By Maria L. Acebal, Founder & Director,
Safe@School
Partners
Talk to any parent of a food-allergic child and they will tell you, little compares to the anxiety brought on by a new school year, new teachers, new classmates. We steel ourselves for that first meeting before the start of school, hoping intensely that the teacher will “get it.” Too often, however, we parents leave that meeting with a pit in our stomach and tremendous doubt about whether our kids will be safe at school. For teachers as well, the experience can be disconcerting at best and downright terrifying at worst: remember how you felt the first time you realized you might have to inject your child with epinephrine in order to save her life?
Now imagine this same first meeting at a “Food Allergy Smart”™ school:
You go in to meet with your child’s new teacher and she tells you she was trained before the start of school on how to
“CARE” for food-allergic students. So, she knows how to:
C
– Comprehend the basic food allergy medical facts;
A
– Avoid the allergen;
R
– Recognize a reaction;
E
– Enact life-saving emergency plan.
Moreover, the school has implemented a written food allergy policy that details the responsibilities of all stakeholders in creating a safer environment for food allergic students -- from the administrators, to the teachers, nurse, cafeteria staff, playground monitors, bus drivers, substitutes, field trip chaperones to the parents and students themselves. In fact, she adds, one of the responsibilities of parents is to submit a one-page “Food Allergy Action Plan” (FAAP*) documenting a student’s allergies and detailing the symptoms and corresponding treatment(s) prescribed by the child’s doctor. You breathe a sigh of relief and leave the meeting feeling confident that your child’s food allergies will be very well managed.
Helping a school become “Food Allergy Smart”™ takes time. Think of it as your “long-term plan.” Once you’ve taken care of your child’s immediate safety needs (including putting in place an Individual Healthcare Plan (IHP) or 504 Plan*), we encourage you to engage your school in some broader, school-wide policy discussions. Introduce administrators and the school nurse to the three “Food Allergy Smart”™ criteria: (1) “CARE” training for all teachers and staff who supervise food-allergic kids; (2) a written school-wide food allergy policy; and (3) a FAAP for every food-allergic student. With these three simple steps in place, parents and schools won’t have to “reinvent the wheel” year after year. Now that’s a smart take on Back to School!
*For more information on FAAPs, IHPs, or 504 Plans, visit
www.foodallergysmart.org or send an email to
info@foodallergysmart.org
