Key Takeaways for the Management of School Aged Children with Diabetes

Amy Hess-Fischl, MS, RD, LDN, BC-ADM, CDCES: What are the take home messages for school staff regarding children with diabetes? First, make sure that they understand that they do not need to know everything about diabetes. They need to know how to safely manage the child that's in their classroom that has diabetes and the individualization that goes with every child with diabetes. One other thing that we have to understand is that children are children, and again, there is no such thing as perfection. So again, making sure that there's a dialogue between the school nurse and the family members because frequent medication changes are needed in growing children; we want to make sure that this is a team effort. The teachers themselves are the ones that are with these children the most. If they're seeing any particular idiosyncrasies that don't seem to fly very well in the classroom, again, it's highly likely that that child is going to need some frequent adjustments with their health care provider. Also, the school staff should rest assured that emergency situations are rare. Knowing how to use some of the newer glucagon methods is going to help them feel confident in the event that something happens in their classroom. The whole thing is about safety and about letting the school staff do their jobs, teach children, and allow them to make the most of the time that they have within the school setting.

Transcript edited for clarity