Inclusive First Aid (INFA) conducted a best practice exchange on first aid training for people with disabilities. Under inclusion of relevant target group stakeholders, we collected, debated and documented practices that led to succesful learning results. The successful conduction of the best practice exchange was our one central objective. We had two intermediate goals in focus: 1) Valuable lessons learned to improve first aid training for persons with disabilities, as trainers could learn from the presentations of and discussion about the practice examples. 2) Recommendations on the way forward for first aid for persons with disabilities, based on a wide group of experts exchanging on the topic. The final project publication, in addition to documenting the discussed practices, has general chapters addressing this point.
Everyone can learn first aid as, by definition, it means simple measures that, while potentially life-saving, can be done by laypersons. This explicitly also includes persons with disabilities - but mainstream courses often are neither accessible nor inclusive. While we recognize that teaching persons with disabilities in a practical, physical skill can be a didactic challenge that varies by type of disability, we found that different approaches at the consortium organisations already had shown success and that good learning results can be achieved if measures to provide accessibility and inclusion are observed. In INFA, we collected these practices and discussed them with representatives of disabled people's organisations (DPOs), to ensure that they can be recommendable examples of practice. In our final document, we put these examples into the context of why first aid education, as a form of civic engagement and thus being connected to active citizenship, is important for the target group, recognizing the right of persons with disabilities to all aspects of education including training in first aid, and also formulate a recommendation on remaining practical and regulatory challenges.