Favourite nursery won’t accept child due to allergies

[Costumemaker]

Hello,

Just having a little sad rant but also looking for advice from other parents with children who suffer from food allergies.

I’ve found a fab nursery- absolutely in love with it but sadly they won’t accept my child due to allergies. It’s only 9- lunchtime so not even all day and they bring their own packed lunch, it would only be snack time to watch out but also messy play.

I’ve offered to buy gluten free flour to make play dough as they have it out daily or even make it myself and asked that they wouldn’t have pasta/cereals out on my child’s days. I only need 15 hours a week so wouldn’t even be 5 days. I would do 3 at most.

The manager isn’t being friendly about it either and just saying they can’t promise to keep child safe which I understand but tbh I can’t even keep them safe at home or when I go out to soft play/ park all the time. I just feel really sad about it as I don’t think I’m asking for above and beyond just a little extra care.
I’m also very upset because they have someone else starting with the same allergy and are happy to accommodate them but not my child because they have more allergies. I’m also very upset because I know they previously accepted a child who had an extensive list of allergies under a huge hospital (v well known for children’s care) but again won’t take mine.

Any Advice or experience from others?

I would ask for an explanation when they have accepted other children, just because that would annoy me bit ultimately they're not fab if they're not happy to accommodate you.

Also pp - coeliac here and have to use gloves if I prep gluten food for my kids. Literally gluten Playdoh will be damaging your child's intestines whether you realise it or not.

They said it and the parents went elsewhere - that doesn't mean it was legal. You think any nursery has a spare member of staff hanging around? Of course not. Some meet their obligations under the law and others try to wiggle out of it.

Big chains are less likely to break the law imo.

Just to point out the Coeliac disease isn’t an allergy, it’s an autoimmune disorder. A small amount of gluten being consumed will trigger a whole body autoimmune response (can vary but include severe abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, migraines, neuropathy, that can last days or weeks). It can cause long term damage that can eventually cause cancer.

A wheat allergy is not Coeliac disease. Allergies can be triggered by touch, inhalation or consumption and will trigger an allergic reaction (rash, swelling of eyes/lips and breathing difficulties). It can cause death within minutes.

Nurseries won’t be great places for keeping children with severe allergies safe so I’m not surprised they won’t take her. Lots of small children who get covered in food at meal times and like to hug other children and play with them. Most are nut free but they won’t be able to stop parents packing normal sandwiches, cheese, yoghurts etc. in pack lunches so it’s likely your dd will come into contact sometimes with those. They also can’t dictate what children are fed at home before nursery.

This has been an interesting thread. Presumably whilst nurseries can refuse to take a child due to allergies and say they can’t guarantee they can keep them safe, no school will be able to? So, in a year or so, this will be an issue again.

What would the expectations of a primary school be in accommodating a pupil with extensive allergies? How does it work with eg the person who sits next to your child having cereal/eggs for breakfast?

Schools can do nothing about what a child may have eaten at home.
Most schools are nut free.
School meal providers have to provide certain allergy friendly alternatives- accommodating for common allergies such as gluten or eggs or milk.
Certain procedures will be put in place to prevent cross contamination.
BUT at not point will school be able to 100% guarantee that no allergens will be present in the environment.
There is a limit on what they can stop other kids bringing to school in their lunches. Dairy, gluten, egg, fish etc may all be in food brought by other children to school.
We’ve never had to do it yet but I think our solution would be that the child in question would have to eat apart from the rest of school. Not sure how we’d manage otherwise.

@Holidayshopping I guess once in primary, both the child with the allergies and their classmates have increasing abilities to be aware of rules and restrictions.

So a private nursery refusing to provide a 1:1 care for an autistic child is breaking the law?

How does this work - say they charge £75 a day, this wouldn’t cover the cost of the wages for that carer and they’d be losing money. So does the government cover the cost for them?

Sorry just to clarify - yes in this case the allergies would be considered a disability due to the severity and the limits they place on every day life. My daughter technically can apply for DLA because her allergies mean she needs significant support and accommodations made at certain times of the school day. If she hadn’t received this through the education authority I would have had to apply for DLA to pay for it privately.

@MidnightPatrol I think that some of it is because this nursery - like most private nurseries - receives the early years funding from government. The link supplied above does say that settings can apply for funding to cover extra staff/costs of accommodating a child with additional needs.

However, given what I have read on here about MNers fighting for extra school support for their kids for years, I don’t know how realistic it is that a nursery would get this money.

How old is your child? A 3/4 year old often has a good awareness of what they can't touch or eat and washing hands after touching things but two or under they are still putting most things in their mouths and are at high risk.

We did epipen training as part of our first aid course but they only touch the surface. We'd need a proper course if we had a child with us that carried an epipen.

A bit late to the party, and I think I'm echoing what other posters have said. I just wanted to offer a different perspective perhaps.

As someone who had an incredibly bad experience with a nursery, resulting in my son passing away, it is actually comforting to hear that a nursery have admitted their limits, and I think everyone would say they'd rather that then pushing them to the point of potentially harming a child.

BUT I totally and utterly understand how that absolutely doesn't make this situation better, me and my husband were utterly humiliated on a nursery visit recently by being asked to leave before we started because of what happened to my eldest child and it being too triggering for staff. So I utterly get how you're feeling and sending comfort your way.

Apologies if people have already suggested it, but I wonder if you could ask at your local childrens' centre/Facebook groups/HV service to see if they know of any allergy specific nurseries (thinking you can get nut free restaurants etc so maybe there might be something out there?) Xxx

Yes. It is a huge issue for nurseries - you can see why they try to persuade parents to go elsewhere. Doesn't mean it is legal. Of course most parents don't fight it, they do go elsewhere.

There are often difficult decisions around including children with extra needs. When i worked in a sendiass team helping parents with ehc plans, schools would often say they couldn't meet a child's needs, only to have a telling off by the LA and told they couldn't do this. Yes they can say they çant meet a child's needs but they can't just say that and walk away. They have to have strong reasons for it.

And with nurseries the same applies. They can't for example just think "that's a lot of work" and refuse a place.

Think of paying for the extra support like paying maternity leave - just another cost the business has to fund.

@Arran2024 the cost of statutory maternity pay is almost entirely covered by the government (I think it is 96 % for large companies)

Of course, many companies offer more than SMP, but that part is a choice.

@Tumbleweed101 the age of the child is key, the child we had with severe allergies came to us a year later than planned at three years old as her parents realised that it was much harder at two to keep her safe.

I think that many settings would struggle to recruit an additional member of staff as there is such a shortage of trained staff in Early Years, I agree with PP that it would be unfair to put that responsibility on a young apprentice. There is also a crisis in funding and you would have to fight very hard to get a paid one to one.

I only mentioned the apprentice in relation to showing how nurseries I worked with put relevant support in to other children. I am not suggesting an apprentice here. I was simply explaining that nurseries can't just turn children down for having disabilities, like so many on here seem to think. They need to come up with solutions. And tbh an apprentice who had siblings with severe allergies might be a great fit.

I really just meant that conforming with disability legislation is a business cost, like conforming with maternity legislation. It is all part of the costs of running a business. Of course even with the gov paying most maternity pay, some businesses still try to wiggle out of it by eg making staff redundant or saving them. And some try to wiggle out of disability obligations too.

A state school is very different to a private nursery however.

It’s nothing like providing maternity leave for employees.

It seems lunacy for a private business to be forced to take pupils with very significant needs they can’t meet, at a significant loss or be threatened with prosecution.

We aren’t talking about minor changes to the business model here - we are talking about one pupil costing the same as 4 or 5 others potentially.

This is the first step in education … you need to think ahead.
Contact Education at your local authority and start EHCP because you child is being denied or will be denied Education.

Schools will need to accommodate and you need to get ahead of the process. Do this today.

Ok. But private businesses can limit what they provide to reasonable adjustments, with cost being one of the reasonableness factors.

So (I think) it might be reasonable for a small shop in an old building to provide a ramp to get into the front door but not be compelled to install a lift to the first floor. If I run a dress shop, I don’t think I am obliged to offer home visits to customers with agoraphobia, say, although that condition is clearly limiting their lives and therefore might (I think) be viewed as a disability.

Nurseries are a hybrid in that most take early years funding but also private payers, and the onus is still on the nursery owner to balance the budget or the setting will go under.

Maybe word your posts a bit clearer then?

I can't understand why you are saying you trust this place when they've rejected you on the basis they can't keep your child safe. Time to move on to a nursery that can meet your child's needs - that will be a great nursery

None of your post suggests you think it's a good nursery.

They are still just children though and will make mistakes , forget etc .. friend of my sons had a reaction to someone else’s forgotten packet of sweets in a blazer pocket .

This nursery do not think they can keep your child safe , regardless of who is right or wrong , find somewhere else

Sorry for the long quote but this is a good line of thinking and along the lines of what I would advise. There are nurseries out there who will do what they can to keep your child safe. We know it’s not without risk but nothing is with allergies.

We chose a nursery based on the recommendation of another allergy parent. They were brilliant with our child and liaised with her primary school which really helped. It is possible to have severe allergies and attend a childcare setting. You need to think about what risks you can accept and find the right one.

There are going to be grey areas of course. I just think it's worth pointing out that (a) a severe allergy is a disability and disability is something that needs to be considered under the disability act and not simply regarded as a reason to exclude a child and (b) yes nurseries have to meet the costs of making adjustments for disabilities and (c) some nurseries will try it on and state they can't cope when really they just don't want to and (d) a lot of parents don't know their rights. Of course it is also reasonable to not trust this nursery to keep the child safe, not want to kick up a fuss, not want to deal with people who clearly don't want your child there and go elsewhere.

It's not really that different because of the gov funding and the early years framework which all nursery providers have to agree to, and which sets out sen responsibilities.

Even today, some schools wiggle out of taking sen children, particularly at secondary. This is in turn driving parents to specialist provision and ehc plans, because some mainstream schools do their best to put parents of sen kids off. I have heard that my local academy secondary school can be less than keen for example.