Community Education Programs
The core business of the Ambulance Service is the delivery of emergency pre-hospital health care and transport services. While this continues to be our primary focus, Ambulance also recognises the value of developing community safety and prevention programs. To date Ambulance has developed a number of community education programs, the largest being the Be An Ambulance Hero – Dial Zero Zero Zero school education program and the Life Live It Save It program for retirees.
The Be An Ambulance Hero – Dial Zero Zero Zero school education program has been designed for Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 students (ages 5-8 years) and was been developed in consultation with and endorsed by the NSW Department of Education, Catholic Education Commission and Association of Independent Schools. The program assist teachers to educate children on recognising a emergency, what to do in an emergency, understanding the emergency number in Australia is 000 and increase the confidence and skills necessary for children to be able to call an ambulance in an emergency and answer questions by 000 call takers.
The Life It Save It Program is a community education program for over 55 retirees which has been developed to educate the community of New South Wales to recognise and deal effectively with medical emergencies. LIFE…Live it Save it is free to all community clubs in New South Wales who cater to retirees. It takes only one hour to complete and there are no exams or tests. The self-learning Program is designed to be facilitated by community members in a group environment and includes viewing an instructional DVD highlighting the Program’s key objectives which are early recognition of signs and symptoms of life threatening conditions, calling ‘000’ immediately for an ambulance and following Ambulance calltaker instructions.
Ambulance is currently working with health partners, private sector, inter-agencies, multicultural groups and regional communities on prevention and health promotion strategies. Some of these initiatives include promoting the appropriate use of ‘000’, expanding the number of ambulance consumer representatives and the promotion of ambulance messages through various mediums.
Ambulance is committed to assisting the community create safer and healthier environments and outcomes by making prevention everyone’s businesses. A number of innovative community education programs have been implemented to assist identify life threatening conditions, understand what to do in an emergency and the importance of adopting illness prevention strategies.