Students turned teachers to make an impact on Restart a Heart Day

Five teenagers from E-ACT Parkwood Academy in Sheffield, who have been equipped with life-saving skills, became the first Yorkshire students to teach CPR to fellow pupils on Restart a Heart Day.

The school is leading the way by signing up for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service Ambassador Programme to enable students to run their own life-saving lessons.

The team of Year 9 and 10 students completed their ambassador training and delivered the CPR training on Wednesday 16 October with mentor support from Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

The initiative builds on the success of the Trust’s Restart a Heart campaign which has provided CPR training to more than 265,000 students since it was launched in Yorkshire in 2014. A cardiac arrest patient’s chance of survival can double if CPR is started promptly after they have collapsed.

Shada Aleed, who aspires to be a surgeon, was one of the students who delivered the training. She said: “Learning CPR is such a valuable life skill, and you never know when you may need to use it to help someone.  It’s great to be an ambassador so that I can train students at my school and it aligns well with my aspiration to follow a medical career.”

Meheka Kabir, who ran the first training session of the day, said: “It was a great experience being trained to be a trainer and I feel really confident about performing CPR.  It’s a privilege to be one of the first students to become an ambassador and I hope the scheme goes from strength to strength.”

Jason Carlyon, Community Engagement Manager for Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said: “Development of an ambassador programme will create a network of engaged young people and empowers them to deliver CPR coaching in their own schools and communities with benefits for all. It’s an exciting step forward for us.

“Our Restart a Heart campaign has reached more people than we could have imagined over the last 11 years and relies on a team of over 750 volunteers, mostly off-duty ambulance staff, to deliver the training but we need to think about future sustainability, how we can increase the numbers taught and ultimately save even more lives.”

Gregg Henderson, Deputy Headteacher at E-ACT Parkwood Academy, said the school was proud of the students who were determined to make a difference this Restart a Heart Day.

He said: “We are thrilled to be the first school to take part in Yorkshire Ambulance Service’s Ambassador Programme. We take part in Restart a Heart Day annually and have on-site defibrillators so it was a case of looking at how we could take that one step further and give the students ownership and responsibility to be able to teach an important life-skill to their peers.

“It’s vital that our students know how to confidently respond if ever they came across someone in cardiac arrest so they could give that person the best chance of survival. We want to use this programme to create a legacy of first aid ambassadors at E-ACT Parkwood Academy, so they can support anyone in the academy or within the community if needed.”