Today, in the Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada, we are loving all over our ever most fabulous and wonderful school nurses!! It’s Washoe County School District! Stop for a brief moment and shoot an email, drop a line or drop by with a small token of your appreciation for your school nurse. In our food allergic and asthmatic world, our school nurse can be our biggest advocate and in many instances, she is the one who instructs teachers on managing food allergies.
I am feeling the love today for our school nurses. This has been a big year in our school district as we released our pioneering policy (first in our State), “Management-of-Students-with-Food-Anaphylaxis- not even two months ago! We have a lot to celebrate. Our nurses are highly educated and many hold master degrees in addition to being very proactive and supportive in managing food allergies. I’ve watched these nurses literally pull out their hair when teacher fails to follow protocol and endangers a child–they take it personal.
To make our School Nurse Appreciation breakfast (held today) extra fun, my group, the No. Nevada Asthma and Food Allergy Parent Education Group (AAPE), will host a raffle of interesting items for the nurses. Each nurse receives a ticket and we have a blast pulling numbers. This year, we’re raffling off purses, baking sets, gorgeous organic bamboo Trust Your Journey Shirts, cook books and two brand spanking new Epi Pen® or inhaler holders from School Health. All year long, I collect these items from friends, family and group members. Our motto, “if you receive a gift that would be lovely in someone else’s house, please pass it on over!”
Our school nurses have watched the prevalence of food allergies grow over the last few years. As a result, more and more nurses are holding workshops for all teaching staff and administrators in the management of food allergies and are consistently requesting materials, videos, etc. In response to their need, the Alliance with Washoe County Medical Society (AWCMS) granted AAPE generous funds to launch the first food allergy educational library in Nevada! We received 50 of The Trust Your Journey Shirts, and 10 of the Food Allergy Activities Kit for grades 4-8 and 64 Food Allergy Awareness posters. WOW.
Today, we will share one kit with each school nurse (for them share between three of their schools) and will then announce to private schools that we have kits for them too!! We just received our shipment and we happily assembled the CD’s handouts and booklets that are included in the kits.
Thank you AWCMS for creating helping create our food allergy library and helping us kick off our new food anaphylaxis policy!! You ladies are simply the best!!!
It is a great day indeed and thank you School Nurses everywhere for being our voice and supporting protocol to keep our children safe at school so that they may focus on education!
One of the hardest things I find about managing both life threatening food allergies and asthma is talking to others. I hate to be the one that might be perceived as demanding, pushing or for asking too much. What I now know, fourteen years later, is that honest, clear information presented with kindness works!..
[…] newspaper, The Reno Gazette Journal, about seasonal allergies. I was enjoying my morning at our School Nurse Appreciation Breakfast (it was a wonderful event…I will post a blog about it later) when a nurse mentioned the […]