Kath speaks with Darren Mannix from Healthguard First Aid, who has been training for more than 25 years and is a passionate advocate for first responder training. Darren has previously worked for Victorian Emergency Services, where he was responsible for delivering core competencies and for the design and delivery of USAR/CBR training.
Like so many of us working in this industry, he found his passion for training and first aid through unexpected life events. All of which have helped develop a delivery style that is enthusiastic, and which focuses on making what many see as a mandatory annual training requirement more meaningful, positive, practical and fun.
Darren has great insights into what it means to be human and to work as a trainer, whether you are new to the role or very experienced.
Transcript excerpts:
Moving away from training “everything” – 04:04
I’m so happy we’ve gone from this. Make it look good and go through every possible subject, to now, make it effective. And don’t bore the person. Don’t we know 95% of all first aids common sense anyway? And the other 5%, the things that you know what we need to endorse, we need to make sure it happens. But yeah, first day has come a long way within my time. First aid, not pretty aid. That’s it. I love that I say that every single day it’s the slogan of health guard first aid. So to have those sessions shortened, dynamic, Interactive hands on, let them do all the reading beforehand. Let them get them all the base information. Let’s keep the sessions exciting and interactive.
Simulation and high-fidelity training – 09:10
If you think of 911 those devastating pictures afterwards of all the buildings collapse and piles, we had an opportunity to build those simulated sites. It was just an amazing time, Kath. It was a horrible subject matter, but the training, props and the team was amazing. We had these throughout Victoria at certain CFA training grounds. We built/constructed at very high cost, structural collapse sites. We had cars, we had buses, we had multi-storey structures that we just built and pushed over. We had smoke machines, audio, video…we even had tunnels placed with into the rubble pile where we could place volunteers who could re-enact people crying for assistance. And it’s that high fidelity training – it’s one of those events that lots of people who do participate in that training remember. And you see that starting to come out now in different training companies – you have those specialist companies that put all the bells and whistles on to really try and simulate the best experience possible for the students.
Finding the hidden parts of yourself by doing what is uncomfortable – 10:18
I remember coming home saying I’ve got an opportunity. It’s a big opportunity, it’s not first aid and I remember saying to my family, I’m not gonna do it. I don’t think I have the capability to do it. And then my mentor who was guiding me through the first aid industry who gave me my first job, to my surprise – because he was my boss, he pushed me. He said, You know what I think you should take it. You’re gonna go away, you’re gonna learn a new skill. It’s gonna make you even better with the people you work with. And the new mentors your gain… So it’s beneficial for Healthguard… There you go. Sometimes you need to just do it. It’s scary, but you just kind of take the jump and usually people work it out, right? We work it out. We work out how to do it. We make it happen. It’s just having that confidence to start and give it a go, and go into that uncomfortable space and you end up finding out things about yourself that you never thought you would be capable of, or finding new areas that really interest you. It’s amazing what you can do. You just have to start… And I remember one of the people I admired in this world who was a race car driver called Peter Brock. And I had the opportunity to talk to Peter Brock quite a lot and he said, I’ve done this for my whole driving career – Bite off more than more than you can chew and chew like hell, and that’s stuck with me.
Finding motivation as a trainer and for the students – 17:17
I mean, I love my role, I love my job… some days, you know what? I don’t wanna do this. But there’s one thing, that keeps me going every day – I love when I walk into a room and I have learners who have some little apprehension or fear about adult education, and sometimes I know they just don’t want to be there -the only reason there is part of occupation, health and safety legislation as employees. So let’s make training dynamic exciting, make it relevant. So my go to is to go hands on. But my biggest go to is make it relevant and explain why. Because first it’s not for work, it’s for life. One of the big things I love in this world is taking that student and in the 1st 10 minutes, telling them, showing them, encouraging them through their session. It’s gonna be easy. They’re gonna learn, not to have fear. And when I see that learner come out the other end positive and encouraged about education.
Imposter syndrome – 17:17
Even after 20 something years of training, it’s still one of those human things that – you are so passionate, you wanna do a good job, and you really do worry that you haven’t been doing a good job. And even after 20 years it can still be less than, less than perfect. And that’s gotta be OK… to hear even you have fears makes me feel better. You have to fake it till you make it sometimes.
Self-reflection and being yourself – 24:06
I recommend especially for new trainers to find a presentation, find something you’re passionate about, talk about it for 10 minutes and videotape it and then write down 10 points you think you can improve – self identify…Reflective debriefing…you connect more that way because if you self-identify it then it it’s probably going to dig in deeper and stay a bit more than if someone just says it to you in passing.
But the biggest thing with new trainers is – be yourself. And I see this go wrong so many times. And if I am asked to mentor somebody or to give them guidance, I say straight away whoever you see, I’m going to send you off and watch one of my trainers – take from them, but don’t be them. And I see this fail quite a lot. They always try and mimic that trainer and it won’t work. Sure, take the information, take some of the analogies, take some of the ideas, but be yourself. Be authentic to yourself. If you’re not, it’ll come across and learners will see that learners will pick that up.
Other links:
Healthguard First Aid www.healthg.com.au
Contact Darren:
Email darren@healthg.com.au
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