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Students at Sisters Academy of New Jersey are prepared to save lives after completing a training session from the very individuals who respond after disaster strikes — the American Red Cross.

Each of the school’s 60 students successfully completed a Red Cross babysitting, pediatric first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation [CPR] training program Friday. The six-and-a-half hour training was spread over two instructional days and provides the knowledge and skills necessary to safely and responsibly care for infants and children.

“We learned how to take care of a baby and different ways to entertain them and play games with them,” said 11-year-old Jazz Worthy [shown above, at center], a sixth grade student at the Academy. “When I babysit other children I will now know how to entertain them and keep them busy.”

Students practiced their newly-learned CPR skills  on “Baby Anne” — a realistic infant instruction doll whose chest rises and falls if the procedure is performed correctly.

The training expanded 11-year-old Trezure Barnes’s [above, at left] knowledge of pediatric first-aid procedures and lends itself to her future line of work.

“When I get older I want to be a pediatric surgeon, so it helps to know I have a little experience,” Barnes said. “It’s interesting because if you see someone hurt you can save someone’s life.”

The training is “invaluable” according to Sister Mary Louise Miller, principal of the Sisters Academy of New Jersey. The academy is a middle school dedicated to educating low income female students from the Asbury Park and Neptune area.

“A lot of these girls take care of younger siblings,” she said, and besides learning CPR, they now know how to provide basic care and bandage smaller injuries. “It’s excellent.”

Red Cross instructor Theresa Maher [above, at right] has taught the course to Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, and at schools and churches around the state — basically to whomever logs on to the Red Cross website and signs up for it, she said.

Since the skills training comes at a cost, Kim Price, major gifts officer for the Jersey Shore Chapter of the Red Cross [shown at far right], arranged funding for the program through The Mary Owen Borden Foundation and the Nicholson Foundation.

The agency is actively reaching out to low income communities to help teach community members how they can help increase their communities recovery  response to emergency situations, Price said.

“I believe in it and I see the difference it is making,” Price said. “We’re trying to get pediatric first aid to as many young people as we can. I would love to get these programs in to all schools.”

It’s also Price’s goal to get the public-at-large to understand the Red Cross does much more than help respond in disaster situation. An additional program on its way to implementation in Asbury Park will see resident’s homes and apartments equipped with fire alarms if they have none, and supply them with a change of batteries if they do, she said.

The Sisters Academy school is located at 1416 Springwood Ave.

For more information about classes through the Red Cross Jersey Shore Chapter, visit their website.

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