I was thrilled to read this news story about how food allergy legislation recently passed in the Illinois House of Representatives. Now the bill goes onto the state senate.
The bill will advocate that all schools need a food allergy action to follow for food allergy emergencies. Even though parents still would have a hand in their child's own food allergy action plan, there would be no need, if this bill passes the Senate, for Illinois parents to be trailblazers on policy simply because they want to send their food-allergic child to school.
I've had to be a "trailblazer" at school and luckily I've had good results for my efforts, but how wonderful if other parents would know that food allergies and action plans were already on the school's radar screen as a matter of course. That's a whole lot more than many of us have had up until now.
For info about who your state reps are, click this link and scroll down. You'll be able to find your district and reps.
Sample letters to send to reps and state senators can be found at FAAN's
"Advocacy" portion of their web site.
And if you're not an Illinois resident, how about proposing a plan like this to your reps?
3 comments:
thank you Jenny!!! What a great news for us Illinois residents!
isn't this great?? great post jenny!
We have "guidelines" for managing food allergies at schools in Massachusetts. Our allergist helped develop them and says we are fortunate to be in Massachusetts as opposed to other locations. Problem is, it's not a law so it's hard to force schools to follow the guidelines. Hope you guys get something enforce-able!
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