A new safe allergy management programme has been piloted in diverse secondary schools in the UK. The free 7 step School Allergy Action Group (SAAG) toolkit involves senior management teams, cateres, teachers, school medical staff, governors, parents and teachers in the creation of a whole school allergy policy.
Due to the increase in school age children experiencing food allergies, schools now face a growing challenge in safeguarding their pupils. The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on schools to support children with medical conditions and this results in the need for everyone in schools to be aware of allergies and what to do if an allergic reaction occurs.
The 7 stage process involves schools looking at:
- Where are we now?
- Where do we want to be in relation to food allergies?
- Empowering collaboration
- How are we going to achieve our objectives?
- Drawing it all together and creating a policy
- The end product – embedding of SAAG
- Regular review and assessment of the impact on our school
The aim is that in spring 2018 the whole programme will be moved over to the Allergy UK website where resources can be downloaded and self managed and self assessed. In the meantime more information about the scheme including sound bites can be accessed on the Allergy UK website by clicking here.
