HOW TO: FIRST AID BADGE -GIRL SCOUTS EVENT
By: Alpha Mu Chapter, Submitted by: Marina Fridman (Region Supervisor)
As a regional supervisor, I am always amazed and awed by the great ideas that our chapters come up with to help the community and also further their health care knowledge. This year the dedicated sisters of the Alpha Mu chapter of University of Toledo came up with a great idea to help the local girl scouts get their first aid badge.
1. Get in contact with your local Girl Scout Council.
This will be your contact person for the whole event. They will give you tips on event planning and ensure that your event is compliant with all Girl Scout regulations.
2. Logistics
After we reviewed the requirements to earn the first aid badge, we decided that our event would include both the Juniors and Cadettes level girls because of overlap in requirements. We set a cost of $2 per girl, to help cover the cost of supplies. When deciding the number of girls to limit your event to, keep in mind the size of your rooms. We would have loved to invite 100 girls but, due to space issues, we limited it to the first 60 girls who registered.
3. Make a Flyer
The flyer will have to be approved by the Girl Scout Council. Our council sent out an email and also request 500 flyers to distribute at their monthly troop leader meetings. The troops will contact you to register.
4. Review the requirements and see how the levels overlapped.
After reviewing both level's requirements, we needed 6 stations to fulfill the requirements. The 6 stations we had were: Meet a Pharmacist, Meet a Doctor, Meet a Nurse, Meet a first responder, Shock/Hypothermia and Check Call Care Poster, Common Injury Care and How to wrap injuries
5. Find Professionals to come in a speak at each station
Meet a Pharmacist (we had one of our P3s speak at this station), Meet a Doctor (University of Toledo has a Chapter of Alpha Epsilon Delta, the Lambda Kappa Sigma equivalent of the medical field. They helped us find a local doctor to speak.), Meet a Nurse (We contacted the Student Nurses Association and they provided us with a nursing student.), Meet a first responder (Contact your local fire or police department, most have a community education department.), Shock/Hypothermia and Check Call Care Poster (We asked some of our members to lead this station), Common Injury Care and How to wrap injuries (We asked some of our members to lead this station)
6. Gather supplies
Contact local pharmacies, doctor offices, and hospitals to donate the first aid kit supplies and ACE bandages.
Advice:
1. Stay Organized
As the troops start to register via email, keep a master list of all the troop numbers, girl's names and contact person.
2. Make a budget before you set your cost of attendance
We set our cost at $2 per girl; this amount would cover the cost of supplies, but not the cost to buy the girls' badges. If we did this event again, we would increase the cost to $5 per girl and, any money that was left over after the cost of supplies would be donated back to the Girl Scouts of America. Additionally, ask if one of your alumni are able to donate some of the supplies. Many alumni work in a setting where they can get needed supply at wholesale cost.
3. Overbook your event and start a wait list
Our original limit was 60 girls; we allowed 80 to register to cover any last minute cancellations or no-shows and started a waiting list which had 40 girls on it. We kept the contact information of the waiting list troops and told them that we would notify them if a spot opened up, up to one week before the event.
