers. We have an obligation also to those who fundraise and donate money to us, to ensure that we spend those funds on the work of the charity. So it is important that we safeguard against this happening. The donation for the DBS check can be entered on a tax return as a charitable donation

Yes absolutely. If you believe as we do, that learning and practicing basic bystander rescue techniques is important, then you can volunteer.

We have considered the needs of our volunteers very carefully and want everyone to feel valued and supported when delivering our sessions. Watching the training videos is the first step to seeing how simple our skillset is. One you have been through the DBS check procedure and have read and signed our volunteer paperwork, you will have access to the following:

  • The training videos to watch and refer back to.
  • A live zoom training session with our medically qualified trustees.
  • A written script of the session to refer to.
  • A quiz to test your knowledge and a certificate.
  • Standard answers to FAQ’s the children may ask.
  • An account on our automated booking system.

Along with these steps, the schools are asked to have the capability to show the “Introduction and Skillset Demonstration” video at the start of the session. This also serves as an immediate reminder of the skills and means you will not have to demonstrate the skills live, until you feel comfortable to do so.

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