How Can We Adapt Education for Children across Different Countries?

Abstract

The development of educational material as part of major changes in the service of the diabetic clinic in Glostrup University Hospital turned out to be a very rewarding process for the multidisciplinary team. This material includes age-appropriate goals and guidelines for teaching and learning about diabetes, and advice on coping with diabetes in hand-outs designed for diabetic educators, parents/adults and teenagers. The paper briefly describes the developmental process, the concepts and designs of the material, and makes recommendations on how it can be applied. Part of the material was later translated into Polish and Russian in connection with educational projects in these countries, and the material as a whole was recently incorporated into the Novo Care website at www.d4pro.com – Childhood Diabetes [<citeref rid="ref001">1</citeref>]. Growing Internet access by diabetes patients, their relatives and health care professionals creates almost overwhelming possibilities, but also brings up many new questions. The development of diabetes educational material of the more ‘traditional’ type is discussed with regard to content, ideas and design, and focuses on how these concepts and projects can be influenced and adapted across different countries by Internet communication.