How West Yorkshire's Flat Stan First Aid is teaching children vital life skills

“We know children who have saved lives after being introduced to first aid by our programme,” Ferris says. “Children can make a huge difference.”

Based in Greetland, in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, Flat Stan First Aid aims to introduce children to first aid through fun and interactive workshops, as well as take-home first aid guides.

“As a dad, I have a look to see what’s coming back from school in my child’s bag and if parents have a look through the booklet and pick up a few tips then we’ve reached even more people,” Ferris says.

The programme is named after his own son Stan and was designed in February 2017 after Ferris, who has taught first aid to adults, realised there was little out there that was targeted specifically at children.

He had been invited to a school and was standing in front of a class of eight-year-olds when he first had the idea to create a ‘child-friendly’ scheme.

“I thought there’s something missing here. First aid is quite a dry subject but it’s so important. I thought it could be made more child friendly and fun because that’s how children learn.”

The number of children being introduced to Flat Stan First Aid is growing and the organisation has expanded abroad, too. The programme has been given to a non-governmental organisation in Ghana and is also being delivered in Lebanon and Nigeria.

Flat Stan has supplied more than 10,000 first aid guides to councils and has recently developed a braille version, as well as making resources in sign language. It has now provided first aid programmes to around 120,000 children.

“Inclusivity is essential,” Ferris says. “We’re giving children the skills to make a difference. It’s empowering and it might also inspire some children to want to go into a medical profession.”

The first aid workshops are predominately delivered in primary schools and occasionally to other children groups, as well as in secondary schools.

Given the measures in place over the past two years during the Covid-19 pandemic, Flat Stan First Aid has developed an app and a digital resource package of videos. It means subscribing schools can revisit topics and that children can learn whilst at school or at home.

First aid classes became compulsory in English schools in 2020. For primary school children, the curriculum includes basic skills such as how to call emergency services, while secondary school children are supported to learn life-saving skills such as how to help someone who is suffering a cardiac arrest.

In the UK, just one in 10 people survive a sudden cardiac arrest out of hospital. It is set against this backdrop that Flat Stan says it is making a difference to the lives of children, their families and the wider community across both this country and abroad.

“If we teach children at a young age, they will then develop these important life skills,” Ferris says. “And children actually go home and tell their parents what they’ve done and can be educators, sharing skills with others.”

Visit flatstan-firstaid.co.uk

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