Dear Girl Guides, All our daughter wants for Christmas, is to be included

[phoenix]

All our 6 year old daughter wants for Christmas is to be INCLUDED in your organisation, not EXCLUDED as she currently is…..
Our daughter has Type 1 Diabetes and Coeliac Disease.
She has an insulin pump attached to her 24/7. She has to eat gluten free food.
She is incredibly brave, stoical and helpful.
She is beautiful, bright, happy, loves ‘Frozen’, eating cup cakes and swimming……. and she used to enjoy attending her local Rainbows group meetings....................http://www.bestbuggy.co.uk/2014/12/all-our-daughter-wants-for-christmas-is-to-be-included/
Sad account, not only of a little girl being excluded from a Rainbow sleepover because of being T1 and coeliac.

I can understand the volunteers being scared about the responsibility ( I know I would have been prior to being diabetic) but the parents do seem to have tried to suggest ways round problems.
Almost worse is the deceit, the parents were told that the event had been cancelled,****only to find that it was still taking place.
That's a shocking example to give any child.
***edit it was a normal meeting that had not been cancelled, the sleepover is not until January.

 

[zand]

Oh my word! This is dreadful. The parents were only going to be 13 minutes away!

Yes I agree the deceit is so hurtful. I think it would have been better not to have organised this at all if that was the attitude of the volunteers. If one misses out, they should all miss out. I know it's difficult with other peoples children, I struggled with the responsibility of taking fourteen 14 year old lads to Holland for the weekend. Some of them had medical needs too. I like to think I would have learnt all I could from the parents and allowed a diabetic with Coeliac Disease to come along. I asked them all to fill out 'in loco parentis' forms and health questionnaires 'just in case' anyway.

I don't know what else to say. I am astonished at the lack of goodwill to a little girl who has enough to cope with in her life already.

 

[CollieBoy]

Looking on the site, It looks like GirlGuides is being lied to by the Rainbows group and I, as a parent, would be looking around for other Rainbows groups in the area or perhaps a sympathetic Brownie pack would let her join early!

 

[Andy12345]

Heartbreaking

 

[catherinecherub]

So very sad. Children with Type 1 have a lot to put up with and the last thing they want to feel is different.
Did these morons stop to think about the child?
I would go public if someone treated my child like that.

 

[Lenny3]

Despicable, I've shared on Facebook in the hope of getting some extra support for her cause.

 

[noblehead]

Heartbreaking story, the parents had it all covered and even had approval from their daughters diabetes team and yet the Girl Guides still put obstacles in their way, found this quite shocking in the article when they mentioned the invitation to the sleepover:

''When we asked why Little Miss BB had been given the invitation if she wasn’t allowed to attend, we were told that we had been expected to decline the invitation.''

Lets hope common sense prevails between now and the 7th January.

 

[zand]

I agree noblehead. This type of activity is so important to a child's development.

I'm still very cross about this story.

 

[poohtiggy]

Utterly disgusting, it makes me feel ashamed to say I used to be a Girl Guide leader. However with the present "sue them for all you can get " generation is it really that surprising that leaders are afraid of taking on responsibilities they do not fully understand. Many professions have been affected too, such as teachers taking kids on holidays and trips. I feel very sad that such an organisation can treat a little girl this way but can also understand the fear of the leaders of being sued for the smallest mishap. Big responsibility and I'm not sure that if I were a leader today I wouldn't' feel hesitant too

 

[Robinredbreast]

In this day and age when we clearly try our hardest to make our children, active and sociable, why in GOD'S name ( and this is a big part of the Guiding association) would they treat a child and her parents in this way. I am quite frankly incensed by the underhanded crass treatment of this girl.
Also if the girl could go to the sleepover, then the parents could pop in about 10pm and check on their child, they wouldn't even have to go into the sleeping area if prefered by leaders ( regarding other girls in night wear).
I would take my child out of that unit, and go to the local press. Type 1 children have enough to put up with. I am just so shocked by this I hope a positive outcome will eventually come from this crass fiasco.

RRB

 

[eddie1968]

Jeez. No one can seem to do anything in today's Health and Safety gone mad culture. Too many protocols and less common sense have made a sleepover look like an In Patient Admission. Next ? Bet she'll not be allowed to drink a glass of water in case she chokes. Bonkers..absolutely bonkers.

 

[CarbsRok]

That is appalling. Poor little kid. Even back in the 1960's I was allowed to go to brownie camp overnight. Mum turned up to administer my harpoon injection and I was left to my own devices, obviously Brown owl had a long list of what to look out for. But I was treated no differently than anyone else.

 

[Pipp]

All our 6 year old daughter wants for Christmas is to be INCLUDED in your organisation, not EXCLUDED as she currently is…..
Our daughter has Type 1 Diabetes and Coeliac Disease.
She has an insulin pump attached to her 24/7. She has to eat gluten free food.
She is incredibly brave, stoical and helpful.
She is beautiful, bright, happy, loves ‘Frozen’, eating cup cakes and swimming……. and she used to enjoy attending her local Rainbows group meetings....................http://www.bestbuggy.co.uk/2014/12/all-our-daughter-wants-for-christmas-is-to-be-included/
Sad account, not only of a little girl being excluded from a Rainbow sleepover because of being T1 and coeliac.

I can understand the volunteers being scared about the responsibility ( I know I would have been prior to being diabetic) but the parents do seem to have tried to suggest ways round problems.
Almost worse is the deceit, the parents were told that the event had been cancelled,****only to find that it was still taking place.
That's a shocking example to give any child.
***edit it was a normal meeting that had not been cancelled, the sleepover is not until January.

Why are the other parents not boycotting the event? Or in fact the Rainbow group?
I would not allow my child to be influenced by these pathetic "do-gooders" leading the the group.

 

[Snowy12]

Absolutely disgraceful.

 

[Mike d]

I'd rip them apart ..... and that's on a good day.

The sheer ignorance and arrogance of these people leave me astonished. We call them "mongrels" down this part of the world. Seems to suit.

 

[CollieBoy]

I'd rip them apart ..... and that's on a good day.

The sheer ignorance and arrogance of these people leave me astonished. We call them "mongrels" down this part of the world. Seems to suit.

We have better descriptions for them in Scotland, but the forum would not let me say them on here!
Anyway @Mike D don't disparage mongrels, can't beat a bit of hybrid vigor

 

[anna29]

This is sickening - poor little girl and her mother !
They must feel so isolated and crushed .

What is happening with folk to do such a nasty thing ?

 

[phoenix]

The trouble is that changing things now won't make it better for the little girl or the relationship between the leaders and the parents.

When I told this to my daughter she just quite shocked but her advice;
'join the Beavers, we have lots more fun'
(she's a Beaver leader but also works with special needs children including a couple with coeliac and T1 (and have Downs as well) so shes totally aware of the issues.)

 

[anna29]

Top tip Phoenix possible to mention off to this little girls mum .
Hope she see's this via internet - and looks into this one .

At my granddaughters nursery there were tot's with various
medical conditions/syndromes . Diabetes type1/downs syndrome too .
None were ever excluded either .

 

[Brunneria]

Is it fair for anyone to be excluded from activities they want to do, because of a health condition or disability?

Nope.

Is it fair that this situation has been handled so badly by the Girl Guide organisation, on both a local and national level?

Nope

But... Before we hang, draw and quarter the individual volunteers who made the local decisions, please remember two things:

The Girl Guides is a charity staffed by volunteers. They give up their free time to herd small excitable children through fun and educational activities. They don't necessarily volunteer to take responsibility to monitor the health of type 1 diabetic children. Nor should they have to. They are volunteers.
Since the Girl Guides is a charity, maintained by donations, it is very unlikely they have the local facilities, rapid risk assessment capacity and so on to cope with this without a great deal of adjustment and planning. The prep, training and cost may have been considered to exceed reasonable adjustment.

We don't know what training (or lack of) has been offered to the local volunteers, or whether they have refused it because it went beyond what they felt able to offer.

My view is that, as a type 2 diabetic I know just enough about type 1 diabetes to be deeply intimidated by the prospect of taking responsibility for a small child, without her parents within earshot, who may need urgent medical attention. As a non-expert I find this scary. Doesn't matter if it is justified or not. It is scary, and I probably wouldn't volunteer to get more training to overcome my fear. Because it's scary.

How many parents of type 1s do we get arriving on this forum, scared out of their wits? They have had help and training from doctors, nurses, consultants, diabetic clinics, they've had training in hypos, hypers, injections, 24 hr telephone numbers, and they've been living with the child for months or years, yet still arrive at this forum terrified, stressed and tearing their hair out.

The only thing we can be sure of about this entire situation is that we only have one side of the story.