If this week at Royersford Fire Department had a theme it would be training. Our members took part in an amazing educational session on Monday evening and also facilitated training for community partners. Our busy week of training began Monday afternoon with staff traveling west on 422 to Berks County for a CPR & First Aid recertification class at Amity Township Police Department. The officers were taken through the recertification session focusing on effective CPR, how to quickly intervene with medical emergencies, as well as an extremely productive conversation focused around the use of Naloxone and providing breathing support for patients experiencing effects of opiate use. A huge thank you to Police Chief Jeff Smith and his entire staff for trusting Royersford Fire Department with their medical training needs.

The training on Monday didn't stop there. Instead of providing training, members were treated to "Autism & First Responders: What You Need to Know" presented by Fire Chief Brian Focht from Willow Grove Fire Company. In addition to being heavily involved in emergency services, Chief Focht also is the father of an autistic son and his presentation focused on how to recognize subtle actions, movements, and communications which may indicate someone could be autistic and how to ensure the interaction is as beneficial as possible. This program came highly recommended and certainly did not disappoint. We are grateful for Chief Focht's expertise in this field and took away an abundance of great information.

Training on Tuesday kicked off just after lunchtime with two sessions of Stop the Bleed at the Spring-Ford Area School District Intermediate Center. 96 faculty members from the school district were trained how to recognize life-threatening bleeding and how to quickly and effectively intervene. Staff from RFD were joined by Trappe EMS Chief Gary Vinnacombe to facilitate the practical portion of the class. To date, just shy of 400 faculty members have been trained with the goal to have every school district administrator training by the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Of those almost 400 participants 98.4% feel confident in the skills they learned with 96.8% confirming they would respond in an emergency after receiving the training! We continue to thoroughly enjoy our partnership with Spring-Ford Area School District Police and the entire SFASD family as we train to Stop the Bleed.