With Action4Youth young people are making our streets safer

Streets can be dangerous places – but should you collapse, cut yourself on glass, trip and break a bone then you have hope if there’s a young person around (or better still a group of them) trained by Action4Youth’s Street First Aid supremo Paul Dyne.

An RAF veteran with 30 years’ experience of multiple trauma sights and sites as a medic, Paul is now leading Action4Youth’s team, training young people across Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire to save lives and reduce the impact of life-changing injuries.

He’s designed a scenario-based two-part 3-hour course for young people on Action4Youth’s anti knife and gang crime course – Breakout. “It’s about giving them confidence and basic knowledge to handle situations they could easily find themselves in – a gang incident in a park that leads to a knife wound, someone bleeding from a fall on glass, a leg wound from a failed jump over a barbed wire fence, someone collapsing in front of them or a drug overdose.”

An expert in delivering treatment on-the-spot with what is to hand, Paul teaches young people to do just that in situations where a first aid kit just isn’t available.  T-shirts become bandages, a zip hoodie makes an excellent sling, a branch doubles as a splint.

The response from young people has been really positive, and their own experiences add to the sessions. “A lot of them have been in situations where they just didn’t know what to do, and they share those experiences with the group. One young person, 14 or 15, experienced a friend having a ketamine overdose. We stress the importance of calling 999 and telling the control it’s a possible drug overdose so they can be ready to administer lifesaving medication.”

Overcoming fears of dialling 999 and getting involved with the police, particularly where drugs or knives have been involved, is something the course also tackles through discussion.

Paul wants to equip as many young people as possible to deliver Street First Aid. “We want to offer this course to the many youth clubs Action4Youth works with as a membership deal. By training youth workers in the youth clubs to spread the message as wide as possible, together with all our young people we can keep more people safe from incidents and accidents.” It may also be available to other interested organisations or groups.