Originally Posted by Tasha:
I just got an email from DCM that said the main issue was that I won't
be able to serve anything with peanuts or any store-bought
items that have a ''may contain'' label because the doctor said she was ''severely allergic.'' Plus she wants to make sure
that the daycare kids wash their hands and their faces when they arrive
in the mornings. She said she would call me tomorrow to discuss this
at length. I'm not sure exactly how I am going to respond but I know
I need to be very careful.
I think you need to decide if you would like to take this child on and make the accommodations or not. If you do, then a doctor's note, and medical history form should be filled out and I would really consider asking mom point blank when the allergy was discovered. You said you interviewed her last week, she dropped papers on sunday, and then texted you a few hours later about the allergy, so either she knew about the allergy beforehand and did not tell you, or they found out just a few days after your interview (again, hate to be a skeptic, but I doubt it was that coincidental). The doctor should be able to give you a date of when the allergy was discovered or noted on the medical records. If mom knew prior to your interview, I would not take them and tell them they were not honest and therefore you cannot work with them. That is legal, as you are not taking the child because of dishonesty, not the nut allergy.
If you don't want to take the child on, then do not blame the nut allergy, and just tell them, due to schedule changes (or whatever), you can no longer accept them. Refund any money and move on. Do not bring up the allergy.
This is just my opinion having read quite a bit about nut allergies recently. They are (kind of) covered under the ADA, but just as with any disability, both the parent and provider must make reasonable accommodations. I may get a lot of heat for this, but in my home, cutting out peanuts/PB/anything containing or made around peanuts would be very hard to do ad I could not knowingly take the risk of having a child here with such a severe allergy if I cannot keep my home entirely peanut free. Just think if you have 8-10 kids arriving each day and you have to make sure their hands are peanut free, that they don't have their leftover PB & J sandwich on their shirt, ect...it would be too scary for me. I do not know your town, but many daycare centers are already nut free, so it would probably be safer for her cild to attend one of them than to make you alter your whole program and hope you don't make a mistake. Hope this helps and I am sure more experienced providers who have dealt with this can give you good advice. As long as you don't blame the nut allergy for not watching her, then the burden of proof is on them if they want to pursue legal action from what I have read.
