American Red Cross of the Tri-States

Community Classes

Available Course Offerings

Aquatics:

Parent and Child Aquatics: Designed for children six months to five years with their parents. This program builds swimming readiness by emphasizing fun in the water. Parents and children participate in several guided practice sessions that help children learn elementary skills, including water entry, bubble blowing, front kicking, back floating, underwater exploration and more. Once children can perform basic skills without parental assistance, they may begin Learn-to-Swim.

Learn to Swim: Designed for children and adults. Content includes a broad range of swimming skills for all ages – six levels to complete to achieve full competency and safety in the water. The prerequisite for each level is successful demonstration of the skills taught in the preceding level. Beginners start at Level 1, which has no prerequisite.

Water Safety Presentations: Four presentation options provide safety tips for a large variety of aquatic environments. These presentations are taught in a classroom setting.

Longfellow’s WHALE Tales: Designed for children in grades K-6. This program uses an easy-to-follow lesson plan for parents, teachers or other adult leaders to help teach children ages 5 to 12 about safe behavior in, on or around the water. No prior swimming experience or water safety training is necessary for an individual to lead the activities offered in the packet.

Water Safety Instructor Course: Designed for swimmers 16 years of age and older. This course provides candidates with the training they need to plan and conduct courses within the American Red Cross Swimming and Water Safety Program. Covers teaching progressions, course and lesson planning, recognizing common skill errors, providing corrective feedback, motor learning, and hydrodynamic principles.

GuardStart – Lifeguarding Tomorrow: Content includes lessons to develop knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to succeed in lifeguard training and enhance effectiveness on the job as a lifeguard. For those with swimming skills, this program is an ideal transition between Red Cross Learn-to-Swim and the Lifeguard Training course.

Lifeguard Training: Designed for swimmers 15 years of age and older. Content includes CPR for the Professional Rescuer, First Aid, and Lifeguard training which includes lessons in professionalism, surveillance, victim recognition, equipment-based rescues, and caring for head, neck and back injuries.

Babysitter’s Training

Babysitter’s Training: Designed for young people 11-15 years of age who want the knowledge, skills and confidence to care for infants through school-aged children. Participants will learn basic child care skills to care for infants and young children such as feeding and diapering. Participants will also learn first aid, safety issues, and injury prevention.

Bloodborne Pathogens Training: Preventing Disease Transmission

Bloodborne Pathogens Training: Preventing Disease Transmission: Designed for those individuals who may come in contact with infectious materials on the job. Content includes transmission of disease, employer’s exposure control plan, emergency and follow-up procedures, preventing disease transmission.

Courses for Educators

Basic Aid Training: Designed for children 8-12 years of age (Grades 3-5). Children learn emergency response skills, rescue breathing, and ways to prevent and care for choking, wounds, nosebleeds, falls and animal bites. The course includes responses for fire safety, poisoning, water accidents, substance abuse and more. Optional activities let you expand the 6-hour course to 12 hours. Instructor training is not required to teach this course.

First Aid for Children Today (F.A.C.T): Designed for children 5-8 years of age (Grades K-3). The FACT Critter Clan leads kids through health promotion and injury prevention activities. Its environmental theme teaches safety in a non-threatening way. Topics include hygiene and health habits, first aid, personal safety and injury prevention. Instructor training is not required for this course.

Emergency Preparedness

Together We Prepare is a nationwide initiative to help communities prepare for emergencies and disasters before they happen. Through this initiative, each person is challenged to take five steps to help make their families, workplaces, schools and neighborhoods safer.

Family Caregiving

For anyone caring for a loved one at home, life is a balancing act. American Red Cross Family Caregiving offers a helping hand by providing information-packed sessions on a variety of topics important to caregivers. This modular program design lets you choose from nine sessions that can be taken in any order. Those topics include Home Safety, General Caregiving Skills, Positioning and Helping Your Loved One Move, Assisting with Personal Care, Healthy Eating, Caring for the Caregiver, Legal and Financial Issues, Caring for a Loved One with Alzheimer’s disease or Dementia, and Caring for a Loved One with HIV/AIDS.

First Aid/CPR/AED

First Aid: Lectures, interactive video demonstrations, discussions and hands-on training teach participants how to recognize emergency situations, check the scene and call for help, avoid bloodborne pathogen exposure, care for wounds, bone and soft-tissue injuries, head and spinal injuries, burns and heat and cold related emergencies. Also included is management of sudden illnesses, stroke, seizure, bites and poisoning. Upon successful completion of the course, a certificate will be issued valid for three years.

Adult CPR: Combining lecture, video demonstrations and hands-on manikin training, this course teaches participants to call and work with EMS, care for conscious and unconscious choking victims, perform CPR, and care for breathing and cardiac emergencies in adults. Upon successful completion of the course, a certificate will be issued valid for one year.

Adult CPR/AED: Focusing on typical automated external defibrillator (AED) equipment, this course features hands-on simulation, lectures, and video demonstrations. Participants will learn to call and work with EMS, care for conscious and unconscious choking victims, perform CPR and care for breathing and cardiac emergencies in adults. Participants will also learn how to use an AED safely for a victim of sudden cardiac arrest. Upon successful completion of the course, a certificate will be issued valid for one year.

Infant and Child CPR: Designed for anyone who cares for children. Participants will learn to call and work with EMS, recognize and care for breathing and cardiac emergencies in infants and children under 8 years old, develop an emergency action plan, and prevent and reduce hazards in the home and play areas. Upon successful completion of the course, a certificate will be issued valid for one year.

Child AED: In this course, participants will learn what defibrillation is and how it works, list the causes of cardiac arrest in young children, explain the role of CPR, and demonstrate how to use CPR and the AED for a child victim in cardiac arrest.

First Aid: Responding to Emergencies: Developed for high schools, colleges, and universities, this course conveniently fits into a semester or quarter schedule and can be adapted to your course outline. A minimum of 27 hours, this training combines lecture, discussion and simulated emergency situations to teach reliable responses for numerous emergency situations. Those situations include first aid for injuries and sudden illnesses, injury management, medical emergencies, and healthy lifestyle tips.

CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer: Designed for any individual who has a duty to respond to emergencies, this 7½ hour course combines lecture and video with hands-on skill training. The key content areas include recognizing and responding to breathing and cardiac emergencies in adults, infant and children. Also use of resuscitation and bag-valve masks and two-rescuer CPR are included.

Sports Safety Training

The Sports Safety Training program is designed to help coaches, athletic trainers and other participants identify and eliminate potentially hazardous conditions in various sports environments, recognize emergencies and make appropriate decisions for first aid care. Flexible course options – including a stand-alone Sports Injury Prevention and First Aid course with additional training available in adult and child CPR and AED – allow you to design the course that’s right for you.