According to the American Heart Association, less than half of people who experience an out of hospital cardiac arrest receive the help they need and most times cardiac arrest happens in the home. If we can train more of our high school students in CPR and proper use of AEDs, we can increase the chances of more people receiving the help they need. I hope to provide my Health Services Program of Study students with BLS certification and First Aid training. In turn, these students would train their fellow Culinary Arts, Health Sciences and Leadership Academy students and staff in Hands-Only or HeartSaver CPR. This would reach at least 400 people. If we receive the resources we need, this may even amount to training a majority of our high school and/or even include more of our staff members.

Last year we were able to start this idea as a pilot project and trained our fully self-contained special education students in Hands-Only CPR. It was a valuable collaboration between our general education and special education populations. I would like to continue to grow this impact across our high school community.

Our students, who are future health care professionals,
will understand the power of health education and see how one small lesson could impact a community.