Since the start of the new school year is almost around the corner, it is time for most families to prepare not only backpacks and finish summer assignments, but also to make certain that their medical forms are up to date. For those of us with children who have food allergies, we must also make certain to have our emergency action plans in place and understood by all those who work with our kids including of course our children. Thankfully more communities and school districts are acknowledging the prevalence and seriousness of food allergies and are actively encouraging/reminding families to submit all the forms to their school nurse. FARE has also updated their Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Emergency Action Plan template: http://www.foodallergy.org/document.doc?id=234 which makes it so much easier to visually interpret the symptoms of anaphylaxis and appropriate action to take.
Another site which has created some easy to understand and use action plans is AllerMates. It is free to join their community and download the pdf forms that they provide on their website: The link is http://www.allermates.com/members.php?command=community2.
One resource to help announce nut-free zones and print out flyers for classrooms, cafeterias and your children's nurse's office is snacksafely.com:
http://snacksafely.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/NutFreeSchoolFlyers.pdf
Please check these sites out for yourself, share them and add any other websites that will help families with children who happen to food allergies start the school year on the right path. Thank you.
