Students and Mentors – and Families –
from the thousands of Junior Lifeguard and First Responder Scout
and Cadet Programs across the United States and around the world
develop and lead GO-FIRST Local, State and National Camps, International
Mission and Multimedia.
Our
Big 5 Curriculum and adventure learning systems reflect over 100
years of professional public safety training and classroom teaching
by our leadership teams in Alaska, California, Hawai`i, Illinois,
Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, DC, Mexico, Chile and New
Zealand.
Our
programs present a combination of high-energy, “education
by perspiration” challenges with leadership and teamwork training
that, along with the supplemental multimedia, recognize and respect
a wide diversity of learning styles, educational backgrounds and
communities.
The
onsite camps present a progressive learning calendar that takes
the students from first aid to emergency medical systems; search
and rescue to humanitarian aid; home safety to community safety;
personal health to environmental protection; and from physical fitness
to readiness to lead in mission at home and abroad. All are customized
to reflect the host community’s history and current dynamics
in public health, safety, security, duty stations and environment.
Each
multimedia unit presents a multicultural team of students from our
participating communities as the action-learning stars, training
with their First Responder, Homeland Security and Humanitarian Aid
mentors in their various locales and duty stations. These online
adventure learning units both model and inform the actual experiential
camps provided in GO-FIRST communities by the lead First Responder
and Homeland Security departments – usually, Fire, EMS, Marine
Safety, Search and Rescue services and U.S. Coast Guard, working
with partner schools and youth programs.
Our
development model is very simple and honors each community’s
history of First Responder public education and outreach; especially,
any current JG and Cadet programs affiliated with First Responder
departments, Boys and Girls Clubs, Ys, Scouts, community centers
and parks and recreation departments.
For
those communities with historical or current JG and Cadet programs,
we add those programs to the GO-FIRST website and model curriculum
resources, with the local students and their mentors starring in
the select multimedia units we coproduce to represent their communities.
We also share all the resources for curriculum development from
the other GO-FIRST programs. In this way, we approach every new
GO-FIRST community in the same manner in which we first worked in
our leadership cities and our First Responders, public safety officials,
youth programs and educators.
For
those new communities that do not have developed JG and Cadet programs,
we first, coproduce a special weekend GO-FIRST Camp with the lead
First Responder departments and educators. This weekend event is
a major classroom and community outreach program, inviting all interested
young people and featuring the participating local First Responder
services and a national team of mentors and students from our other
programs.
The
special introductory Camp is followed by the launch of a formal
GO-FIRST program as a seasonal, monthly or weekly program with local
schools and youth programs.
All
our global partners and programs participate in the development
of the GO-FIRST National Camp, which is held each year in Washington,
DC, Virginia and Maryland during the week marking the observance
of September 11th.
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