For the second year in a row SADS is focusing on school nurses. Last year, we sent information about Long QT Syndrome and sudden cardiac death in the young to school nurses across the country. This year we’re taking the School Campaign a step further— we’re counting on school nurses to take our information packets and to educate teachers, coaches, parents and other school nurses in the school(s) or district in which they work.

We plan to work with different state and national School Nurses Associations to educate more school nurses and to enlist their help with this campaign.

We need your help.

How can I help (family member)?

There are many ways to help with this Campaign-- here are just a few ideas that we’ve come up with:

• recruit the school nurse(s) that work in your school or district to help
• give a presentation to your PTA or home/school club
• put up posters in your school or in public places like pools or community centers
• hand out information packets to teachers and coaches (if the school nurse is not involved)
• advocate to have the questions from the SADS risk assessment form added to your school’s physicals—especially sports physicals

My school nurse is not involved but I want to distribute information in my school!

As always, creativity is a good thing. If you have other ideas, please share them with us!

Finally, please know that we need to hear from you about what you did for the SADS School Nurse Awareness Campaign; your successes, your failures, and the hurdles you’ve managed to overcome.

Good luck!