Community
11 July, 2025
Schools encouraged to join ‘Kids Save Lives’ program
AMBULANCE Victoria’s ‘Kids Save Lives’ program has been expanded and schools across the district are being encouraged to sign up.
The program offers life-saving CPR skills to even more Victorian students.
The Australian-first program has been developed by Ambulance Victoria for teachers to deliver, and aims to improve cardiac arrest survival rates by showing students how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use an automated external defibrillator (AED).
Last year Ambulance Victoria paramedics responded to 7,545 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
While Victoria has one of the best cardiac arrest survival rates in the world, every day about 20 Victorians suffer a cardiac arrest but only one in 10 people survive.
Around 80 per cent of Victorian cardiac arrests occur in residential settings.
Ambulance Victoria executive director of regional operations Danielle North said it was important that both adults and young people know CPR and how to use an AED.
“Our Kids Save Lives program contains essential learning and life-saving skills,” Ms North said.
“Students will not only be able to share their knowledge with friends and family, but also with their wider community.
“We hope this training will help save many Victorian lives.”
Through Kids Save Lives, students are taught to recognise when someone is in cardiac arrest and to learn the three simple steps of Call (call triple zero 000), Push (perform CPR) and Shock (use an AED).
The program is conducted in partnership with the Heart Foundation, Monash University, Australian Resuscitation Council, Department of Education and Training and Heart of the Nation and was established by original Yellow Wiggle Greg Page who survived a cardiac arrest in January 2020.
The Heart Foundation’s Victorian general manager Chris Enright said Heart Foundation-funded research showed only half of Australian adults were trained in CPR, but that those trained were more willing to help others in emergency situations.
“Educating children is a successful way to reach the entire population as children can be encouraged to teach others,” Ms Enright said.
“We know that CPR training programs in schools that have run overseas in Sweden, France, Denmark, Norway and the UK, have equipped participants with life-saving knowledge; these countries now have some of the highest bystander CPR and survival rates internationally.
“Working alongside our project partners, and with the support received from The Lionel and Yvonne Spencer Trust, and the Danks Trust, we are confident students will learn the skills that could save the life of someone in their community.”
More than 5,300 students from 35 schools have already enrolled in the expansion pilot program, and organisers are calling on more Year 7-10 schools to get involved to help bring these life-saving skills to even more students in 2025.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends starting CPR training for children as early as age 12, and ideally, annually.
The ‘Kids Save Lives’ position statement, supported by the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) and WHO, advocates for this approach.
“You don’t have to be a paramedic to save a life, you just need to be able to perform CPR and know how to use an AED.”
Victorian teachers who are interested in learning more about the free of charge Kids Save Lives program can email community.engagement@ambulance.vic.gov.au
