Imagine being in elementary school and having to check your glucose, take insulin before meals or snacks, and think about how many carbohydrates are in your lunch, all while you are learning to read, how to tie your shoes and how to make friends at recess. There can be frustration, feeling different or even sad that other children get to be spontaneous while you need to plan.
Kids often encounter misunderstanding and stigma from their classmates as well.
It can be difficult for an adult to constantly balance insulin, diet and activity, let alone a young child, who may not recognize dangerously high or low blood sugar symptoms or be capable of calculating insulin dosages yet.
When a child has type 1 diabetes, there’s an invisible medical calculation running in the background of their childhood, every day, all day. Whether that job feels manageable or overwhelming depends enormously on how well the adults around the child understand diabetes and how reliably they can support them.
Currently in Saskatchewan, if a child with diabetes needs support at school, they may not automatically get it. Take the heartbreaking case of Kinsley Simmons who lives in southern Saskatchewan. The now eight-year-old was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes late last year and needed help managing her condition at school.
According to her family, the school said it could not safely accommodate Kinsley in the classroom because there were not enough trained staff. That meant she couldn’t go to school for months, even though she desperately wanted to return to her classroom, her friends and her routine.
Kinsley is happily attending a new school this year, supported and thriving; it shouldn’t take such drastic steps for parents to know their kids are safe at school.
Kinsley’s mom Jennifer and other parents are advocating for provincially mandated standards of care in Saskatchewan schools, so more families don’t have to choose between their child’s health and their child’s education.
A provincial standard is a straightforward tool: it gives schools a roadmap for care and gives families a clear understanding of what support they can expect – and it’s something that is already in place in parts of the country.
Without this standard in place, schools need to create a new plan each time a student with diabetes is identified within the system, another pressure on a busy school systems.
Unfortunately, Saskatchewan is not alone in failing to consistently support kids with diabetes at school. Elsewhere across the country, and often even between schools in the same region, diabetes support is offered through a patchwork of services and capabilities that can range from good to unreliable to non-existent. But there are simple, implementable solutions that are readily available. Without them, kids can miss out on their education or families have to sacrifice one parent’s career to make things work.
Across the country, there are some good examples to follow:
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia have mandated standards at school for students with diabetes. With these standards in place, students with diabetes have care plans, daily supports and clear emergency protocols. It also means that school personnel are educated on diabetes management and that schools have designated spaces to monitor glucose and administer insulin.
A mandated standard of care is a resource that provides a clear path to positive action for children living with diabetes and their families who are already facing many obstacles.
One of these barriers is the recent closure of the pediatric endocrinology clinic in Regina. The closure of this hub for information and testing means that some families will have to travel up to two and a half hours farther to Saskatoon to access care and support required to manage type 1 diabetes.
To take pressure off overburdened families and communities, Diabetes Canada is calling for a clear transition plan for patients of the clinic and is urging the Government of Saskatchewan to mandate a province-wide standard of care in schools for students with type 1 diabetes.
There is clear value in a mandated standard of care: schools know what is expected of them and families can understand what they can expect from school to create a successful individual care plan. It provides a measure of comfort, reassurance and protocol to educators who are already managing heavy workloads and to young people adjusting to managing life with a complex condition.
A mandated standard of care ensures children with diabetes can learn safely, participate fully and be treated with dignity at school.
Photo courtesy of Andrew Scheer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
