St John Ambulance Cadets

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Dd (12) is interested in joining SJA as cadet and ds (8) might like to join Badgers.

There are a couple of local groups and I have emailed them but with lockdown it might be a while until we find out more.

If your dc attend SJA would you mind sharing your experiences?

What aspects do they enjoy or perhaps not enjoy as much?

What do you think are the benefits in terms of skills and experience and what level of commitment is expected?

Is it mainly first aid and medical topics they cover with badges or other topics as well?

Many thanks!

My son's a badger. He really enjoys it. He's shy, didn't know anyone and hasn't really shown interest in any other clubs but he has stuck with this and we are really proud of him for it.
They learn lots of stuff and play games too.

They cover lots of topics like Geography and craft things too.

Thank you Ohfrigginghellers. What sort of crafts activities do they tend to do?

Is the geography topic related to first aid in any way?

He has made things like worry dolls and decorated sweetie jars. They do things like 'Global Badge' aswell as first aid. This includes things like learning how to say hello in different languages, flags etc. They made a Global Passport.
They do a Caring badge also which covers caring for animals aswell as people. They've also had a visit to a library to learn about how important they are. They do badge presentations too. It's really good.

I read up about the history of SJA, very interesting!

However, their website doesn't have a lot of information about Cadet and Badger badges or what being a cadet involves.

That sounds interesting Ohfrigginghellers what sorts of activities do they do for the caring badge?

One more hopeful bump for more information about SJA

I'm not sure how it's run now, but I was a cadet about 25 years ago.
I absolutely loved it, we went to events at weekends to provide first aid, which was great for getting into places for free 😂
It gave me great social and communication skills.

I'm interested too - I've applied for a cadet place for dd, but before lockdown they emailed to say there weren't any places in our area. She is desperate to join, and on the waiting list but more interested in learning about first aid etc

I don't really have any more info as we've been doing the caring badge at home due to lockdown. So far we've been looking at caring for animals and drawing what a vets practice may look like.

Thank you Ohfrigginghellers you've been very kind to share your Badgers experience.

I suppose I'm mainly wondering how much of the programme is first aid / medical related and how much 'other stuff'.

I hope you dd will get a place soon MadauntofA.

I was a cadet about 25 years ago. We went on the best camps ever, had so much fun. Each we we do first aid , elderly care , care of the child , nutrition , bandaging and we had a couple of ambulances that we loved to sort. Great fun if you can your child in

My 12 year old joined cadets in September. He's really enjoyed it and has completed a couple of weekends of training to get his Cadet first aider badge. It's been really good for him to mix with different kids than he would at school etc. He'd like to be a paramedic so it was just starting to give him the motivation to crack on with school work when the schools shut! He's not been to cadets since either. He'd just got his uniform too so it's such a shame.

Monstermissy36 that sounds really positive congratulations to your ds on his first aider badge. How did your son like the training weekends? Are the other cadets in his unit all your son's age? At what age do the cadets help with real events?

ineoclockinwales The camps sound great!