How to Earn the Girl Scout Junior First Aid Badge

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Updated April 2023

As the girls in your troop get older, they will be able to take on more and more responsibility. One of the things they may already be doing is caring for a younger sibling for a short while when Mom or Dad are running a quick errand. But what if something happens while on their watch?

Earning the Junior First Aid badge is one way for girls to be prepared.

Step 1 Learn the Steps to Be Prepared

This is a fairly quick and simple step to do. Have the girls create a small chart on a half piece of white construction paper. In red marker, they need to write these steps:

• Check-See to see if it is safe to check on the person. Then see if the person can talk or respond
• Call-911
• Care-Stay as calm as possible and ask another person to get an adult if one is not around the immediate area 

This chart can be placed by the phone at home or on the refrigerator.

Step 2 Talk to First Responders and Step 4 Find Out How to Handle Urgent First Aid Issues

Ask a first responder, like a police officer, to speak to your girls as one of the steps to earn the Junior First Aid badge.

Photo from Pixabay

Find out if there is someone in your troop community who can talk to the girls about what it is like to be on the scene of an emergency. If you cannot find someone and you meet in a school, ask if the school nurse can stay a bit extra and be a special guest at your meeting. She or he has certainly had emergencies over the years and s/he can talk to the kids about what to do if something happens at home or at school.

Include questions about how the girls should handle urgent issues to combine the fourth step with this one.

Step 3 Make a Portable First Aid Kit

If your girls did this as Brownie Girl Scouts, then they may not have it anymore. Even if they do, you can make a different version of the kit for them to take camping or to keep in their school backpack or Girl Scout bag. Parents can even keep this in the glove compartment of their car.

The key to creating this particular kit is to make it portable, so it needs to be small.

Similar Four Pack Available on Amazon

This colorful set of travel soap containers comes in a 4 pack.

The perfect vessel for this kit is a travel soap container. Inside you can place:

• Band Aids in different sizes
• Individual packets of a topical antibiotic
• Q-Tips for applying the ointment
• Individual packets of moist towelettes or alcohol wipes 

Have the girls write “First Aid” in Sharpie on the top.

Step 4 Find Out How to Handle Urgent First Aid Issues 

Lots of kids have peanut or other life threatening allergies. Do a "Peanut Drill" on what the girls should do if someone in class has a reaction. One girl should run to the nurse, one runs to the office, one goes to the teacher next door, etc.

Image created by the author on Canva

Step 5 Know How to Take Care of Someone Who is Sick

Talking to the girls about how to make others feel better when they are sick is one step in earning the Junior First Aid badge.

Ask the girls what their parents or caretakers do to help them feel better when they are sick. Tell the girls what you and your co-leader do for their daughters, and what your parents did for you. Has any of this changed over the years?