If your child has medical issues that need to be managed at school (e.g., seizures, headaches, or medication), your child’s doctor should write a letter to the principal with written orders for care. The school nurse will then develop an IHCP to ensure your child’s medical needs are appropriately managed at school. The IHCP can be incorporated into either an IEP or Section 504 Plan, or it can stand alone if the child does not need an IEP or 504 Plan. However, an IHCP does not provide any procedural safeguards for the student if it is not part of an IEP or 504 Plan.

The IHCP includes a brief medical history, medications and side effects, student health goals, clear descriptions of health services that will be provided by the school, and contact numbers for emergencies. Parents and school personnel must sign the plan before it is implemented, and it should be updated every year.

We have two plans—the IEP and the IHCP—and they are for different things. The IHCP is for Marielle’s migraines (which is separate from her late cognitive effects), and the IEP is based on the cancer/late effects. We update it at the beginning of every school year. Every year, we get a letter from her pediatric neurologist that states that Marielle is under her care for severe migraines that will cause days of school to be missed and that any/all absences for migraines should be allowed for the year. Also, the letter states that no work missed must be made up and the missing work cannot be counted against her grade. We also add this to her IEP—“Student will only be graded on work turned in.” The IHCP is very important if your child will miss more than five days of school in a year. Our school district starts to send out warning letters at the fifth day of absence and warns of taking the parent to court for truancy after the tenth absence (or partial absence) in a year.