Posts Tagged: drills
September 15, 2014
Looking beyond into student learning, preparedness, and assessment
Shannon Dere
University of Arkansas
Julie Saldiva
Texas State University
Editor’s Note: This is the first of two parts.
Risk Management, the big buzz word floating around campus recreation right now, has a lot of recreation professionals on edge but many may not be quite sure of how to go about managing risk properly. One of the biggest risks that campus recreation departments have involves their student staff. Generally speaking, these staff members are expected to work front-line operations and carry out daily risk management practices, including applying first aid and CPR/AED skills when needed. But are we properly preparing our students to succeed in situations where this knowledge and these skills will be needed most?
Many campus recreation programs are taking a proactive step in ensuring that most or all student staff is trained in CPR/AED and first aid, however, many programs stop after the initial certification class. Most of these certifications, regardless of the provider, last typically from one to three years before a renewal is needed. Additionally, many certification providers are not only simplifying the techniques they teach, but also offer online courses where students never have the opportunity to practice their skills. With such a variation of training and certification renewal options, inconsistencies in knowledge and skills are significant, and student staff are likely to forget much of their training. Read more
April 16, 2013
A Student-Based Team Approach to Prepare for Emergencies
Ryan Rudesill, Interim Coordinator of Intramurals and Sport Clubs
Mo McAlpine, Associate Director
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Editor’s Note: This article is Part 1 of a two part series. Part one focuses on ‘Developing an Emergency Response Team’ while the next issue of the Newsletter will cover ‘Red Shirt Reviews’.
Imagine you are working the front desk at a recreation facility and a student rushes to the counter in a panic, informing you that a participant in a group exercise class has become unresponsive. What do you do? How do your co-workers respond? The broader question: how prepared are you and your staff to deal with this or a similar life-threatening situation?
At the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UW-L), this exact scenario happened in the Recreational Eagle Center (REC) when Clare (who has granted permission to use her name) became unresponsive toward the end of an evening kickboxing class. Due to the efficient and courageous actions of student staff members and participants in the class, Clare’s life was saved. The teamwork of these college students with UW-L University Police, EMS, and the medical team at Mayo Clinic Health System was critical to her survival of a sudden cardiac arrest. Most vital was Clare’s relentless fight for her life while surrounded by supportive family and friends. Approximately one month later, she was back on campus attending classes.
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April 16, 2013
A Student-Based Team Approach to Prepare for Emergencies
Ryan Rudesill, Interim Coordinator of Intramurals and Sport Clubs
Mo McAlpine, Associate Director
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Editor’s Note: This article is Part 2 of the series, focusing on ‘Red Shirt Reviews’. Part one discussed ‘Developing an Emergency Response Team’.
In Part 1 of this series we looked at how to form an effective Emergency Response Team (ERT). The current article will describe the role of the ERT in performing ‘Red Shirt Reviews’ – hands-on, mock situations that simulate emergencies. The purpose at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UW-L) is to create a non-intimidating environment with real life situations for staff members to practice and become comfortable implementing EAP’s.
Steps to implement Red Shirt Reviews
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December 08, 2011
A Vital Component in your Training Plan
Rich Bricker
Facilities Coordinator – RecSports
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
At the University of Tennessee RecSports department the Facilities and Aquatics program areas are involved in running drills on their staff. As a result of a fatal cardiac arrest in 2007 and a near drowning in 2009 both of these program areas decided to add more hands-on training to the current emergency response plan in the form of drills. For the purposes of UT RecSports, a drill is a scenario in which student workers are placed in a false crisis in order to practice emergency response procedures. These situations take place in various locations throughout all RecSports facilities.
The following article contains two parts: practical drills and research. The first section deals with our drill program, and the article explains the approach that the University of Tennessee RecSports program takes to ensure that our manager level staff has practical experience in dealing with emergency situations. By using a drill scenario, we believe that we are getting as close to a “real life” crisis as possible. In the second section, the article explains some of the research that was performed using the RecSports Facilities managers. We wanted to determine if running drills affected the self-reported level of confidence that the managers felt when dealing with emergency situations.
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