Another head lice; I want to help this child

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I know the topic of head lice has been discussed over and over and over. The other school nurse and I are working on revising the head lice policy. We are changing it to basically allow kids to stay in school with head lice. We are putting a clause in it though that says that we will handle head lice on a case by case basis. We have a girl who has had chronic head lice. I know she's had it since at least October (I started this job in October) so it has probably been much longer. It is really bad at this time. You can see the live lice crawling on her head without even getting too close to her. There are TONS of nits. She says she was treated for it a few weeks ago, but I question whether that is even true. I have a feeling other kids have noticed and probably aren't being very nice. Regardless, I cannot get a hold of the mother via the phone number provided to the school. I'm not sure if it is not a working number or if she just has us blocked. Numerous notes have been sent home with the student. The other school nurse has mainly dealt with it (we switch schools every month) so she has been the one sending notes home. I sent a note home with the student yesterday. Student came back today without any treatment. Student states that money to get treatment is the issue. They do have a medical card however, and can get a script and it'd be covered. Not sure if the mother knows this, so I have said in my note to call the school so that we can discuss options if finances are the issue. I'm sending another note home today basically stating she cannot come back to school until she receives treatment. Though I guarantee she will come back tomorrow untreated. The student spent yesterday in the office per the principle. I sent her back to class today though as I don't think it's beneficial for her to sit in the office and plus how do I justify leaving her in the office when research shows we should not exclude kids from school for lice. I know she is embarrassed and is miserable. I do not know how to help this child. The parent is even supposed to be taking GED classes so we have called there and even stopped at her classes, but she has never been there. I want to help her. This is a student who will likely consider dropping out in high school (the brother is in high school and is wanting to drop out). How can I help her??? What would you do at this point? CPS has been contacted, but I know nothing will come of it. I feel helpless.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

When was cps contacted? Did they give indication of a response? Usually when we call we get told that there will be a report taken, a 24 hr response, a visit to the home, something. You may want to contact them again.

I have seen some districts purchase boxes of pedulicide for people claiming financial hardship. This is all well and good, but you still have no guarantee that the products will actually be used. A box of Rid goes from 6-18 bucks at cvs depending on the kit and there is a coupon online for it to know a couple more dollars off. The cost usually isn't the terribly prohibiive part - it's the dweat equity of actually doing the treatment and comb out.

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

This really tugs at one's heartstrings...but as they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make "her" drink. Just this past year we had a similar situation - multiple kids in the same family. The parent had active medicaid coverage. Our assistant principal actually called the kid's pediatrician and talked him into writing prescriptions for lice treatment, she went to the office and picked up the prescriptions, brought them to school, and handed the prescriptions to the mother when she picked up the kids after school.

The mother never went to the pharmacy and the kids were never treated. They eventually moved on to another school.

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Plus, remember that you can treat the hair, but if you don't treat the environment too, the critters will just be back again in a week's time.

You can recommend, educate and lead by example until you fall over, but ultimately it is up to the parents to actually parent. That is the problem I have run into. It is SO frustrating. I try my best to tell the parent that the child gets excluded from some things (some sports, some activities, but by state law not school here) I try to get them to realize that the student cannot learn when they are so busy scratching their heads that they cannot focus on anything else. Eventually the bugs become a safety issue when there are so many they are dropping off and crawling all over the desks nearby, never mind this poor student's self esteem. Good luck. I hope that you can make a HUGE difference in this student's life. :up:

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We had a student that had missed so much school because she kept getting head lice. The mother kept her home stating that the treatment wasn't working but in reality, she couldn't afford the treatment. I contacted a local lice removal salon and told them about our student and they graciously offered to treat the entire family free of charge!

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Thanks for the feedback. I just wanted to make sure there really isn't anything else I could actually do. I do believe it is just a matter of the parent not wanting to deal with it. There is a way for her to obtain the treatment without having to pay for it via a prescription from our local health and wellness center. While I have thought about just treating it myself, it is against the law here to do so, and ultimately she would just get reinfested at home. The nearest lice removal facility is an hour away so there would be the issue of gas money. Yes, it is concerning and an embarrassment for the child when large live lice do fall off her head. It just breaks my heart. To top it off, about an hour after posting this, she came back into the office sobbing and complaining that her arms itch. There was no obvious reasons for her arms to be itching. After calming her down and talking to her, she told me that one of her family members died last night. She hadn't told anyone. I just hate feeling like I can't help her. I guess this is something that comes with the job. I'm new to the school nursing field. Thanks again for the feedback!

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This may be helpful, it's recent webinar by Dr. Pollack, an entomologist, and a school nurse whose name I cannot remember. it talks, not only about head lice and the school's role in dealing with it, but chronic infestations as well. If you've not read anything by Dr.Pollack, I highly recommend it, he's very...entertaining!

Managing Head Lice in Schools Webinar Report | Managing Pests in Schools | US EPA

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.
This may be helpful, it's recent webinar by Dr. Pollack, an entomologist, and a school nurse whose name I cannot remember. it talks, not only about head lice and the school's role in dealing with it, but chronic infestations as well. If you've not read anything by Dr.Pollack, I highly recommend it, he's very...entertaining!

Managing Head Lice in Schools Webinar Report | Managing Pests in Schools | US EPA

That was fabulous!! I want to make reading that a mandatory inservice for all of my teachers!!

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That was fabulous!! I want to make reading that a mandatory inservice for all of my teachers!!

I loved it! especially the geriatric lice comment. I printed out the flow chart for managing lice in school, it's my favorite thing ever.

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I loved it! especially the geriatric lice comment. I printed out the flow chart for managing lice in school, it's my favorite thing ever.[/QUOT

I can't find the flow chart...was it in one of the links?

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I loved it! especially the geriatric lice comment. I printed out the flow chart for managing lice in school, it's my favorite thing ever.[/QUOT

I can't find the flow chart...was it in one of the links?

Here's the link-it was somewhere in the questions part

https://identify.us.com/idmybug/head-lice/head-lice-documents/lice-mgmnt-chart-school.pdf

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Oh,that's great! Thank you, printed and ready for business.:roflmao:

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