Getting Started
First I spoke to his school and teachers, drew up menu suggestions with
the help of the schools nurse and wrote my own recipe booklet to help
parent volunteers who wanted to bake their own egg-free food. I also
provided lists of egg-free foods for our local supermarkets using the
free-from lists supplied by the supermarkets. Many of those who
volunteered used the guidelines for shopping and cooking in my Allergy Buddies booklet.
We decided that one table in the classroom would be allocated to
the Allergy Buddies group. The schools nurse came and gave the
class a special talk to show how allergens (and germs) can stay on
your hands even if you can’t see them. All the pupils in class
wash their hands before and after lunch to minimise the risk of
accidental exposure from contact at playtime.
Allergy Buddy lunchboxes cannot be 100% safe, oversights will happen,
but I know for sure that no full-on egg products will appear in those
boxes: no eggs, egg sandwiches or mayonnaise for example. This means
that my son has a buffer zone of reasonable security while he learns
not to pick up food someone else has dropped or pass something across
the table because one of the others asks him to – and all
the little hazards that make communal eating dangerous for young
allergic children.
As my son moves up the school I expect to cut down the number of
buddies gradually. At some point he will be old enough to manage his
allergy whilst surrounded by other pupils eating eggy foods. The aim
for me of Allergy Buddies is to get him to that point safely.
I see the issues easing year by year. The hardest time for allergy
parents and staff has to be in the pre-school and early school years
where little children’s awareness and capability for looking after
themselves is still developing. Not only does your allergic child have
to be aware, the teachers and pupils around them need to be too. For
those children, like my son, where contact exposure is dangerous,
communal eating is hard. Allergy Buddies is one solution that
concentrates on inclusion and building positive allergy awareness. It
works for us and I hope it’ll work for you too.
Do please post your own comments or success stories on the message board. That way we can all benefit.
Guidelines for starting an Allergy Buddy scheme in your school:
- Discuss the option with the class teacher, head teacher and schools nurse.
- Ask
the class teacher to write a letter to all parents in your child’s year
describing the scheme and asking for volunteers. It is important that
parents or pupils not feel pressured into joining the scheme.
- Produce
a comprehensive list, with the help of the schools nurse, of what is
safe for Allergy Buddies to bring in their lunchboxes.
- Arrange
for Allergy Buddies to sit on one table all together. Try and have a
few more Buddies than places so that they can swap out to sit with
other friends if they’d like to.
- Label Allergy Buddy
lunchboxes in some way to make them easily distinguishable from other
lunchboxes with the same design (we used stickers).
- THANK all those involved profusely and frequently! They are doing something exceptional for your child.
Stickers
 I commissioned Kidsaware to make some lunchbox stickers and tags for us so now you can use them too. To order visit www.kidsaware.co.uk or tel: 0870 2202452 for a catalogue
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