first aid course

[staceyc]

i went on a first aid course today for children as part of my job.(childminder) the man who did the course was very good till he got to the diabetes bit . he said any child who is type 1 keep well away, as giving insulin can go so wrong. i put my hand up at this point and said well if a child is type 1 wont they need insuiln at meal times (not that i know a huge amount about children and type 1) the instructer seemed to have no idea on this and said its normaly just when they get up and at bedtime. i am normaly a timid person but he got my goat so i said back once you have training im pretty sure its not hard to help a child and when i took insulin i did 4 times a day. with meals . his reply i would still stay clear, and didnt really like it when i said that then it was discriminating about the child and no way would i turn a child away because they had diabetes

 

[Northerner]

Good for you Stacey! 🙂 What's wrong with a motivated childminder learning how to provide care for a child with diabetes? I'm sure that there are many parents who would welcome a well-informed person who could look after their child and be trusted 🙂 Strikes me his advice was just to look for the 'no-brainer' jobs! 🙄

 

[Twitchy]

Well done for sticking up for basic human kindness Stacey! 🙂 I'm the diabetic not my kids, but if we used a childminder I'd want one with your attitude, a caring person. 🙂 It must be incredibly hard finding good childcare for a kid with diabetes, especially if that's the message carers are given!

 

[HOBIE]

I have had t1 from the age of 3. I have two kids & no way would i let anybody who isnt trained to give injections of insulin, Even trained ones get it wrong sometimes ? Its NOT play time with kids. The instructer was right to make people very careful about taking on such a role !

 

[Tina63]

Hi Stacey

I too am a childminder. My son has diabetes, not me. I would say though from my limited experience with my own son, that I would feel far happier having a childminder trained one-to-one by a DSN (I asked my son's DSN what would happen if a parent wanted a T1 child to go to a childminder and she said she would go to their home and train them with the child and parent too) than I ever was whilst he was at school. Ok he was only diagnosed right at the end of his school years, but the lack of knowledge/information/interest from school teachers was alarming. At least us childminders get to know the children really well, and can spot when any child is just a little off colour, so actually with something as complex as diabetes I would as a parent rather my child go to a childminder than any larger institution at least for a start. I also agree that it's discrimination, and that's something we are not allowed to do!

I remember on our first aid course the trainer started talking about epi-pens and then got onto diabetes. He was going to talk about insulin pens and diabetes in general, but then had the common sense to ask first if anyone had any experience with a child with diabetes, and when I put my hand up he admitted he knew very little so maybe I could explain to the group about hypos. I was still very new to this at that point, my son had only been diagnosed a few weeks earlier, but I could at least explain properly what his hypo symptoms were and did point out that you should never inject someone with insulin if they were unconscious anyway. The last thing you want on these courses is people thinking if they find some pen device on someone they should automatically inject them, but that's the danger, especially when discussed in the same breath as Epi-pens. Completely different game.

This was a St John Ambulance major training centre, and these people actually go out on duty? They didn't seem to have too much knowledge at all. Quite scary really.

 

[Copepod]

From a first aid point of view the instructor is completely right to say not to give insulin in an emergency situation.

Of course, normal care from a child minder, after instruction by parent / DSN etc is very different.

 

[staceyc]

nothing was mentioned about what to do in a emergancy situation just if you were looking after a child with diabetes . i also told him that if you did look aftera child with diabetes then a nurse would come out beforehand and help train you .
he just did not have a clue on diabetes

 

[Caroline]

Well done for putting the idiot right. My big boy did first aid a while ago and was told he needed to treat any hypo with insulin which ALL diabetic carry with them. He put the bloke right and gave details of our firum to the course instructor sayin his mum had diabetes so he knew a little bit. He then also showed the bloke my balance magazine that I had read and contact details from there.

In general education about diabetes is bad, so anything that raises awareness and gets the facts across has to be an improvement.

 

[Chatterbox]

So what should you do then, please? ( A newbie to this)