And pays for the course. Work have just sent me on FAAW and it’s costing them £450 odd. Imagine if you were expected to pay that yourself.
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Totally agree… Which is why I believe that we need to place more emphasis on staff training that we currently do. We have the resources, we just need to recognise the need to use them.
Well, that’s a nice idea but it’s never going to happen. The salaried people up top could come up with a plan but it will and can only be along the lines of “People at Wing level train their volunteer staff.”
So which salaried people at Wing level would do it? There are only three and it’s none of their jobs.
It’s us volunteers who have chosen to specialise and as we progress we now need to pass on that training to others.
I think there are lots of examples of ridiculous requirements on staff training within the organisation, but I just don’t see first aid as one of these examples…
To turn up on squadron you need heartstart - easily achievable and doable within a staff induction package of training when they join…
If you want to progress doing AFA seems entirely sensible. All of a sudden you can teach heartstart and youth first aid, but can progress on to your other training.
It is such a fundamental skill I think parents would be shocked if we didn’t have some level of first aid training. Many of our activities carry a reasonable amount of risk off squadron, even if it is just a twisted ankle - but we will be expected to know what to do should something happen. And AFA isn’t that massive a problem - although more courses would always be good.
A while back I saw a young pedestrian get hit by a car outside work… It was good to be able to help, even in a limited capacity (it was a bit messy, leg crush wounds).
Not long after that my neighbour had a heart attack when I was 5 minutes from home - fortunately the first responder arrived at the same time as me, but if he was a minute or two later I’d have had to have used CPR properly (unfortunately my neighbour didn’t make it).
Then on a cadet community event a member of the public was having an asthma attack, it was good to be able to help until the St Johns lot turned up - you never know when you’ll need it.
The thing is that could easily have been a cadet being hit by a car on kick out time, or a staff member having a heart attack on an activity or asthma attack… we would need to know what to do.
Oh, and don’t panic, my curse is lifted if you believe these things come in 3s!
The point being a 2 day course every three years is a good compromise of not being to onerous but giving the level of training required to be competent in case of an emergency.
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I completely agree. Even as a cadet (before and after turning 18) I’ve used my AFA within the organisation. Nothing massive, but it’s always useful for the muscle injuries, heat exhaustion, small cuts, asthma attacks etc.
Kind of worth remembering that we’ve just formally begun using the term “risk to life” when categorising activities.
There is a good chance that what we do will hurt someone (and cadets themselves are generally walking, talking H+S failures) and it’s right that we have people on hand trained to mop up the blood.
Besides, it’s a point of personal pride to keep trained, current, and competent to a level at least on par with the majority of cadets for the majority of what we teach.
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However, this isn’t just a First Aid thread.
Back on topic please
@wdimagineer2b I’m not convinced we do have the resources to do extensive staff training in a meaningful manner from within. As we know it is patchy in terms of where it happens and for how long, ergo you can come into it or just miss it, with people waxing lyrical.
If we did have the internal resource why aren’t we using it and would the WExO and “E’s” have the clout to get QIAIC or JL staff to do things for volunteers, no. You need the well paid individuals within the ex-RAF types at HQAC, Gp Capt and higher to make this happen. However is there enough people doing QUAIC / JL to provide a meaningful service to CFAV? Also those who are CFAV themselves have lives and it would be poor to expect them to do other things.
If as it seems people will insist on volunteers being ‘trained’ in technical/specialist areas we need to be going outside the “ATC/MOD bubble” as much as possible for staff training. In this way you have something that is sustainable and access when you want it, not when a volunteer can put aside a few weekends on the premise that other volunteers can do the same. At work you don’t rely solely on employees to train other employees, so why in a volunteer setting?
This is where the Gp Capts plus come to fore, “Hello (provider) this is Gp Capt/Air Cdre and we would like to see if you can help us”. I don’t know but for the aviation subjects how useful would something like PPL ground school be? I can’t imagine these being restricted to a few locations nationwide, which is the model we would have in the ATC.
The Wing admin staff are there for admin and policy enforcement, not for arranging training or other activities.
As with everything else in the cadet forces, something like adult training on a national scale would need the blessing of the RC’s and HQAC.
How do you think other volunteer organisations do it? The Scouts have a much more extensive adult training scheme and they have county training teams made up of volunteers (some of which still volunteer with group(s) as well)
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Because “at work” it is a business - which makes a profit - and which can afford to invest some of that income back into staff training from an external provider.
Where do we think the RAFAC will find the money to pay an external provider to train our staff for us?
And where do we find these external commercial providers who are not only familiar with the subject matter but with our internal policies in which they must work?
I absolutely disagree. All this needs is a change of mindset. There should be no requirement for CFAV to take on additional workloads beyond the basic volunteer agreement - it could just be that where some CFAV work directly with cadets on Sqns, other CFAV train those Sqn staff.
Easy.
I don’t think there’s any need to “insist” that people are trained in technical subjects.
If all they want to do is run the stores on their Sqn and be another pair of hands, or any number of other basic roles, then fine.
But if they want to teach a technical subject then it should be quite obvious to anyone that before they can do that they need to actually KNOW the subject themselves. If they don’t already know it then they will need to be trained. This isn’t some obscure, outlandish concept. It’s basic stuff.
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