Has anyone ever been to their union over head lice?

[LittleMachine]

I’ve caught head lice from the same child in my class multiple times since January.
I take necessary precautions (hair tied right up etc) and appropriate agencies are already involved with the child.
I have made SLT aware each time.
It’s making my life a misery and I worry about my own children catching them. I know I’m treating properly as I never comb any out in the holidays. My last ones are always combed out the last day of term or just after.
Has anyone been to their union over this? Or any other suggestions?

Could you wear a head scarf at all?
I don't mean niqab or hijab, more a 50's type affair.

It must be shite.

I don’t think there’s anything your union could do.

Surely you can avoid touching heads with this child though? If you know precisely who it is?

I guess I could. Or a bathing cap 🤷🏻‍♀️

Apple Katie no I can’t. I’m in SEND so have to change/dress the child. He has challenging behaviours that often result in our heads touching - I can’t be to specific as don’t want to be too identifying!

Ah ok, bit different if you’re doing personal care. Headscarf of some description then.

If you have a TAC meeting coming up (are they still called that my knowledge is out of date) or similar can you raise it? If the parents don’t have capacity to sort it for the child is there anyone else who can? (Respite carers or similar?)

The child is treated by somebody but becomes reinfected and this is likely to continue. It’s raised at every meeting.
I guess I’ll have to start looking for headgear to match my uniform 💁🏼‍♀️

Leave in conditioner that stinks of teatree and I would recommend treating yourself to a beautiful liberty scarf.

It only takes one slack parent to affect the whole class so getting to the bottom of the infestation will be hard.

Luckily, the other kids don’t seem to catch them. They all have social issues as part of their SEN so they choose to be quite solitary.

I think you will have to get some kind of hat or head cover to wear at any time you might come into contact with his head, in the same way you would always put a coat on before going outside. It’s annoying but I think the union would want to see that you are doing as much as you can to prevent catching the lice.

Asked DH about this- he works for a union and deals with industrial relations.

He said you could certainly approach your TU and ask for advice about how to approach this with the school as a health and safety concern. The union will almost certainly have dealt with this issue before or something very similar.

Please try lavender oil on your hair. I teach eyfs 1 and the lavender oil is working a treat despite the children being all over me and the lice being all over the children.

Thanks for the advice everyone. It’s such a full on physical job, I’ll be roasting in a hat (and the kids will pull it off all the time!) but I guess lesser of two evils!

Thanks Dino. I feel like SLT aren’t doing enough to safeguard our class staff from head lice as a H&S issue. I am very allergic to insect bites as well so it’s a bloody nightmare.

What else could SLT do? Sounds like a total nightmare but I don't know what could be done that doesn't disadvantage the child?