ALLERGIES, ASTHMA AND HEALTH CARE PLANS.
The most basic guidance is to check your insurance if you are a privately
run setting. Below are a few of my top tips to produce a working, individual
health care plan.
1) Get a prescribing doctor or pediatrics allergy clinic to give you advice
regarding emergency treatment plan and prescribed medication. For some parents this is the GP, or a local
consultant, but ideally this should come from the allergy clinic/
immunologist. However most allergy
clinics are run part time and Parents may be referred to different medical
experts depending on the condition, for example many children with food
allergies have asthma, and rely on their asthma doctor for food allergy advice.
It is important to get a written emergency plan from the treating doctor to act
as a starting point for the individual health care plan.
2) Get a holistic picture of the child's allergies, so that you can gain a
clearer picture of their health needs. Children with food allergies often have
other chronic conditions such as asthma, eczema, and environmental allergies.
These conditions all play their role in allergic reactions, and have an impact
on education and general health of child.
For instance eczema, asthma and rhinitis disturb sleep patterns, and can
lead to poor concentration, infection and greater time off school with
illness. Environmental allergies may be
more problematic at certain times of year allergies such as tree pollen hay
fever or mold allergy and again the all year round allergies such as dust mite,
and animal dander have an impact on this child's health and education. It may
be worth questioning how you can make simple adaptions to the environment of
setting to make this child more comfortable.
3) Medication changes: During the hay fever/tree pollen season a child may
be on greater levels of antihistamine, nasal sprays and eye drops, and
medication again has an impact on concentration ability due to side effects, or
the eye, nose, throat, skin and rise in asthma irritation during this time of
year.
4) Buy a trainer auto injector for your setting. Practice using it every
term as a refresher. Re-visit descriptions of an allergic reaction and if you
have time, practice a scenario that may happen in your setting should an
accidental ingestion (or new allergy) is discovered.
5) Parental duties: teaching child not to share food. To update on any new
allergy or medical condition the child may have. To be open to communication
from staff queries that you may have, and vice versa so that you are forming a
working plan around the child. If a
child has a long list of food allergies parents tend to teach child to not
accept food from adults other than them and ask if parents have read label to
see if it’s safe. If that is the case, staff should ensure they do likewise and
check with parents.
6) Be aware that parents may have seen their child have a very severe
reaction to food and may have high levels of stress. They are forming an
assessment on you as a teacher / EY practitioner, they want you to understand
the serious of the condition, keep their child safe, provide an inclusive
school experience, and be capable of reacting and using the agreed emergency
plan.
7) Remember that the important social skills learnt in the early years, to
make secure friendships, to be confidant and to trust others are highly
important for these children. Those skills will ensure that they grow up to
become confident people with regard to their allergies. We cannot assume that
each child will outgrow their allergies, many become lifelong allergic people
and they need to be taught the skills needed to keep themselves safe.
