First aid service focuses on community safety
IT hasn’t taken long for Community Health Support (CHS) NSW to make a significant impact.
The newly established first-aid service, led by a board of directors chaired by Dr Jeff Engelman and including Darren Chait, Lauren Ehrlich, Melanie Lindenberg and co-founder and executive director Jesse Lenn, the not-for-profit organisation is focused on enhancing the safety and resilience of the community.
Funded by private donors and the Orah Fund, CHS NSW runs high impact first-aid readiness sessions tailored to the individual needs of community organisations.
“For example, with CSG we include extra trauma stuff, while for Mum for Mum it’s child and infant specific,” Lenn told The AJN.
“In total we’ve worked with 20 community organisations and with the first-aid readiness sessions we’ve now trained over 220 community members over the last three and a half months.”
The aim is to get as many members of the community trained as possible, with CHS now looking to expand into the mental health space.
“The model of everything we do is making this as accessible as possible to the community,” Lenn said.
“We are utilising people in the community who are passionate in the area to deliver this as volunteers, so many of them are health care professionals well versed in the first aid space.”
CHS has already assisted eight synagogues by implementing first aid recommendations to assist their communities in being more prepared to deal with first aid incidents, and the organisation has also begun medical event coverage.
“We have a group of 45 volunteers and 34 of them are either health care professionals or have been trained in advanced first aid,” Lenn said.
“We allocate two or three volunteers to go to community events and be on standby as first responders. That covers everything from applying band aids, to more serious things like choking. We’ve already covered many community events and have many more coming up in August.
“Our long-term vision is to have these volunteers and create a network of responders who can assist in the community.”
CHS’s first aid consulting is free for all community groups and the organisation is urging everyone to get involved.
For more information visit chsnsw.org.au
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