Inclusive First Aid

<< Background >>Everyone can learn first aid as, by definition, it means simple measures that, while potentially life-saving, can be done by laypersons. This explicitly also includes persons with disabilities - but mainstream courses often are neither accessible nor inclusive.While we recognize that teaching persons with disabilities in a practical, physical skill can be a didactic challenge that varies by type of disability, we found that different approaches at the consortium organisations already had shown success and that good learning results can be achieved if measures to provide accessibility and inclusion are observed. In INFA, we collected these practices and discussed them with representatives of disabled people's organisations (DPOs), to ensure that they can be recommendable examples of practice. In our final document, we put these examples into the context of why first aid education, as a form of civic engagement and thus being connected to active citizenship, is important for the target group, recognizing the right of persons with disabilities to all aspects of education including training in first aid, and also formulate a recommendation on remaining practical and regulatory challenges.<< Objectives >>Inclusive First Aid (INFA) conducted a best practice exchange on first aid training for people with disabilities. Under inclusion of relevant target group stakeholders, we collected, debated and documented practices that led to succesful learning results.The successful conduction of the best practice exchange was our one central objective.We had two intermediate goals in focus:1)Valuable lessons learned to improve first aid training for persons with disabilities, as trainers could learn from the presentations of and discussion about the practice examples.2)Recommendations on the way forward for first aid for persons with disabilities, based on a wide group of experts exchanging on the topic. The final project publication, in addition to documenting the discussed practices, has general chapters addressing this point.<< Implementation >>We implemented a series of five best practice exchange workshops. At the first workshop in Italy, not only did the hosting partner present their practices in first aid for persons with disabilities, but we also worked together with Disabled People's Organisations to define principles for first aid for persons with disabilities and directly apply them in a review of the first presented practices.We then held four more best practice workshops (Denmark, Germany, North Macedonia, Italy) where practices were presented and discussed in light of the previously defined principles. Where possible, these workshops included discussions with additional local DPOs. A process to document the practices and compile our final publication, our best practice brochure, ran intertwined with the meetings, with each draft practice chapter reviewed again at the following meeting. Each meeting had a hybrid segment for feedback from the associated DPO partners on the agenda.A final workshop discussed the project with clients of our Croatian partner SRCE, who are a service provider for persons with disabilities, and also saw the associated DPO partners participate again for additional feedback, before finalizing the best practice brochure.<< Results >>In addition to the lessons learned from the discussions and the exchange for the immediate participants in the project's workshops, the central, concrete project result is a best practice brochure, a collection of practices for first aid training to persons with disabilities. It is embedded into a context of general principles to observe when designing first aid training for persons with disabilities and additional recommendations for further advancing the availability of accessible and inclusive first aid training. The best practice brochure itself a proof-of-concept that can motivate other first aid trainers to also offer accessible and inclusive courses.