The three day protest first aid practice covers the basics of protest first aid, for people who already have experience with protests and wish to be able to deliver some basic first aid outside of queercare, on their own responsibility.
Contents
Not a training
This is not a training- it’s a practice.
People running it will share skills they have, but may not meet the legal requirements to train people to formal qualifications, and the skills you may gain are not accessed.
We make no guarantee that you’ll come away able to do these skills to any standard of saftey, and we won’t certify that you can at the end.
Being on this practice does not enable you to undertake trained protocol within queercare. If you want to do it under our insurance, or anyone elses, or to call yourself a “first aider”, you need to do a training.
Buddy pairs
This practice is for buddy pairs, which is two to three people who often go on protests ‘together’, usually part of the same organisation(s) or the same ‘affinity group’. You’re going to be training to look after each other, to work together, and to complement each others skillset.
Buddys are often especially valuable when they have differnet experiecnes or capabilities- For example, having someone who speaks a common non-english language in the situations you’re in or having a shorter person buddied with a taller person who can see over crowds.
We use “buddy pair” even though it can mean three people. If you’re a group of four, plan on working as two buddy pairs- We don’t train people to work in high stress environments alone, because we don’t belive you can do good care in that situation.
This practice is currently not for people who hope to go on protests but do not currently do so.
What to expect
Before you come
We’ll add you to a group signal group chat for the event, with all the other participants and your trainers. This will be where we discuss practicalities- Where the training is, what food we’ll be eating, when rest breaks are, etc.
Before you come you should read through this sylabus.
Ideally, we’d like you to read all the pages linked in the accident procedure - We’ll cover everything verbally, visually, and with roleplay, but if you’ve read it all once already, it’s much easier to cover. Plan on setting asside a couple of hours for this- in 5m chunks on the bus is fine though, and it’s ok if you can’t!
Friday (evening only)
On friday we do introductions, and talk through the first few segments of the acronym Danger, response and massive haemorage, as well as covering the bare bones of mental health intervention.
We’ll have warm dinner on site(normally a pasta), with vegan options at least- Please post in chat with dietary restrictions.
Saturday
Saturday morning is dominated by covering theory(for C-spine, Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Damage, Environmental Injuries, Flipping people, and Getting help), with small roleplays and excercises- you may tie a bandage around someones arm, for example, but won’t be doing full senarios simulating entire incidents.
Saturday afternoon consists mostly of shorter, simpler senarios, which will build to involving some some stresful elements(an interfering police officer, for example, or a large amount of fake blood) but which will by and large be focused on getting you into the habit of running through your acident procedure.
In the afternoon we also cover Wound care and some health conditions(Heart attack, stroke, epilepsy, and diabetes).
On saturday you need to bring a change of “washable old clothes”(no natural fibres) which you can get fake blood or similar on.
Food consists of Breakfast(normally porrige) and Lunch(normally sandwiches) as well as snacks, and we’re finished at 6pm.
Sunday
Sunday is almost entirley senarios and getting familiar with doing increasingly large amounts of complex first aid under stressful conditions.
On sunday we also cover riot control agents, types of police and recordkeeping.
Please bring two changes of washable(no natural fibres!) clothes, plus the ones you come wearing.
Food consists of Breakfast(normally porrige) and Lunch(normally sandwiches), as well as snacks, and we’re finished at 6pm.
Stress, and content notes
When preparing people to encounter stressful situations and do stressful work, like protest first aid, practice should simulate be as close to the worst case situation as is practical. This means that practice will be stressful, and challenging, and difficult, in the name of making your experience of actual first aid as calm, invigorating and easy as possible.
What precisley stressful, challenging or difficult means is up to you, and it should not be traumatising, impossible or damaging. You’re encouraged to push yourself close to your limits, and the practice, definitionally, will help expand those limits.
Breaking yourself is not training. We have people on every practice who need to ramp up to things, can’t cope with a specific trigger(for example, police), or otherwise aren’t going to be able ot leap straight in. That’s normal and good- the point is to help you learn to do things, not assume you can already.