Teacher living with type 1 diabetes

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 13 months old. As a result, I feel as though I have been an educator since I was very young. Showing others my medical supplies and telling them what I knew about my diabetes. I remember being about 10 years old when I was in a meeting with my parents and school staff to show them my new insulin and other medicines and devices that I needed. We did not have any resources to support us, so we went to school with each medicine and demonstrated the use or effect of each. In this way, we could communicate my “care plan” to the school to the best of our ability.

The KIDS programmes provides comprehensive resources to support staff, parents, students with diabetes and other students to understand and discuss the condition. The “diabetes management plan” and lists of responsibility would have been a very useful resource to both staff and my family during the meeting mentioned above. It would have ensured that all information was conveyed correctly, kept on record while I was at school, and everyone would have known their responsibilities in looking after my diabetes (including me!).

Throughout teacher training we never received explicit instruction regarding diabetes and therefore many teachers only learn about the condition when a child with diabetes enters their class. KIDS educational resources allow teachers to educate themselves about type 1 and type 2 diabetes regardless of whether they have a student with the condition.

The programme also provides teachers with a range of child-friendly resources, such as comics and worksheets, to use when teaching about diabetes in the classroom. These can easily be incorporated with any healthy eating initiative run by a school, to explore the benefits of healthy eating for our bodies and lifestyle. They also explore some of the common misconceptions around diabetes and how diabetes can impact on the daily life of a person affected. KiDS allows all children to gain a greater awareness of diabetes and be more understanding towards others as a result.

The programme also provides a number of information leaflets and resources for both parents of a child living with diabetes and parents of children who do not have diabetes. If KIDS is adapted as part of a whole school approach, these resources can help to educate parents about diabetes. They can then discuss what the child is learning at home, further fostering the home-school link. These resources are also greatly helpful when you have a child with diabetes in your class, as the parents of other children need to be able to understand diabetes in order to include the child in activities outside of school.

Overall, I think that the KiDS programme is invaluable to both school staff and families in raising awareness about diabetes and supporting children living with the condition. It empowers children to be more open about their condition with their peers and gives both staff and parents comfort in knowing that the child will be appropriately supported during the school day. I look forward to seeing the programme implemented in as many schools as possible.