Pull ups

[Lucie]

Hi everyone, I have been discussing a child who will come to reception in September with the pre school. This child has special needs and the nursery senco has been trying to get a statutory assessment, this is still in process and I will be picking this up as the school senco in September. I attended a review meeting a couple of weeks ago and the health visitor said that over the summer they are going to work on him not being in pull ups. When he came for visits I changed him as necessary- only wet. Key worker said that mum has told her that if he has nothing on he asks to have a pull up when he needs to wee. Mum and dad are Russian and scared of causing problems by us having to change him.

I'm a little concerned because when I spoke to my had about this to find out the policy if I do have to change a soiled pull up she said that we would probably have to call parents. This didn't sit right with me because it would mean him having to keep his pull up on for as long as it took mum or dad to get there, surely this is not right!!!

Another child is starting and we had to change him because of an accident on the visit day. Dad suggested he is just lazy. Key worker has written in his transition notes that he is working within 22-36 months and shows no sign of bowel or bladder control.

Now, we have and always will change soiled clothing when a child has had an accident so I want to know what the difference is with the pull up because I don't see one. Also, surely as all staff are CRB'd it shouldn't take twos people to change should it? Surely if we've had a discussion with staff and parents regarding a care plan for these two and all is agreed then here shouldn't be a problem. I don't get it and I'm feeling frustrated about what is already a challenging class in September being made more difficult. Are there any laws or anything anyone can point me in the direction of- does the equality act cover this?

 

Lucie

[Rea]

I'm going to get all this mixed up, but others will be along to get it right!

I'd say its the Anti Discriminatory Practice Act, plus Disability Discrimination Act. I'd also say the schools policies on equal ops, child protection and H&S would come into play.

I would also prefer nappies to pull ups, far easier to change if they're soiled in my opinion.

This has been discussed in the past, I'm a bit short for time this morning but if you do a forum search you should come up with the various opinions from others on here.

Quite frankly I personally think, if schools are taking children in nappies, of whatever age, they should be prepared to treat that child fairly and give them the care and attention any other child would receive.

[Madmum]

You can't ring parents as that would breach Disability Discrimination. You need ideally to put an Intimate care Policy in place to cover staff and spell out the expectations. We also do a signed permission and a risk assessment if we change them regularly. last year we had 2 go to school still in pull ups. School were not happy but had not been concerned about me changing them in Nursery! We do it as 1:1 thing - we don;t have staffing levels to have 2 staff. I always make sure someone knows what I'm doing and I'm never in a locked space to cover myself and the child. Some TAs felt it wasn't their job but closer investigation found all our TA job descriptions covered it!

I find pull ups as easy to change as a nappy - the sides rip to make it easy!

[Guest]

has your LEA got any continence guidance . I say this from a personal point of view my granddaughter had toileting issues and they brought in the school nurse and all the paper work and practice they used was from LEA documentation. This included not bringing mum in to change her which had been an issue with the school could be worth a try.

[finleysmaid]

found this on the net ...might be useful.

 

 

http://www.woolgrove.herts.sch.uk/information/policies/changingnappies.pdf

[Madmum]

That's excellent! Very clear - saves reinventing the wheel!

[Guest]

I've had a child in my school nursery class this year who needed changing almost every session, sometimes twice (usually for constipation related overflow and/or solid poo). Mum and I agreed that he wouldn't wear pull ups as I think they simply make it harder for a child to know when they are wet/soiled etc. However the real issue was that the child didn't/couldn't//wouldn't tell an adult when they needed to go, so I don't think pull ups would have made things any worse to be honest.

I pointed the mum in the direction of the ERIC website as she also has an older child in school who she was coming in to change every day. I told her she could and should refuse to do this as it was illegal for school to insist that she did so. Neither child has any identified medical condition other than constipation. My school also has a policy that two adults need to be present when a child is being changed. I argued that this wasn't necessary (and I didn't follow this, it was impossible with 23 kids and two adults with freeflow going on) but now I am no longer working there my suspicion is that they'll just carry on with that.

I also suggested to mum that she contact the local chilren's centre to find out what support was available. I got nowhere in my efforts to enlist the help of the school nurse as the SENCO simply insisted that mum should take children to GP and continue to come in and change older child, as school think this isn't part of a teacher's or TA's job :-( . They'd have had her coming in to change the child in my class too but I refused, saying it was our job to meet the child's needs.

Anyway, this is the website.

http://www.eric.org.uk/