How confident are you when leaving your child with allergies in someone else's care?

[LauraCoeliacMum]

Hi all,
I'm a parent of a 4-year-old child with coeliac disease and I'm trying to understand how other families manage food allergies and dietary requirements when children are in the care of schools, clubs, childcare providers, relatives and other caregivers.
One thing I've found myself wondering is how much confidence parents have that dietary information is actually reaching and being understood by the people directly responsible for their child, especially when there are staff changes, clubs, parties, trips, or other handovers involved.
I'm running a short anonymous survey (around 3 minutes) to better understand parents' experiences, concerns and any challenges they've encountered.
If anyone is willing to help, I'd be very grateful:
https://forms.gle/BHA7xQma9BMBbDPK9
I'd also be really interested to hear people's experiences in this thread.
Many thanks.

Just wanted to point out that question 2 in your survey only allows one answer, ie Epipen OR inhalers/antihistamines. My child carries all of them, not either/or.

As for groups our experiences weren’t great, but I think it very much depends on the actual people involved. For some clubs I sat outside to be available if anything went wrong. We were most disappointed with scouts, mainly because they ask you to fill out loads of medical info for each trip…and then they then promptly ignore it all.
I don’t think they even read the forms and I think the process lulls parents into a false sense of security. I’d much rather be told they couldn’t deal with allergies…the way it was set-up was an accident waiting to happen.
I’m in Ireland, perhaps it’s different elsewhere.

Hi OP, I'm a Coeliac. I'm slightly concerned that your thread title implies CD is an allergy. As I assume you know, it's actually an autoimmune condition where the body attacks and destroys itself. Many people assume an allergy means a few spots or other fairly minor symptoms, I think as a Coeliac it is important to be clear about the seriousness and nature of the condition.

As to your question, you need good people around you and it's not easy. My own daughter was diagnosed age 3, and was very good from an early age at checking, having been raised in a GF household. Make it your child's normal is my best advice. Good luck. 😊

Many people assume an allergy means a few spots or other fairly minor symptoms.

Do they?
That’s very worrying if so.
Allergic reactions can (thankfully rarely) kill, and very quickly.

All my children have allergies and it seriously impacts how they can live their lives. Please don’t brush allergies off as minor.

Thanks to all that have taken the time, really interesting seeing the findings so far.

Cheers for pointing that out on Q2, I've updated the survey so parents can select multiple. Your point about information being collected but not actually read or acted upon is seeming very common, and exactly the sort of gap I'm trying to understand better. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Yes, sorry if the tittle is unclear, the aim is to better understand all food related processes when our kids are out of home, and try and make it better.