The background to Young Responders

In April 2021, St John Ambulance was granted the Recovery Fund, fundraised through the People’s Postcode Lottery. This grant was developed to address the educational inequalities, social exclusion and isolation, which underserved communities experienced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In 2021, we set ourselves the challenge of identifying those communities who we traditionally have had limited interaction. In particular, we wanted to reach the young people from these communities. 

We have used these funds to develop the Young Responders programme. We are reaching out to young people from these underserved communities, teaching them life saving skills.  

We set out to create a first aid project with our users’ needs placed firmly at the centre of our delivery. This involved co-designing the project with research agency Innovation Unit alongside young people from both our target groups as well as St John young people.

Those young people informed us that exposure to street violence and building their mental health resilience were areas of key importance to them and they required relevant, simple first aid that they could take back and share with others in their communities.

The Recovery Fund enabled us to prototype then pilot concepts that were fun and inclusive, where we have stripped back uniforms and deliver scenario based hands on sessions.