Meeting Millie’s Trust

In Blog by Denis Naughten

 

Today I met with an inspirational couple – Joanne & Dan Thompson – who are in Ireland to raise awareness around the paediatric first aid courses offered by their charity Millie’s Trust.

Joanne & Dan’s beautiful baby daughter Millie passed away tragically in October 2012 aged just 9 months following a choking incident that occurred while she was in the care of a nursery in the UK. The stuff of every parent’s worst nightmare.

Following her death they established Millie’s Trust which offers training in paediatric first aid for families and also more extensive training courses for those employed in childcare.

Joanne & Dan are also campaigning for a change in the law to ensure that everyone employed in caring for young children would be trained in first aid for children. At present – both here in Ireland and in the UK – the law only requires that one person on the premises be trained in paediatric first aid: a fact that will shock many parents and grandparents of young children alike.

While there are many people employed in this area who are undoubtedly trained specifically in this area of first aid the fact remains that any creche etc is only required by law to have one person on the premises with such training. This situation must change.

By highlighting this flaw in the current law and by rolling out their training courses throughout the UK and now Ireland Millie’s parents are working to try to provide people with the skills to ensure that what happened to their beautiful daughter is not repeated.

To find out more about Millie’s Trust and about Joanne & Dan’s work log on to www.milliestrust.com or www.facebook.com/milliestrust

 

Millie's Trust