The start of a new school year can be an exciting time for you and your child. Purchasing colorful new folders, bright notebooks and new pencils can be a fun time for your child. But if your child has diabetes, school supplies aren’t the only thing he or she will need for a successful school.
It’s also important to work with your child’s diabetes care team to create a personalized diabetes medical management plan (DMMP).
A DMMP is a state-required, written plan that you develop with your child’s diabetes care team to help control his or her diabetes while at school or during extracurricular activities. Because no two children manage their diabetes in the same way, it’s important to tailor this plan to your child’s particular needs.
The DMMP is based on your child’s physician’s orders and should include information about your child’s:
- Self-care abilities
- Routine blood glucose monitoring schedule
- Blood glucose goals and responses when glucose levels spike or drop
- Daily treatments such as what medications to take and when to take them
- Daily meal plan, including what and when to eat
- Method for disposal of syringes, lancets and glucose monitoring strips
- Emergency contacts, as well as contact information
If your child has diabetes, everyone who cares for him or her should know about the DMMP. These caregivers can include school nurses, teachers, bus drivers and administrators; daycare workers; and camp workers. Sharing this plan helps your child, and his or her caregivers, manage diabetes.
It’s very important that you update and share your child’s DMMP with his or her caregivers each year.
Some schools, daycare centers and other care facilities prefer that you use their DMMP forms, and that’s OK. It’s the content – not the format – that matters. In the event you need to create your own, you can use a template from The American Diabetes Association®.