Such a large part of advocacy is education. As people who live with T1D 24/7/365, we are constantly educating on some level or another. Whether we are education ourselves to be a better pancreas, educating our child(ren) to do self-D care, educating family members about the general idea of the disease or the more subtle nuances of it, educating the general populous as they bombard us with insane ideas or
Each year, we do a presentation for Bean's class to educate them and help them understand what Bean has to do and wear in order to keep her safe, healthy, and alive. It's nice that she goes to a relatively small school and that there's a decent percentage of her class that has been in class with her before. So, it's not like we're going in to a room full of kids that have no idea what we're talking about. And it makes it way easier and more comfortable for Bean.
This year, we switched it up a bit and used the new Lilly/Disney book about Coco going to school with her diabetes. We also got the hook up from Insulet and had some silicon bracelets to hand out...which the kids loved! (Thanks, again, Insulet!!)
Here's my supply bag, complete with a pancreas from I Heart Guts.
What's cool is there are a few kids that have been in class with Bean for the past two years, so they are 'old pros' when it comes to the whole diabetes thing. They are past the basics and when it comes to question time, they ask some really well thought out questions about some of the more intricate things that D can bring.
What I also like is that it gives the teacher another dose of information, too. You can't ever repeat somethings too many times and when it comes to T1D, some things have to be repeated again and again for it to really sink in.