"The rest of the "staff" are parents of the boys in camp. Some are registered BSA leaders, others are just parents spending 4 mornings or afternoons with their sons."
Just parents? If I applied that rationale, it would mean one of my troop parents that is a vascular surgeon and another that was an Army corpsman shouldn't be asked to help in a medical emergency at camp because they don't have a "CPR Certified" patch! Seriously, if you have a good number of adult leaders that have some level of emergency training, I say good for you and keep it up (ie. stay current)! But if none of those people knows who is in charge and/or there is no agreed upon emergency action plan, I suggest you work on that instead of looking for some kind of visual recognition of who has what level of training.
Speaking of patches, p. 298 of the 11th edition Scout Handbook depicted a non-existent "CPR Certified" patch. However, it turns out there is (or was...) one "official" CPR patch Item # 80143, but it's being discontinued so is on closeout on scoutstuff.org. Probably for good reason - it's not very attractive. Not to mention it depicts a scout about to give a rescue breath with his hand in the wrong position. I'm a ARC CPR and First Aid Instructor so yeah, I noticed something like that. I have a stack of those #80143 patches, but nobody has ever wanted one that took a class from me when I've offered them.
If it's important to you, for whatever reason, to show you have some emergency training on your uniform, you should consider your CPR/AED and First Aid training as a stepping stone to earning the Emergency Preparedness award. It is the ONLY pin that may be worn on the wearer's uniform shirt left pocket flap. But I've found the easiest way to tell which adults might be ready to assist in an emergency are the ones always lugging around a red daypack or fanny pack first aid kit on troop outings. Training is important, but truly "being prepared" is vital. If you're CPR certified but don't keep a breathing barrier and gloves handy at all times then what? So maybe you could have your designated emergency first aid folks carry a red first aid pack. Visual, and a heck of a lot more useful than a patch, armband, hat, etc.
Aside from insignia, I don't get the impression everyone here knows the sobering truth why the BSA is trying to get more adult leaders CPR certified. Statistically more adult scouters die from cardiac emergencies than any other cause of death during scout activities, and by an order of magnitude greater than any scout fatalities. The people that should feel better seeing a bunch of adult leaders that are CPR trained ought to be the other adult leaders, not the scouts, and certainly not parents that do not go on outings. I'm getting old enough that I certainly do not want to be the only CPR certified adult on a scout camp out.
Lastly: the ARC Wilderness and Remote First Aid course has adult CPR/AED as the prerequisite, so if you really want to have some adults that have practical emergency training, I strongly encourage you to get a couple leaders to take that course after they are CPR certified. It goes way beyond the ARC Standard First Aid and CPR courses, and actually teaches some emergency incident management skills in addition to medical aid training. But alas, there is no BSA patch for it, just incredible peace of mind.
Adult Leader CPR/ First Aid Trained patch?
in Uniforms
Posted
"The rest of the "staff" are parents of the boys in camp. Some are registered BSA leaders, others are just parents spending 4 mornings or afternoons with their sons."
Just parents? If I applied that rationale, it would mean one of my troop parents that is a vascular surgeon and another that was an Army corpsman shouldn't be asked to help in a medical emergency at camp because they don't have a "CPR Certified" patch! Seriously, if you have a good number of adult leaders that have some level of emergency training, I say good for you and keep it up (ie. stay current)! But if none of those people knows who is in charge and/or there is no agreed upon emergency action plan, I suggest you work on that instead of looking for some kind of visual recognition of who has what level of training.
Speaking of patches, p. 298 of the 11th edition Scout Handbook depicted a non-existent "CPR Certified" patch. However, it turns out there is (or was...) one "official" CPR patch Item # 80143, but it's being discontinued so is on closeout on scoutstuff.org. Probably for good reason - it's not very attractive. Not to mention it depicts a scout about to give a rescue breath with his hand in the wrong position. I'm a ARC CPR and First Aid Instructor so yeah, I noticed something like that. I have a stack of those #80143 patches, but nobody has ever wanted one that took a class from me when I've offered them.
If it's important to you, for whatever reason, to show you have some emergency training on your uniform, you should consider your CPR/AED and First Aid training as a stepping stone to earning the Emergency Preparedness award. It is the ONLY pin that may be worn on the wearer's uniform shirt left pocket flap. But I've found the easiest way to tell which adults might be ready to assist in an emergency are the ones always lugging around a red daypack or fanny pack first aid kit on troop outings. Training is important, but truly "being prepared" is vital. If you're CPR certified but don't keep a breathing barrier and gloves handy at all times then what? So maybe you could have your designated emergency first aid folks carry a red first aid pack. Visual, and a heck of a lot more useful than a patch, armband, hat, etc.
Aside from insignia, I don't get the impression everyone here knows the sobering truth why the BSA is trying to get more adult leaders CPR certified. Statistically more adult scouters die from cardiac emergencies than any other cause of death during scout activities, and by an order of magnitude greater than any scout fatalities. The people that should feel better seeing a bunch of adult leaders that are CPR trained ought to be the other adult leaders, not the scouts, and certainly not parents that do not go on outings. I'm getting old enough that I certainly do not want to be the only CPR certified adult on a scout camp out.
Lastly: the ARC Wilderness and Remote First Aid course has adult CPR/AED as the prerequisite, so if you really want to have some adults that have practical emergency training, I strongly encourage you to get a couple leaders to take that course after they are CPR certified. It goes way beyond the ARC Standard First Aid and CPR courses, and actually teaches some emergency incident management skills in addition to medical aid training. But alas, there is no BSA patch for it, just incredible peace of mind.