The Wonderfund, a newly launched charity serving children supported by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, is honored to announce that it will be offering medical-emergency and CPR training for foster parents through a new partnership with Armstrong Ambulance Service Inc.
Armstrong Ambulance paramedics and emergency medical technicians will be, at no charge, training up to 48 foster parents in how to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, provide relief from choking, and recognize and respond to other medical emergencies. The training will be provided at Armstrong Ambulance’s Center of Education in Woburn on Saturday afternoon, November 4.
Wonderfund CEO Erin Murphy Rafferty said: “We are so grateful to our partners at Armstrong Ambulance for stepping up with this generous donation of life-changing and life-saving training for our state’s foster parents. Our mission at the Wonderfund is to change for the better the lives of all children supported by the DCF, and ensuring that many more of them have foster parents with CPR and medical-emergency training is a critically important way to fulfill our promise to these kids.”
Armstrong Ambulance president and CEO Richard Raymond said: “Bill Armstrong founded Armstrong Ambulance with the vision of compassion driving all that we do, and the compassion the Wonderfund provides for children served by the DCF is a mission we deeply admire and are thrilled to be able to support. Any parent who’s ever suddenly had to help a child who’s injured or choking or fainting–or having any medical emergency–knows how important CPR training can be. All of us at Armstrong are honored to have the chance to extend this training to some of Massachusetts’ biggest-hearted, most devoted parents, our foster parents.”
At the Nov. 4 session, Armstrong Ambulance will train foster parents in the American Heart Association accredited Heartsaver program, covering CPR and the use of automated external defibrillators (AED’s); choking relief; and recognizing and responding to a variety of medical emergencies. Training will cover how to provide these services to infants, children of all ages, and adults. Armstrong Ambulance has been providing similar training sessions for years to school and community groups throughout Greater Boston.
Foster parents of children engaged with the DCF may register for the training at https://armstrongambulance.enrollware.com/enroll?id=1836984
The Wonderfund, a private, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) federally tax-exempt charity, was formerly known as the DCF Kids Fund and relaunched in June 2017 with support from Massachusetts First Lady Lauren Baker, who serves as the Wonderfund’s vice chair. The Wonderfund has a vision to provide resources and opportunities above what state funding can do, for the more than 50,000 children engaged with DCF on any given day:
- Emergency and transitional items: Children placed in DCF care, some with no more than the clothes on their backs, are given a duffel bag that contains clean, seasonally appropriate clothing, new pajamas, toiletries, and an age-appropriate item of comfort such as a teddy bear.
- Enrichment opportunities: All children involved with DCF are eligible for funding from the Wonderfund to access enrichment activities like summer camp, arts & music lessons, sports, SAT preparation, or vocational training that can change the trajectory of their lives for the better.
About Armstrong Ambulance Service Inc.
Based in Arlington, Massachusetts, Armstrong Ambulance was founded in 1946, shortly after Bill Armstrong returned from his tour of duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. While living at home, he watched his mother, a registered nurse, care for friends and family when they were injured or sick, and was inspired to follow her example. When Bill drove a neighbor to the hospital for routine treatment and saw ambulances arriving with the sick and injured, he committed to making caring for people in need his career, and bought a Cadillac ambulance with a partner and went into business. Today Armstrong Ambulance employs more than 300 highly-trained emergency medical services professionals and serves more than 100,000 patients annually in Greater Boston.