Press Release

Red Cross launches online babysitting service

25 February 2008

Young people across the country will have better access to vital childminding skills from March when the British Red Cross national database of babysitting courses goes online.

From 3 March, those running Red Cross babysitting training courses – including schools, youth work teams and external training centres - will be able to post course details on a dedicated Red Cross website.
  
Babysitters, or parents interested in their babysitter attending a course, will then be able to browse by venue and course date for their most convenient option.

To take advantage of this new opportunity, existing course directors are encouraged to visit www.redcross.org.uk/coursedirectors and enter details of upcoming courses for prospective participants to browse.

Anyone interested in staging babysitting courses for the first time and having them listed on the database should log on to www.redcross.org.uk/babysitting to find out more.

As an added bonus, anyone registering their course before 23 March will receive a 15% discount on any first aid or humanitarian education products ordered from the British Red Cross 2008 education catalogue, available from www.redcross.org.uk/shop.

“This is a resource that both course conveners and those wanting to take the course have asked for. It will make it much easier to link up people wanting to do the babysitting course with organisations running the training - everyone benefits and it’s a real win-win situation,” said Mike Baxter, British Red Cross Youth Service Manager.

"We’re confident that through the online database we’ll reach even more people with life-saving accident prevention and first aid messages as well as practical advice on looking after other people’s children."

Several modules of the course focus on first aid, including CPR and other life saving techniques as well as treatments for cuts, bumps, bruises and burns.

Other modules tackle social and behavioural issues ranging from how to deal with challenging children to what to do if parents who have been drinking offer babysitters a lift home at the end of the evening.

Kerry Gray from the Somerset County Youth Service welcomed the launch of the http://www.redcross.org.uk/babysitting resource.

"It’s a really good course for anyone wanting to babysit responsibly, and we’ve had an excellent response from both course graduates and the parents they babysit for," she said.

"Putting the courses online is a great move, both for my youth work team and for our course participants, but the real benefit will be to the thousands of children course graduates go on to look after."