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.

I'm picking my son up from scout camp in a few hours! Can't wait to see him!
The life skills he has learnt from being in scouts have been amazing, the leaders are fabulous and give up a weeks annual leave to look after my child, I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that.
I would make sure you know the full facts before phoning the leaders and having a go. did your dd tell them she had a tummy ache or did she tell them she had been sick? Probably 2 very different treatments I would imagine from the leaders.
I agree with most others - doesn't sound like food poisoning to me.
Was there anti bac gel at camp?
How far away is 'so far away' for the toilet block? Surely others managed to go in the middle of the night.
Can you have a chat to other parents before talking to the leaders. Just to get a clearer view of the situation?
I hope your dd is feeling better now.

Ffs - raw chicken, children, no hot running water and a laissez-faire attitude to illness? Can you imagine if this happened at a school camp?!

Whether these people are volunteers or not is completely irrelevant. If they want to volunteer then do it, but it's your choice, don't expect a free pass from all criticism because of it.

ChopinLizst

no hot running water Dies not mean no hot water. You are aware that a camp takes place outdoors?

"Ffs - raw chicken, children, no hot running water and a laissez-faire attitude to illness? Can you imagine if this happened at a school camp?!"

I can't imagine it happening at a school camp- but I can't imagine it happening at a Guide camp either. Leaders have to do a lot of training before they can take kids away-they aren't just random people picked on the day, you know!

I get that in a group setting any leaders have to take precautions, but unless you're a veggie household it shouldn't be the responsibility of somebody else to explain to kids of 10+ how to handle raw meat in the first place. I'd rather guide leaders were able to teach new, fun things than basic food handling parents should have taught them already.
'Raw chicken, children, no hot running water'
Ffs it's a simple everyday food, not Semtex

Yanbu. Being a volunteer isn't an excuse for acting like a dumbass.

If a child is ill enough to be vomiting then you at least inform their parents.

It cannot be nice to have D&V while camping. No privacy, no access to decent facilities etc. They have also now exposed the rest of the camp to illness.

If I was leaving my child with someone who was supposed to be teaching them independence I would expect that person to have a modicum of common sense.

I have never said this before, but it really does sound like your DD is exaggerating. A girl pooing in the ground outside of her tent, would have been noticed by leaders and dealt with.
What probably happened was that your DD had a bad stomach ache and a bit of diarrhoea. She may have been squatting outside the tent with a sore tummy, not wanting to walk to the toilets.
And far away is relative. No they won't be close to the bedroom as in a house, you will have to walk to them.

But some people on this thread are over precious. Cooking chicken outside, not having hot running water but hot water in a bowl for hand washing, children handling raw chicken - all of this is normal when camping outdoors in a basic camp.

Learning how to do things properly is a useful skill for children.

A food business must have hot and cold running water for hand washing - it's a legal requirement in the UK to protect the public.

Raw chicken is not a low risk food to be preparing when there are not the basic hand washing facilities that would be required of any business.

In a camping situation I would also have concerns about being able to adequately wash down surfaces, equipment etc that had been used for raw chicken.

Why not just have pre-diced the chicken before trip or bought it ready diced so it was going straight into saucepan without risk of contamination?

Fluffy, you are wrong. That is not the case for outside catering.

Rice is a high risk food and is a very common causes of food poisoning.Yet no one says children should not eat rice when camping.

I find lots of people have a very low understanding of risk in terms of food hygiene. The risk with chicken is not washing your hands after handling it, and not cooking it all the way through. A bowl of soapy water and anti bac spray is more than enough to deal with the second risk.

And any child of this age should know not to lick your fingers after handling raw chicken.

I have worked in a mass catering situation before. Cooking for a few thousand people outdoors. We had two hot running water taps and prepared everything outside. Our hygiene standards were very high and it was perfectly possible to keep our work surfaces and equipment very clean.

In these situations, standards are usually higher than in your average domestic kitchen.

I'd also have thought that doing a relatively high risk cooking activity such as handling raw chicken is to be avoided on the grounds that if a group of kids did become ill as a result it could jeopardise the ability to run these sort of trips in future.

Does anyone else wonder if, because the OP's daughter doesnt have to do it at home, then didn't want to do it at camp? and is now making out she is ill?

i'm a beaver scout leader (6-8) year olds, and you would be amazed how many times kids are suddenly 'ill' when they don't want to do something but are fine later....

and this is also the reason i don't want to move up to cubs or scouts.

Back in the day i was a scout. we had chemical toilets, a bowl of water to wash hands in. we cooked chicken for dinner with rice in the brecon beacons. amazingly none of us got sick.

i honestly don't think the op's DD is as sick as shes made out

Morall yes you had hot running water - the camp doesn't appear to have had this resource.

Morral and becles have nailed it.

OP what did you do?

Also, as food poisoning does not normally set in within a couple of hours, it is unlikely that chopping chicken and sluicing her hands in soapy, warmish water is the problem.

Having run training sessions for camp leaders I don't think that arrangement sounds outside the realms of any certification/common sense.

Fluffy, in a camping situation the facilities aren't as they are at home and so are at the lower end of acceptable rather than at the "zap it and sterilise every single bit of it until it is dead" end of clean.

We seem to have an exaggerated idea of what constitutes clean these days. Sterilisation is not always necessary, or people without dishwashers would all be dead! It is just another one of those Western world things!

I've had Guides complain that the toilet is too far away when it's been less than 200 yards away on a private campsite with only us there. They just don't want to get out of bed in the night even though we tell them they have to wake someone else to go with them. We always choose sites with proper toilet blocks and leave the light on in them all night too.

Our Guides are at camp this weekend, we don't ban sweets but insist that they are handed in and kept in the qm tent. If they want them then they have to ask us as food kept in tents = creatures in tents.

Raw meat is always handled separately with strict instructions regarding hand washing. Leaders supervise but the girls are expected to do as much as possible. I've had a number of girls who have never done any cooking before but never any that couldn't actually cope doing it at camp.

Hand washing water is separate from dish washing water and we have the gas boiler on constantly during cooking times to provide hot water for this.

'Relatively high risk cooking'
Did we read the same op? It was guides, age 10+ touching chicken. Not rainbows age 5+ caramelising sugar with a blow torch.

So you are fuming that you daughter was crouching outside her tent. A ten year old. And you automatically assume its food poisoning because it was on a camp site and there were raw chickens and basic facilities. Therefore its the leaders fault. Judge, jury and execution. You are ready to go in all guns blazing rather than take 5 to think that your precious daughter might be also be being a massive princess and drama queen. Talking to them in a few days when you've calmed down and got some perspective is a very good idea.

She's 10. If she really was that bad she was perfectly capable of stressing the point to leaders. What would she do if she was really ill? Instead it just sounds like exaggeration and whinging. Nothing particularly serious and certainly not worth ringing her parents and worrying them unnecessarily if its a matter of hours before she was due to go home anyway. Its not a trip to A&E here.

Secondly I'd like to ask what you think camping involves. No running water? God forbid!!! That's third world insanitary conditions unsuitable for all children. You have to walk further than 10 foot to the toilets. Won't someone think of all the children who died with their outside loos.

Frankly if you are not prepared to let your ten year old handle raw chicken even at home and haven't taught her hygiene (not your hysteria with gloves) then don't send her on camp for other people to have to baby sit. The point of camp is to get kids doing things, especially things they wouldn't do at home. The fact that you have this level of hysteria over chicken which means you wash chicken yourself in this way, screams more about you than what the guides may or may not have done at camp and whether your daughter has food poisoning or not. I suggest that you may be passing on your fears to your daughter...

Incidentally, running water isn't necessary much better than clean standing water - bacteria end up on the tap that every one touches. Funnily enough the places with the most bacteria in the house are not the places you'd expect like the toilet.

I swear to god, that some parents are determined to complain about something and expect their children to be pampered on camps rather than expecting their children to take a certain share of responsibility. Ruining it for everyone in the process because leaders get feed up of all the shit that comes with giving up their spare time for others to have a experience. Its up to parent and kids to take on some of the responsibility and understand there is a certain level of manageable and acceptable risk and that all risks can not be eliminated in life.

All I can say is thank fuck she's not a Scout at DH's troop or you'd have kittens. They've cooked over open fires and done camping without tents in December. And they use knives. And throw axes. (and yep there is a risk assessment for all of the above). Yes 10 year olds. Yes girls.

Second thoughts. It'd probably do her the world of good.

Agree with RedToothbrush Also op why would you actually EAT chicken if you think it's so contaminated? fgs

Ah, yes. The annual post-camp Scout/Guide Leader-bashing thread with the three essential ingredients that the parents are "fuming", the child's story must be 100% true and the leaders are irresponsible fools, unfit to take care of so much as a guinea pig.

What the parents don't get is that when kids come back from camp, some will babble non-stop about what a brilliant time they've had, and others will suddenly realise that they missed mum or dad or home or the cat ...

Those kids often burst into tears and then tell their parents every little thing that went wrong, often with a huge dose of exaggeration thrown in.

A good night's sleep, and a quick reality check with the leaders and other kids, and the picture usually looks completely different.

Fluffy - We were cooking for a few thousand people every day. A bowl of soapy water would not have been enough. But two hot running taps and a refrigerated unit, would not be acceptable for an indoor restaurant of that size.
Hygiene regulations are usually sensible. They do allow you to cook outside in conditions that wouldn't be acceptable in a restaurant. But still have rules to keep it safe.
The OPs DD didn't have food poisoning anyway, so this is immaterial.

Also if you wear gloves to handle chicken, you still need to make sure the gloves are cleaned or treated with anti bacterial spray. Unless they are medically sterile gloves of course.

If a child is ill enough to be vomiting then you at least inform their parents.
The Op didn't say the child was vomiting, she said she had the shits which she did outside the tent .Nice cleaning up job for someone there!