Tick Borne Disease Education for Kids
Lyme Disease Awareness Foundation President, Dr. Nancy Fox
Nancy Fox, Ed.D., is President of The Lyme Education Awareness Foundation (LEAF) Program, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that promotes tick-borne disease prevention to children, teens and young adults. She's also a Lyme sufferer herself. Nancy talks about how her program works, and the rewards and challenges of reaching this important audience.
Additional Information
Lyme Education Awareness Foundation (LEAF) Website
Books by Dr. Nancy Fox
- No Ticks Please
- No Ticks, Please [Spanish Edition] | No Garrapatas, Por Favor
- Hide and Seek: No Ticks Please
Shop Insect Shield's full assortment of repellent clothing.
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Transcript of the Interview
Mark at Insect Shield
All right, we're here talking to Dr. Nancy Fox, who is the president of the Lyme Education Awareness Foundation. Hi, Nancy, good to have you here.
Dr. Nancy Fox
Hi. Great to be here.
Mark at Insect Shield
And Nancy has, among other things, a program for children, teens, and young adults to learn about ticks and Lyme disease prevention. This is something that we haven't really talked about on our interview series. We've talked to a lot of different people, but you know, kids is an area where there's plenty that can be done to educate. And in some ways, it's the most effective because the kids will talk to their parents about this stuff.
Dr. Nancy Fox
I totally agree.
Mark at Insect Shield
You've had quite a bit of success, I know that your program has grown quite a lot. So we want to learn more about that. So the acronym is LEAF. Why an education awareness foundation? Why don't you tell us a little bit about that, and maybe some of your background, like how you came into the Lyme community, because I think you are [Lyme] disease sufferer yourself, is that right?
Dr. Nancy Fox
That is true. On May 16 2003, I had a blood test for Lyme disease by my local physician, and then I took my dad to a Lyme literate doc who encouraged me to get a test with him. And the morning test was negative and the evening test was CDC positive.
So I'm the poster child for testing in the same exact day that I was negative and then positive. And I was positive. Thankfully, for the Lyme doc, that he tested for more than just Lyme. So as tested positive for Lyme, the Babesiosis, and Anaplasmosis. So we found some co infections going on there that changed the way things happen. So once I was diagnosed and had reasons why I couldn't think properly and, and some achy joints and some shooting pains, and just overall health was being impacted. I was in the midst of a master's degree in education and special education had been my career.
And then I also started working on my doctorate in 2006, once I got better. And I decided to look at what was going on in the Lyme disease world and find out who was helping the children. And the support groups were doing massive amounts of work with helping people who had contracted Lyme disease. And they were doing as much prevention as they could. But the overwhelming thing was there wasn't very much at all out there for children. And of course, I spent my whole life teaching and educating children. So it just made a good forward sense of let's put a program out there that helps kids learn about this sooner, so maybe we can prevent the incidence and reduce their incidence rate, especially between five and 14 year olds.
Mark at Insect Shield
Right. Yeah, that's a really good point too, because I think there are many organizations obviously that focus on the disease itself. And prevention is not as much a focus as is, you know, thinking about a cure, or, you know, the symptoms, obviously, very impactful, but prevention's is a way to get out ahead of it and not wind up in those situations. So that's, that's great. So you started doing what exactly, when you realized that kids were underserved in this area?
Dr. Nancy Fox
Yes. I wrote “No tics please,” the first book in 2010. And then I wrote a sequel for that's basically a picture book for second graders and younger to start teaching kids about be aware and it's in a fun way, non-threatening way not a scary way. Although parents are still concerned about that. It's scarier for your child to contract one of those bacteria or viruses from a tick than it is to read a book about it and say, Hey, this is something we should acknowledge, have knowledge about, like a mosquito, nobody gets excited about mosquitoes except that they're biting them.
So then I wrote “Hide and seek no ticks please.” Which is third to fifth grade. Right now working on one for the middle school age kids. So yeah, I found that that was one way to make good outreach out there initially. And then the program came to be as I visited different areas and figured out what was happening in the Lyme disease world.
Mark at Insect Shield
How did you do your initial outreach? Did you contact schools yourself? Or what were the ways that you spread the word?
Dr. Nancy Fox
Well, here's the troublesome, the challenging part. You can contact a local school and ask a teacher to have you in as a presenter. Schools for the most part, and then there was COVID. So that's a whole other gamut. But they're not answering the call, so to speak.
So I then decided, well, the best way to educate kids is to write a K to 12 curriculum that gets embedded into all the aspects, you could do it and computer science, you could do it in reading, writing, math, and science. So I created a curriculum for all levels, K to 12, just specific areas from nine to 12. But that could be implemented so that all kids could know about this, obviously, I'm passionate about it. However, there have been a few private schools and one public school that have adopted the curriculum.
But it's a hard sell. Because they're saying it's one more thing even though I designed it with the teachers that worked with me to not mean one more thing, it's integrated. So then that became a real struggle, we're still working on that. To get it in schools, what I found was most effective was summer day camps, YMCA, and Boys and Girls Clubs. That became our summer tour for the lyme education awareness foundation.
Mark at Insect Shield
Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. I mean, the schools are hard to change, I guess,
Dr. Nancy Fox
That's a great way to put it.
Mark at Insect Shield
Got enough going on. But which is unfortunate, because you want it to be a little more well-rounded, like you have access to the kids. And it's an educational, you know, environment. And why not put more useful information into that, you know, framework, but, okay, so you were able to reach out more easily to the Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCA such as it, is it mostly focused on camps? I mean, is that how you go into those communities?
Dr. Nancy Fox
Basically, that's where the kids are in the summer, since I couldn't break through with any kind of momentum with the school systems. And I decided, well, I'll go where the kids are, and they need. I've worked in summer day camps, early in my career. So I know, you need filler information. It's great if you can have a presenter, and it's an educational forum where they can learn about things they need to know. And especially during camp and being outside and doing those activities. It was a perfect fit.
Mark at Insect Shield
Yeah, I'm just thinking about my sons were, you know, counselors at camp, so they would definitely welcome that kind of stuff. You know, that's really interesting. So it seems like there are so many of those that you could almost do that exclusively. Right. I know that, you know, resources are a thing.
Dr. Nancy Fox
Mark, let's talk about two weeks ago, when my vice president and I were on the road for six days, 2000 miles, 1100 kids served in the New England area.
Mark at Insect Shield
Oh, my goodness.
Dr. Nancy Fox
That was one week of the LEAF programs. And we were tired. So we've taken a little bit of time and rested a little bit. And going back out there. We've had a couple of other presentations. But that's a lot to do in a short period of time.
Mark at Insect Shield
Sure. Well one of the things I looked at. It's like you've got the curriculum already. Right. So yes. I mean, one of your goals that sounded like was to reach out to other people that could just take this curriculum, curriculum and run with it themselves. So that would be awesome. I mean, we can think about more ways to do that. And Insect Shield is involved in some things like this, you know, we're, there are meetings or just trying to get the same kind of word out there. Like this is a resource, you know. So that is great. I mean, almost that could be your full time job.
Dr. Nancy Fox
Yes, I'm waiting to retire so I can make it my full time. But my husband has a couple criteria in mind.
Mark at Insect Shield
Good. How have you, you know, the people that you've worked with so far? Or is anybody else kind of willing to step in and help? Or how have you found other volunteers?
Dr. Nancy Fox
We have, we have worked with that we have had some people volunteer, I must say, well, well, in 2019, or summer tour, reached 5000 Kids 16 states 11,000 miles. And then of course, 2020, COVID hit and then everything has slowed almost to a halt, I was really thrilled to get back out on the road. And with the intensity, even though it sounds like a lot, the intensity of reaching that many kids since COVID. It's really encouraging.
So we've had a little bump in the road, so to speak. And I just, I just want to do more, because while we were on tour a couple of weeks ago, we were able to remove with a lint roller two ticks and with tweezers off a shoe at a camp that we were educating there. Yeah. And I don't know that those kids would have been aware. Without us being there is my concern. I don't know that it's true, but it is my concern.
Mark at Insect Shield
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So I'm wondering, like, what in terms of outreach and people that can help you, what are the types of people that you would like to connect with to help?
Dr. Nancy Fox
Well, I need educators, I need volunteers, I need corporate [sponsors and volunteers], I need some help from businesses and corporate to fund the program. So we can actually go out there. We were talking about Noah [Johnston of Project Lyme] earlier and they were able to give us 1000 brochures to help people who, because what happens when we go out on tour is that we give every child a bag, a LEAF bag, we call it it's a black tie back bag with a sling back. And inside that bag, we give prevention information, we give a brochure, we give our tick song, we give information about tweezers, we give them information, we give coloring pages from my coloring book. And they can also download those on our website.
So we want it to be ongoing and we want to spread the information to the parents, as well as give that presentation to the kids. We demonstrate how to properly remove a tick we tell the kids, we're because a lot of people were worried about scaring the kids. Well guess what we talked to the kids about having superpowers. Number one, insect repellents or Insect Shield would be great. Sure, number two daily tick checks, and the tick song goes with that. And number three, to educate their friends and families that there are three superpowers that they are now in charge of preventing ticks. So that's how we spin it in a very encouraging way to get kids on board.
Mark at Insect Shield
Yeah, that's great. I mean, that's a really good point about scaring people. And it's kind of one of those things where it's better to have the information. You know, it doesn't have to be a scary thing. It's in fact, like you said, it's kind of a superpower or an empowering thing to understand, rather than, Oh, this ticks on me, what does that mean? You know, oh my god, I'm gonna die. You know, it's like, no, no, just take the right steps and go from there. So I really liked this whole idea of reaching, you know, out to many, many people that's really about awareness. You know, it's not to scare people. Well, that's awesome. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the other kinds of partnerships or anything else that you've got going on?
Dr. Nancy Fox
Well, you know, and that just we've talked about it. I told my Vice President Christina Murphy who's on tour with me. And she's still Lyme positive, she's still dealing with the ongoing issues of Lyme. And she's such a trooper, and that was a really tough week for her. But she was there and getting it done.
And after we were at that camp with 200, campers, and we find three ticks with no problem, they happen to be an American Dog Tick, we actually were able to send a couple of them away and find out and we're waiting for test results. But what we what we realized is we're a drop in an ocean. Yeah. And the curriculum that I created was supposed to help with a range in the educational world. But you know, we've had some trouble with challenges with that of getting it where it needs to go.
So the next step for us would be to create an app that is interesting for kids, and give them their superpowers and be able to that would be to go out there and create an app that would actually teach what we teach that we can't be on the road 24/7 Getting to everyone who needs it. Maybe that would be our avenue, just one more avenue to reach kids in a great way. And, and we've perfected this to the point well, I don't believe in perfection. But we made this such an encouraging presentation, that people should come on board.
Mark at Insect Shield
Sure. Yeah, that's a great idea. I think an app, you know, what we've found, too, and trying to reach customers and so forth, is that if you've got to have a whole kind of blended approach, you know, because in person is always going to be best. I mean, there's no, there's no question. But once you have that, or in order to get that you need these other, you know, channels, whatever you want to call it.
So I think that an app makes a lot of sense. Having stuff on the web, because somebody hears about it, they can go find that easily. We'll put links below the interview here on our page, but Well, this is all super interesting. And I hope that we can just continue to have this conversation because like I said, I mean, kids are a vital part of understanding and awareness and not being reached as well as they might be, as you've said.
So, Nancy Fox, president of the Lyme education awareness Foundation, it has been great talking to you today. Thanks so much.
Dr. Nancy Fox
Thank you, Mark. It's been a pleasure to be with you today.