PORTLAND, Ore—As rates of firearm violence, motor vehicle accidents and other life-threatening traumas continue to increase, OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital  –  in collaboration with Portland Public Schools and the Portland Police Bureau  –  introduces Protect our Kids, a novel emergency response training program developed for K-12 school teachers and staff.

Funded by a grant from the Pediatric Trauma Society and Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma, Protect our Kids is the first program to combine critical incident education, which offers skills crucial  to managing events such as classroom injury, natural disasters, motor vehicle accidents and mass shootings, with the national Stop the Bleed training campaign.

“Teachers and staff often find themselves on the front lines when tragedy strikes at, or near, a school,” said Mubeen Jafri, M.D., chief of pediatric surgery at OHSU Doernbecher and principal investigator of the Protect our Kids program. “This training will prepare them to quickly and calmly respond to the urgent needs of impacted children and adults, ultimately allowing more lives to be saved.”

Each 90-minute session will engage participants in critical incident education administered by local law enforcement, as well as OHSU-led hands-on training in tourniquet application, applying direct pressure and packing an injury using hemostatic gauze.

Participating schools will also receive official Stop the Bleed kits that contain hemorrhage control gauze, gloves, shears, and four tourniquets, as well as Stop the Bleed instructional posters and critical incident education handouts.