Research by childcare charity Daycare Trust in the UK has found that young babysitters would feel better prepared if they were given compulsory first aid lessons at school.
It carried out a study among 1,413 parents, and 857 informal carers aged 15 and over which found one in 10 families had used a carer aged between 15 and 24 to look after their child in the last six months, and one in six 15 to 24 year-olds was providing informal childcare to relatives or friends, or was a paid babysitter to unrelated families.

The charity's research found that while half of 15 to 24-year-olds who provided informal childcare did so to enable parents to undertake leisure activities, one third did so in order to help parents work.
The research, part of Daycare Trust's Big Lottery-funded project, is the first report to examine the use and profile of babysitters in Britian and looked at the experiences of young babysitters, parent satisfaction, and child safety and welfare issues. Many so-called "near-miss" accounts were given of young babysitters experiencing incidents of children in their care climbing out of windows, falling off chairs or choking, with many young babysitters feeling inexperienced and unprepared.

The charity charity Daycare Trust calls for first aid training to be part of the National Curriculum for all secondary school students, along with other measures.
A handbook for babysitters and parents is available to download from the Irish Redcross website.

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