JAFA is thrilled to present My JIA, a comprehensive, user-friendly, and informative explanation of:
- the main types of JIA
- the main medications used in Australia and other non-medical therapies
- why and how your paediatric rheumatologist will monitor your JIA
- and what you and your family need to do to look after your JIA.
It includes tips for managing your school life and more and is suitable for children from mid to late primary school to older children, parents, grandparents, teachers, day care staff, child minders and others – and could easily be read to younger children (download your copy here).
My JIA has been adapted and reproduced for Australia by JAFA with kind permission of its original authors and owners, Juvenile Arthritis Research (JAR) in the UK. JAR is a small but very pro-active juvenile arthritis non-profit based in England. It is a member of the European Network for Childhood Arthritis (ENCA) and is one of the organisations that started WORD Day – the international day for juvenile arthritis. JAR and JAFA are very similar in many ways and collaborate and help each other in whatever ways we can.
JAFA warmly thanks the Australian paediatric rheumatology professionals (nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and doctors) and parents, who carefully reviewed, revised and helped JAFA adapt My JIA to make it optimally suitable and relevant to Australia. You can see the list of people who helped under ‘acknowledgements’ at the beginning of the booklet.
JAFA is truly pleased and proud to bring you this much-needed information under one cover, and hope it will help you and your family to better understand and manage your JIA. And, of course, JAFA sincerely thanks JAR for their generosity in letting us adapt their very useful booklet, and for their friendship.
Enjoy the reading and please feel to circulate My JIA to your families, health care providers, schools and anyone else you think might benefit from reading it.
We invite you to join the JAFA community. JAFA has no formal membership and no fees – people are free to come and go as they please. JAFA is committed to connecting and informing you on upcoming events, programs, campaigns, new treatments and advances in treatments and our Online Symposia Series.
