How to support students who may have continence issues

If your school has a student suffering with continence issues, what can you being doing to support them? 

The Children’s Bladder and Bowel Charity have amended their guidance on managing bladder and bowel issues in nurseries, schools and colleges. Schools must revaluate how they support students with continence difficulties by making sure they are:

• aware of bladder and bowel conditions and their role in supporting affected children;
• aware of how to promote a healthy bladder and bowels;
• not refusing children admission to school due to continence difficulties;
• offering care plans to learners who are known to have continence difficulties, and ensuring their needs are met;
• not expecting parents to come to school to care for their children due to continence issues.

Bladder and bowel conditions

Continence, bowel and bladder difficulties can include anything from daytime bladder problems to bedwetting, constipation and soiling. Students that have chronic problems can suffer for many years, which means that continence can affect the learning, development and wellbeing of both children and teenagers during their school years.

How to encourage good bowel health

To promote good bowel health among your students, your school should:

• encourage students to remain hydrated;
• ensure students have access to clean and well-stocked toilets;
• urge student to eat fibrous foods to help with digestion (such as wholemeal bread, brown rice, fruit, veg, beans and oats);
• encourage students to lead an active lifestyle to help to prevent constipation.

Building an individual care plan

The Equality Act 2010 states that schools must not discriminate against, or disadvantage, disabled children or those with special needs education needs. A delay in achieving continence, or not being toilet trained, is considered a disability and, in order to support students, schools can offer an individual care plan which should outline:

• who in the organisation needs to know about the student’s incontinence difficulties; 
• who the student can talk to if they need help, and how they want to organise this;
• the equipment required to support the student (such as clean clothes, wipes, stoma bags, catheters and continence products);
• where the equipment will be stored for easy and discreet access;
• where to return soiled clothes;
• how to support the student in the case of off-site activities and overnight stays.  

Responsibilities

Parents must not be required to come into school and look after students suffering with incontinence if the student requires intimate care; instead, this should be outlined in their care plan. 

The care plan should include what intimate care is needed, where it will be carried out and who will provide it. There should be three nominated adults who will work with the student, and they should be: 

• comfortable with providing intimate care;
• trained appropriately;
• the same gender as the child if possible.

All staff members who work with these children will need to have undergone necessary vetting and barring checks. For those providing intimate care for children in a vulnerable position, safer recruitment processes must be followed. 

In England, Northern Ireland and Wales, staff providing unsupervised intimate care need to have undergone an enhanced with barred lists DBS check. In Scotland, staff providing personal services to a child need a protecting vulnerable groups check.