Infant/Child CPR CPR Instruction for Young and Middle-Aged Adults with infants and young children.

I will be teaching CPR for infants and young children to a population of young to middle-aged adults at Bible Baptist Church in Chickasha, OK. Those likely to take this course will range in age from 19 to 40 years old and are likely to be both male and female. This class will teach the highest level of prevention -- the support of life until medical help can arrive.

I determined the learning needs of this group by interviewing several people within the target population. I found that most of the adults in two Sunday School classes at this church knew little or nothing about how to perform CPR on infants and children. At the same time, the people I talked with expressed an interest. Those people were parents or grandparents of young children. In particular, the recent emergencies in the gulf states from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, along with the tornadoes they spawned, have reminded people that in a crisis they may need advanced first aid skills because emergency help may not be available.

The learner variables of this group suggest that such a class would be successful. The members of Bible Baptist Church are nearly all Caucasian from lower middle class or middle class background. The great majority of adults in the congregation have graduated from high school and many have attended at least some college, suggesting that they will be able to read any information handed out, displayed, or written on chalk boards during instruction. Virtually all members speak English as their birth language. They have the physical ability to participate in the class and few significant sensory problems exist in this population. However, one member of the congregation is deaf. If she chooses to take the workshop, the church will look for a sign language interpreter so she can participate.

Since this class will be given for adults, there will be no developmental issue...

However, since the course will take about six hours, a variety of activities will be needed to help keep attention. For this purpose, the class will be broken into three 2-hour sessions with a social break provided in each session.
Bible Baptist Church can provide an adequate environmental space for this class. The church has several classrooms with adequate lighting and ventilation. They will provide chairs, blackboard and study tables both for students and for placement of Red Cross CPR dummies (both infant and young child models). Since there will be only one instructor and instruction will include hands-on work with two dummies, enrollment will be limited to 12. This will allow three two-person teams for each dummy. Over the course of the class, each person will have plenty of time to practice with each dummy. Because of the small group size, no sound amplification equipment will be needed, but A room measuring at least 20' X 20' will be needed to accommodate blackboard, tables and chairs for students, and tables for practice with dummies.

Since the idea for this class has already been discussed with potential participants, organizational requirements will include printed announcement in the church bulletin, announcements during announcements at church services and Sunday School classes, and flyers at the front of the church.

Because of the urgency of this class topic, special consideration has to be given to the quality of audio/visual materials. The American Heart Association has produced visual materials that illustrate the core concepts of CPR -- one for infants and one for small children. These should be displayed around the room and also provided to participants. They should in turn be encouraged to keep the illustrations prominently displayed in a spot easily found in their homes, such as on the kitchen refrigerator (U of W, 1998). The American Heart Association's illustrations are clear and easy to interpret, and…