About Me

Firstly, this post has NOTHING to do with me!

Honest!!

As our regular readers know, the main testers/tasters for the Recipe Resource have quite a few health issues as well as allergies and it can be a bit confusing for those caring for them - e.g. teachers in school.

Obviously like anyone else we have completed the medical sheets for school, and written a long page detailing diagnoses, medication etc but what staff *really* need is a quick, "go-to" sheet, preferably with a photo of the child concerned with a sentence to introduce them, then approximately ten points in the child's words to describe how their condition affects them.
This is especially valuable if there are new or supply teachers and avoids bombarding them with unnecessary medical information.

Here is a rough idea which I made using online software called Picmonkey, Preview (I have a Mac) and Pages. You can click on it to see an enlarged version. 

I've taken out most of the personal details but you get the idea!

Create your own "About Me" Template.

I have made a template for you to download as a document, which you can edit yourself.
You can then either stick a photo of your child on, or add one digitally.

The top right section is meant to be really brief, from the parent. So I wrote that my daughter often "experiences pain and discomfort due to her medical issues. Sometimes she will share this with you, other times she hides the fact that she hurts, or tries to ignore it but this can make her cross." A sore, tired child might behave badly, but should obviously be treated slightly differently to a child exhibiting difficult behaviour for another reason.

Make sure the main points are in your child's "voice". No diagnoses, long words or complicated instructions. Imagine your child hurting for example, with a sore tummy. This was a key point for us so it was #2. I wrote "If my tummy is hurting please go through my pain chart with me. I might need my heat pad or Calpol from the office." It is incredibly helpful to direct the person caring for your child, in a primary school in particular there may be many children with similar symptoms, most of whom won't need this level of response. Teachers are often bombarded with requests actually requiring reassurance, not intervention (I know, I've been there!) and on a busy day, in a busy classroom your child might easily - and unintentionally get fobbed off otherwise.

Digital Editing
 I saved it as a .jpg file as there are many editing tools (such as picmonkey) which enable you to layer something on top. Even Preview on my Mac makes this possible so it's not too hard once you start playing! (Preview is excellent for the "Smart Lasso" which is how I managed to put my children's photo's on top.)

The template can have the new About me .jpg file added on top and then you can print the complete document with a digitally edited photo of your child. (I spent much of last night attempting to create an editable .PDF file to no avail, so unless someone wants to tell me how this is been the best I can manage.)

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