The ABC for Life Programme - Teaching Basic Life Support in Schools

Background Less than 1% of the general public know how to assess or manage someone who has collapsed. It has been estimated that if 15–20% of the population were capable of performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), mortality of out of hospital cardiac arrest could be decreased significantly. Training basic life support (BLS) skills to school children would be the most cost effective way of achieving this goal and ensuring that a large proportion of the population acquire basic life saving skills. Aims To assess retention of knowledge of basic life support 6 months after a single course of instruction in cardiopulmonary resuscitation designed specifically for school children. Setting School pupils in a rural location in one region of the United Kingdom. Methods A course of instruction in cardiopulmonary resuscitation – the ‘ABC for life’ programme – specifically designed to teach 10–12-year-old school children basic life support skills. The training session was given to school pupils in a rural location in Northern Ireland. A 22 point questionnaire was used to assess acquisition and retention of basic life support knowledge. Results Children instructed in cardiopulmonary resuscitation showed a highly significant increase in level of knowledge following the training session. While their level of knowledge decreased over a period of 6 months it remained significantly higher than that of a comparable group of children who had never been trained. Conclusion A training programme designed and taught as part of the school curriculum would have a significant impact on public health.

'It Is Not as Easy as ABC': Examining Practitioners' Views on Using Behavioural Contracts to Encourage Young People to Accept Responsibility for their Anti-Social Behaviour

This article examines the use of acceptable behavioural contracts as a tool for engendering the voluntary acceptance of responsibility in children and young people perceived to be engaging in anti-social behaviour and low-level criminality. Based on the results of a qualitative empirical analysis with local government and social housing anti-social behaviour teams, the article explores the attitudes of practitioners to the use of this unregulated but commonly utilised intervention. Practitioners' views are contrasted with the ideals of voluntary responsibilisation upon which the contracts are supposedly based. It is argued that there is a spectrum of differing approaches among practitioners, with some using the contracts more to encourage the voluntary acceptance of responsibility, whilst others use them more coercively to hold individuals responsible for their behaviour. The implications of these differing approaches are examined.

Public Service Broadcasting, Creative Industries and Innovation Infrastructure: The Case of ABC's Pool

The proliferation of media services enabled by digital technologies poses a serious challenge to public service broadcasting rationales based on media scarcity. Looking to the past and future, we articulate an important role that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) might play in the digital age. We argue that historically the ABC has acted beyond its institutional broadcasting remit to facilitate cultural development and, drawing on the example of Pool (an online community of creative practitioners established and maintained by the ABC), point to a key role it might play in fostering network innovation in what are now conceptualised as the creative industries.