Kids and Diabetes in Schools (KiDS)

The KiDS project is an educational program co-created by Sanofi with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), in collaboration with the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD), Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Sociedade Brasileira de diabetes (SBD) and Associação de Diabetes Juvenil of Brazil (ADJ), to fight diabetes. The program was piloted in India and Brazil and is currently being expanded in various countries.

The program is targeted primarily at teachers, school nurses and school staff, school students (6-14 years old) and parents, but it is also targeted at policy makers and governmental officials.

The KiDS project involves a Global ‘Diabetes in Schools’ Toolkit to roll out the project in countries interested. The Toolkit was culturally and contextually adapted, pre-tested and tailored for use by the targeted audience. It is divided in four sections dedicated to each audience, i.e. teachers, school nurses and school staff, school students (6 to 14 years old) and parents (including parents of a child with diabetes). It is available in 15 languages free of charge on the IDF website (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Portuguese-Brazil, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, English-India, Japanese, Polish, Urdu). It was also developed for Android and an IOS version for iPad.

An educational material on nutrition was recently developed as a complementary resource to the existing toolkit. The material was created to raise awareness and inform on the important role of nutrition in the management and prevention of diabetes, as well as a healthy and balanced lifestyle from a young age. It is targeted to teachers, parents of children with diabetes, as well as parents and children.

The KiDS project also involves awareness meetings and activities in schools, with key stakeholders including school authorities, NGOs, nurses, teachers, parents and children.

The ultimate goal is to support policy change in the management of type 1 diabetes and healthy habits at schools by introducing training for teachers and school staffs on diabetes in the national curriculum.

For further information, the program is presented on the International Diabetes Federation website here.