IRECA:Youth consists of youth individuals and groups. Youth members are welcome to join professional rescuers and emergency care givers in their classes, training, demonstrations, and competitions.

IRECA:Youth is not a student organization with kid activities that makes you "aware" of rescue and emergency care careers. IRECA:Youth are invited to participate and use the skills they have learned in their organizations or classes. IRECA:Youth is about working with professionals.

If you are involved in a school, explorer, cadet, CERT, or other similar organization, you should belong to IRECA:Youth.

Cost:
$100 per year for organizations
$20 per year for individuals

Click here for a membership application.

Organizations:
Join IRECA to communicate and collaborate with other organizations through our association. As an international association, IRECA membership may fulfill state requirements for your program.

Benefits:

Competition Test your skills in real-world, professional level scenarios.

Technical Rescue Opportunities Youth have the opportunities to learn about technical rescue directly from professional rescue teams.

The Rescuer Receive IRECA's quarterly newsletter as well as a copy of Instrustrial Fire World.

Past-Presidents Scholarships Scholarships available for students pursuing medically related fields.

Career Networking Youth get direct contact with industry and other potential employers.

Recognition Youth are recognized for their knowledge and skills by professional rescuers and their peers

National Conference:
IRECA runs an annual conference with classes, competitions, and demonstrations. Youth members are welcome to register for the conference and compete. All classes are open to the youth to attend. Youth may compete in the Basic Life Support (BLS) Competition and Auto Extrication Competition.

In addition, youth are utilized at victims for Advance Life Support and Technical Rescue competitions.

Youth members have optional outings available to them. In 2007, youth went whitewater rafting, took a class on whitewater rescue, and attended a old west dinner theater show. This year we have plans to go to the beach and on a tour of NASA.

Basic Life Support (BLS) Competition:

Youth BLS teams participate along side adult BLS teams taking a test and performing three scenarios. Below is a description of how BLS competition works. Click here for more information, such as equipment lists and a sample scenario. This competition is open to youth who have 1st responder or equivalent training. Teams have 3 members.

2007 competition scenarios:

• Scenario 1 - Car crashed up against a building
- Backboard the driver out through the passenger side or back.
• Scenario 2 - 2 people mugged - 1 was stabbed
- Treat stab wounds
- assist duct-taped victim that is deaf.
• Scenario 3 - Child floating in pool
- backboard and treat child who dove into the shallow end of the pool

The Setup: Last year's competition had about 4 teams competing on each scenario simultaneously. There were three scenarios, so that is 12 going at one time. The scenarios are set up in different areas and teams rotate around to the three locations. The scenarios start and end at the same time. As an example, we had 4 teams located around the shallow end of a hotel pool. There were 4 victims who were floating face forward in the water when they arrived on scene. Each victim and judge were located in specific areas where each team were to work. They should have enough space not to interfere with each other, but not far enough where you can't see or hear each other. Seeing what each other are doing doesn't not always help--it may lead a team down a wrong path if the team next to them is doing something wrong. It is always best to depend on your training and study a sample scenario to know what type of things the judges are looking for.

Judges: There is usually 1 judge per victim. You perform all skills (with few exceptions). After you get vitals, the judge will provide you the scenario vitals. The judge will also provide patients feedback--the patients do not act the part. Judges do not correct or offer performance feedback during the competition.

It is good to make sure the judge is hearing you when you are performing skills or asking questions. If they don’t know you are doing something you will not get credit for it. Go over the point sheets and see that a basic head to toe assessment and repeated vitals will gain you a large portion of the points. Scoresheets are returned after the awards banquet on Saturday.

Victim/Patients: Victims for scenarios are usually just warm bodies. In order to provide a consistent competition environment we do not have patients act as much as we might for a moulage training exercise. Judges will provide vitals and other findings as you state and show how you would obtain the findings.

Time: Scenarios usually run about 20 minutes. There is usually a 2-5 minute "initial action" phase where scene size-up and initial assessment are to take place. Once the end of initial action is called, the judges flip the sheet over and are not to go back and give credit for any missed items that get completed later. There is a two minute wrap up where the team provides a report to the judge of what they have found and what treatments/interventions they provided.

Notes: Often there is a note where the situation has changed midway through a scenario. This can be either time based (after 10 minutes…) or dependent on your actions (you didn’t check to see if the scene was safe…). It may be that police find another victim or that the fire department has finally removed an obstacle that had been pinning your patient.

Test: There is a written test that makes a quarter of the overall competition points.

Points: The four components are equally weighted to make up the overall competition score. Winners are announced at Sunday’s Banquet. There are adult BLS and youth BLS categories. Both adults and youth compete in the same way, at the same time, but they are ranked separately.

Questions? Contact Paul Wilson with any youth or adult BLS competition questions.