My AFA expires tomorrow 8 May but cannot renew till end of May. As this will put an X at mandatory training can I attend my squadron as I am the senior nco.
If you have essential first aid still valid you will be ok for regular Sqn nights. No shooting/ fieldcraft/outdoors stuff until AFA done. I would run it past your WIng First Aid officer, they maybe able to give you a grace period. I take it that the AFA is expiry but the next course isn’t until end of May?
If you follow the book, all CFAV need a valid FA qual, which could just be EFA. At a parade night, there needs to be at least someone with AFA.
Realistically, you’re lack of in date qual shouldn’t be a drama for a month, so long as there is someone else there who is in date.
I have 2 cadets who are going to AEF next week and I am the only one who can escort them. Can I still do this?
If you go by the book in theory the answer would be no as you are escorting them on duty to AEF (no probs when they get there) If you ask for advice at a Wing level you could get a temporary authorisation or you could easily get essential first aid signed off by an assessor which would cover you for a few years!
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Or integrity ………. You know you won’t be in date so you follow the rules, they aren’t there just for fun.
It won’t take long for someone to do an EFA for you, you may find a local squadron has one running that you can jump on.
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And then when Murphy’s law kicks in and something happens with a cadet being injured, the papers are checked and @Mister_B is unceremoniously kicked up the backside repeatedly until he’s out the door and blacklisted.
It’s one thing if you genuinely don’t realise it’s expired and make a mistake (though still expect consequences) but once you know, if you still do it and get caught then that raises questions of integrity and trust which are far more serious
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If you have current EFA qual you can still attend these events, just not act as The First Aider for them
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100% this.
If you know you can’t meet the minimum staffing requirements, don’t just break rules to attempt to meet them.
If you had EFA and a shortly out of date AFA you might be able to ask for dispensation and get some proper top cover to break the rules. But with no in date FA qual, you realistically need to find someone else.
Especially when it’s something like First Aid, which as we all know, you immediately forget how to do utterly the second your qualification expires.
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I get the point. But we also know how the org would hang you out to dry, especially if you were caught in a lie
You could save a cadet"s life with textbook first aid, despite being a day out of certification and the org would boot you.
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Look at the scout death. One of the big things they didn’t like was the missing FA qual, even though it was agreed there was very little that any sort of first aid would have helped.
I take this back. I’ve checked policy. EFA is fine so long as it’s a low risk activity with less than 25 cadets. No AFA needed.
It also depends how stringent your WHQ/WExO/Regional Pillar are, they might suspend you tomorrow which then makes attendance at a FA course difficult - catch 22. I heard of a similar situation a few months ago where a CFAV had a lapsed mandatory training element, got suspended until re qualified, but couldn’t be added to SMS event so couldn’t attend to get re qualified, in the end needed someone at Region to have a common sense approach and it was resolved but took several weeks of debate and pedantry to reach a conclusion…
The answer is no. On a SMS Audit it will show youve attended an event without being compliant on mandatory training. Now what your wing or region do with that is a mix. In SW theyre popp hot on it and there would be consequences.
My advice, ask a colleague to do an ahoc EFA course to tick the box if its low risk. Then do AFA later.
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