To be fuming with DD's Guide leader?

[Classroomblues]

I am absolutely fuming right now. Dd2 has just got back from a camping holiday with her Guide group. She didn't look particularly great when I picked her up and it turns out she's been unwell with food poisoning and they didn't call me. What's upset me even more is it was caused by incredibly poor hygiene measures.
The cooked chicken yesterday. Dd2 apparently told the leader she isn't allowed to touch raw chicken at home and the leader said "well you're not at home now".

The hand washing was a BOWL of soapy water. Not even any actual soap or running water. Surely anyone knows this is not good hygiene?
Dd said their camp was so far from the toilet block that she had to crouch outside her tent in the middle of the night with an upset stomach etc. :(
She asked the leaders if they would call me this morning and they refused as we were collecting them this evening anyway. AIBU to be upset/ angry? I don't know if I'm more upset or angry right now.

The DD had said she wasn't allowed to do it at home but that was brushed off....you can't really assume anything with other peoples 10year olds.

"I'm not allowed to use knives at home" would suggest to me unless I supervised the child very carefully they'd probably cut themselves, or stab someone.

But hey, the OPs DD had had a learning experience and now knows how not to handle raw chicken.

Lurkedforever1 et al

I have epic risk assessments. Recent trip covered drowning, falling under a bus, being caught on train doors, death of a leader, bed wetting, storms, massive allergic reactions from the 3 different epic pen holders (not including one I discovered during the trip used an epic pen-fun conversation with mum afterwards!) and fire.

My mate who's the RA laughs at me for working out life stresses in them.

epic-pen sounds loads more fun!

YOU don't like touching raw chicken?! Not many people 'enjoy' it but surely, surely like most of us you get over the things you dislike for the sake of your children and not passing your illogical hang ups onto them.

This attitude makes me SO cross, there's no need at all for your child to not be touching raw chicken, teach her how to adequately wash her hands, oversee if necessary but avoiding it and making it into an issue is utterly ridiculous.

Children learn by feeding off the reactions of their parents, every expression of fear at a spider or flinch at a snake, comments of concern about the dentist can lead to fears and phobias in children. Making such a fuss about raw chicken is positively asking for trouble.

I totally agree that the hand washing set up was completely inadequate, but doubt it was food poisoning unless the other girls were also ill- food poisoning from raw chicken would be a lot more serious than what you're describing.

YABU.

the whole point of guide camps is to teach independence.

Yes indeed - I'd chance guide camp chicken over wedding buffet rice salad, every time.

So long as it's cooked right through, juices clear, not kept hanging around - you should be quite safe with chicken. If the chicken is to blame for OP's dd being poorly, it's almost certainly (as OP suspects, to be fair) down to picking up germs when handling it raw & then transferring them to her mouth via her hands.

The thing I'd be querying would still be the handwashing - I'd probably pack a tube of antibac for dd next time, & impress on her the need for a good scrub of hands, not a quick swish through the bowl, after touching raw meat.

Yes, this whole situation is clearly the guide camp's fault for not shrink-wrapping the girls before letting them near foodstuffs, and nothing at all to do with the OP's refusal to teach her DD how to handle raw meat safely.

ps. feel free to volunteer to be the guide leader if you don't like the way she does things.

I used to do outside catering - if we were in a marquee in the middle of nowhere our hand wash was a bowl of water, emptied after a few handwashes. We would wash up in two bowls (one soapy, one rinse). Toilets did have handwash but we weren't supposed to use them for general hand washing whilst doing food prep.
To be fair most of the food was precooked, plated etc but I always thought it was a bit dodgy...but apparently it was considered acceptable by environmental health (this is 25yrs ago).
I've had 'real' salmonella (not related to above) and from what you have said
I doubt your DD has it - I was uncontrollably crapping water (orange after Lucozade, green after Ribena) for over a week within 1hr of drinking (i didn't eat). I also crapped blood. And I am pretty sure it takes at least 12 hrs after infection - usually over 24hr before the symptoms start....
It would be more likely to be Campylobacter but iirc it takes even longer for onset - minimum 48hrs.
I suspect it is over tiredness or a virus - in the latter maybe other children should have been protected but then if they are sleeping together in a tent they probably all have it any way...
By all means ask the guide leaders for their side of the story (after they have had time to catch up with their sleep) but don't go in guns blazing.

Yy fastday dd loves the feel of raw meat, I'm not fussed either way. And I've left her handling it unsupervised since rainbows age, nevermind guides age.
Suprised she's managed to avoid food poisoning given its infection rate is now on a par with the Black Death and her biohazard suit had to be incinerated after a pork chop touched it. Oh wait, that's right, I taught her to wash her hands.

Well i read this as a dirty bowl of soapy water shared between everyone, also used for doing dishes so probably not the greatest for washing hands after touching raw chicken.

Also - a young girl with d&v in the middle of the night unable to get to the loo and feeling poorly and wanting her mum the next morning, i think they should have called the OP.

why would it also be used for washing up? It'd be stone cold by then.

The guidelines for camps say "Try to avoid high-risk (pre-cooked high protein) foods."

So the poster who said the camp her DC went on that used pre cooked chicken, actually had a higher risk.

members.scouts.org.uk/factsheets/FS320004.pdf

Guide leader here- got back from a weeks camp last Saturday, just about caught up on sleep!
Toilets at camp - sometimes we camp where there are no "proper" toilets and shock horror we have porta potty type chemi loos, we provide hand washing bowls and anti bac soap. If there are flushing loos on site (bonus!) but they are a long way from our pitch, we have a chemi loo near by for "night time" use - hopefully the loos are near enough not to need it as although old fashioned guiders/ scouters seem to like them, no one else does! Normally the only person who uses the night time loo is me- at a "certain age" I need to go!

And I would always hear a child get up in the night - it's like you can hear your baby turn over at night- the zip on the tent going, the "stealthy" creeping about, wakes the leaders every time.
We have had girls be ill at camp, over the last 12 years I have been camping with guides. There is a procedure we follow - girls with upset tums go home, nothing like a sleeping bag covered in sick at 3am to cast a damper on the party! The time that happened the mum was not surprised, apparently the girl was often sick when away fr home.
Shame she forgot to tell us.
This last week a girl fainted, bad stomache ache, a hot water bottle, a sleep and a (parent approved) tablet did the job: period pains. Another girl also had tummy ache- this didn't improve so after a chat with mum, she went home and is now bring seen by her doctor. We always speak to the parents if a girl is poorly, why wouldn't we? Obviously, we wouldn't phone at 3am unless it was pretty drastic, and if it was the day they were going home might not as the parents would soon be arriving anyway.
Cooking chicken and food hygiene - we had 23 girls and 5 leaders at camp, 4 were vegetarians - some of the others won't eat quorn/ veggie food. Yes, we ate chicken - curry and fajitas. We cooked it thoroughly (prob over done) and girls washed their hands using ant bac soap. No one was ill. We talked about keeping raw meat seperate and have a seperate chopping board. Life is a learning curve, if you never do it, you never learn.
Finally, girls being tired. To those who think that is the leades fault, hahahaha! It's not me who sends my daughter to camp with a years supply of sweets, and any one who thinks they can get a tent if 8 teenagers to sleep before midnight on the first night of camp well, please tell me how, without using sleeping pills!

Oh and no we don't use hand washing water for pot washing!
And we do lots of risk assessments.

And we do phone parents if girls are ill. Arghhh remind me why I do this???

There is no way a pile of poo out the back of a tent would have been missed on one of our camps. I check around the tents every morning and we do a sweep of the site on the last day. My concern would be more about it not being noticed if it did happen the way it has been described to you. We also say they have to wake someone else if they get up in the night and to wake us (usually me) if they feel unwell at all. Most guiders don't actually sleep that well at camp because we're listening out for the sound of zips and wellies! I'm confident this wouldn't have got past me. Did you see the site?When we've camped on large sites where it is a little way to the toilets we take a toilet tent for night time use. That said, I get girls collected at the first sign of D&V unless it's something we know happens regularly - can't risk that running through 24 girls.

Hope your daughter is feeling better.

Massive cross post with Averylongtimeago :-)

My DS butchered, cooked and ate a rabbit at his last scout camp..........hope nobody tells the OP!

Yup. YABU to be fuming.
You are being ridiculous re the touching chicken.
The other things, you could calm down, and, in a few days, calmly ask the Leaders about them, and make a considered judgement at that time if you think there were issues or not.

Did your dd wake the leaders up when she was ill during the night or did she just ask in the morning to go home? Where they aware of how I'll she had been?

I had a very unpleasant experience with a parent who emailed me calling me a liar. He sees to forget that I was not the first aided and therefore was horrible. The leader in charge of the holiday called him to speak to him and it was resolved with the other side of the story being told!

But it's put me off offering anything like it again. Why should I give up my time to be called a liar?

I really don't get how the leaders did not notice your child was so ill she could not make it to the toilet.
As others have said and as a guider for over 10 years I would have not sent her home in the middle of the night but would have moved her in to a first aid tent. As it is not nice being ill in front of friends and incase it is an infection to limit it! Then seen how she was in the morning. Food positioning is horrible, there is no way I would be wanting to try and take down camp and look after anyone with food positioning, if she was needing to be sitting holding a bucket I would phone parents first thing in the morning.
I would phone the GIC asap just so she can get the word out to parents to keep and eye on their girls. Don't want everyone to be ill.

I don't know why people volunteer anymore to look after other people's children.

A primary reason for going away on camp is to learn independence. The guilders are not nannys.

Toilet blocks were, in my experience, quite a walk away so that is normal- like camp sites.

At dd's recent guide camp (big thank you to her Guide Leaders for not just the week they gave up but all the planning and organising they did too) one girl ended up being reported by some of the other girls for stuffing her pockets with sugar sachets at a day out so she in her words 'could fill herself with sugar and not sleep all night'.......so even without the sweet buying if they're determined enough.........

I don't believe that a child with the squits outside her tent wasn't heard or noticed by either another Guide or an adult. I wake up at the slightest noise at camp.

We have had parents over the years sending kids with bags of sweets even when asked not to at the parents meeting. Now I say that if they break that rule and send their DD with junk and it makes them or anyone else ill I will call them to pick up even at 3am.

Regarding doing things not allowed at home - I've had a 13yo who wasn't allowed to wash up at home!