First aid courses can teach you how to react during an emergency, possibly giving you the skills to save someone's life. There are many jobs where first aid training comes in handy, including medical jobs, teaching, camp counseling or working as a life guard or day care provider. If you're a parent, learning first aid to protect your children should be a priority, regardless of your career goals.
Types of First Aid Courses
Some of the first aid courses you might find include Red Cross Babysitting Certification, Lifeguard Training, Water Safety Instructor Training, Basic First Aid, Bloodborne Pathogens, Adult CPR, Pediatric CPR, Healthcare Provider Training and Comprehensive Basic Life Support, which contains training for everything except Babysitting and Lifeguard certification. All of these courses have an exam at the end. Successful completion earns the student a certification card, which is usually good for one year.
Anyone working with, raising or caring for young children should be trained in basic first aid, water safety, infant CPR and pediatric CPR. Hopefully you'll never need to use these skills, but it's best to be prepared.
Where to Find First Aid Courses
First aid courses are available in person, online or sometimes through video programs. For first-time training, it's strongly recommended that you take the course in person so that you'll have the benefit of a live instructor who can answer your questions.
Your local YMCA, Red Cross and hospitals should offer CPR and first aid classes at various times throughout the year. The YMCA will also offer babysitting classes for kids and lifeguard or water safety training. Your local library, police or fire department may also hold classes during the year.
Searching online will help you find Web-based classes and videos that cover the same information.
How Long Are the Courses?
Most of the courses can be taken in one to two days. Babysitting Certification and Lifeguard Training courses are longer, usually four weeks of weekly sessions. The Comprehensive Basic Life Services is taught over seven lessons.
What's Will I Learn?
Babysitting and lifeguard courses blend basic child safety with first aid and CPR training that qualify you to have jobs working with kids. Babysitters who have active certification can charge a little more than those who don't.
CPR and first aid courses will teach you how to respond if someone is seriously injured. You'll learn how to help someone who's choking, how to immobilize a broken bone, how to treat severe bleeding and how to react when someone has a head or neck injury. All of those skills are invaluable when someone is hurt, because a fast and proper response on your part could mean the difference between life and death while you wait for help to arrive.
 | Every home should have first aid kit contents. They are easy to put together and provide peace of mind when minor health issues arise. Everything you need in your first aid kit can be found at your local drug store. |
 | You must learn how to treat cuts and scrapes as soon as your infant can crawl and walk, and be prepared to deal with minor wounds in a confident manner. |
 | You need to know the severity and the source before you can provide first aid for burns. |
Everyone should have these items in a first aid kit in their home. Since I don't work at home and am probably more prone to injuries on the job, I also have a workplace first-aid kit in my truck. |
Outdoor first aid kits need to be stocked with extra supplies, in case you need to leave an injured person behind while you search for help. |
