Developed by two paediatric intensive care nurses, Charlotte Young and Theresa Wong, & Breathe is an immersive first aid training service for parents and caregivers. In just a few hours, they will help you build life-saving knowledge and expertise to calmly navigate any type of emergency. They understand that parenting is all about jumping into the unknown and that although you can’t wrap your kids in bubble wrap, you can arm yourself with the skills to handle any stressful situation. Because when a little life is at stake – what you do matters. Here Charlotte talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about what inspired them to to start & Breathe, the challenges they have overcome, the pros and cons of running their own business, and their hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
After chatting to other mums at playgroup with my own daughter, I learnt about the stress many parents have around emergency situations – especially when it comes to febrile seizures, choking, knowing when to call an ambulance and CPR.
I went to find baby and child first aid courses for my group, but most were large groups. As a pediatric nurse who has taught student and junior nurses how to manage emergencies, I knew the best way to learn vital skills like CPR and choking first aid was with close guidance from educators in a small group.
This made me worried families felt they knew how to do CPR and first aid without having learnt correct and effective techniques. When it comes to adults, you can get away with compression only CPR, but with kids, it’s the combination of effective breaths and compressions that truly makes a difference in their outcomes. And unfortunately, in the paediatric ICU, we were seeing the results of poor health education often. I didn’t want one of those little ones to be the baby of a friend.
As a mum myself, I also experience the worry of keeping little ones safe and healthy. But as an experienced paediatric ICU nurse, I know how important it is for families to learn life-saving skills.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
Once I had the idea, the first thing I did was join forces with Teresa, the other half of & Breathe. She is not only an extremely experienced paediatric ICU nurse, but also has a strong background in education. She is currently a clinic nursing educator at the University of Auckland as well as in the paediatric ICU.
For us, it was important that parents didn’t just learn the right information, but also remembered key information when the minutes count. Bringing Teresa onboard was a really key part of this.
We then created the courses over several months and did trials with many families. We adjusted the course each time till we were happy families were learning the information they needed in a way that was both engaging, enjoyable and easy to remember.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
I don’t feel we have had any breakthroughs yet. We are continuously adjusting our courses to make sure they are accessible for families. We have gone from three longer sessions to one shorter Life Saving Essentials Course and two longer specialised courses, plus included online learning into the mix. In February, we are launching our comprehensive baby and child first aid course online as a self-paced course, which we hope will help make it easier for families outside of Auckland to access vital first aid information.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
This has probably been the biggest challenge. A few months after we launched the courses, I fell pregnant with my second. I was quite sick at the start, which made it really hard to keep up with all our demands. Most of the time I was working when I could, working around family and shifts in the paediatric ICU.
Teresa also has a demanding schedule in the pediatric ICU. She is a clinical educator for junior nurses as well as a ECMO specialist nurse (basically, she runs the heart lung machines that keep the sickest of kids alive).
We believe good communication is vital for keeping things running smoothly. It’s a bit of give and take and delegating tasks when needed.
