First aid kit Kim’s game

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning this activity

• Take a look at the information from St John Ambulance on what to put in your first aid kit and our guidance on using first aid kits in your group.
• The NHS has some resources on first aid kits, though the actual contents of kits should be suitable for the activity you’ll be taking part in and match your risk assessment. 
• This activity is ideal to run in the weeks leading up to a camp, Nights Away event, adventure or expedition. Make sure the kits you’re using in this activity are suitable for what you have planned.
• Scouts have some additional guidance on what to do in case of an accident or illness.

What to take?

1. Gather everyone together and ask if they know what should be in a first aid kit.
2. Ask everyone to get into small groups. The number of groups should depend on the number of first aid kits there are available. Each group will need one kit.
3. Explain to the groups that they’re going to be doing an activity, adventure or expedition. This can be real or made up. Everyone should then think of three things might happen during that activity that they might need the first aid kit for. For example, when out on a hike, it’s a good idea to take along a first aid kit. You need to carry it with you, so it has to be portable, therefore you should only take what you might realistically need. On a hike, you could perhaps be stung by a bee or could catch your arm on a thorn.
4. Next, think about what things that might need to be in the first aid kit to deal with the situations you had and write (or draw) a list for each one.

Let’s look

1. Unpack a first aid kit for each group.
2. Remember that in functional kits, most items need to remain sealed and sterile. You consider having a dummy version that contains training or out-of-date materials, so as not to risk breaking packaging or seals during the activity.
3. The groups should look at the contents of the kit and think about the list of equipment they thought they’d need for the activity, adventure or expedition.
4. Ask if anyone thinks that an important piece of equipment is missing from the kit, and if they can explain why that piece of equipment should belong in the kit. Remember that portable first aid kits won’t hold everything, so certain items need to be prioritised!
5. Make sure to agree on suitable first aid kit contents with each group for their situations. You could go round to each group and ask them, or gather back together and do do this as one big group

First aid kit Kim’s game

1. Next, each group should lay out all the parts from their first aid kit in a small space for quick version of ‘Kim’s game’.
2. Choose someone to be the game leader for each group.
3. The game leader should allow their group to have 30 seconds to look at the equipment. They should then cover the items with a sheet or blanket.
4. The group should then try to name all of the items that they can from the kit.
5. When they think they’ve guessed them all, reveal the kit again to see if there was anything they missed out.
6. Everyone should think about how we can record what should be in the kit, so that they don’t have to rely on their memory each time. This could be done with a list, which should be updated when items are used, so that everyone knows when they need to be replaced.