Type 1 diabetes will no longer be a hurdle in a child’s school experience

With 11,000 school-aged children living with Type 1 diabetes, a new national program has been launched to better train teachers about how to support children and their parents.

Bella shares her type 1 diabetes experience Source: SBS

Part of the training will involve learning how to administer insulin and monitor glucose levels.

Diabetes Australia says -

• 25% of parents said they had to visit school at least once a week to administer insulin
• 53% of parents believe diabetes impacted their child's ability to fully participate at school
• 49% of parents said they believed staff would benefit from more education and training.

Diabetes Australia CEO Professor Greg Johnson says he hopes the program will make Bella's experience the norm with the rollout of a new national education program in all schools.

“It'll be not only a web-based element that gives great new information to any parent, a family, to schools, principals, school staff, but also - and really importantly - the new thing here is providing individualised, face-to-face support and training by health professionals and others in the school."

The program is expected to be fully rolled out to all primary and secondary schools by June.

Listen to SBS Punjabi Monday to Friday at 9 pm. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.