Hand Washing for Kids - A Childs Guide to Hand Hygiene

Raising awareness about hand washing to help reduce the spread of germs is extremely important. The sooner children get into the habit of washing their hands regularly, the better.

This pack has been produced to support the promotion of this important health issue. It’s full of ideas and materials to encourage children to make hand washing part of their everyday routine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why has this pack been developed?
What is the purpose of the Hand Hygiene Packs?
Why is frequent hand washing so important?
What is covered in the pack?
Which age group is the pack designed for?
Can I download Sammy Soap?
I’ve used the materials contained in the pack, where can I get more?
What else is being done to encourage good hand hygiene?

Answers

1. Why has this pack been developed?

This pack has been developed to help children understand the importance of hand washing. It was produced by the NHS in Hull and East Riding of Yorkshire, in partnership with:

NHS Hull
NHS East Riding Of Yorkshire
Humber Mental Health Teaching Trust,
Hull and Goole Port Authority
Hull City Council
East Riding Council

2. What is the purpose of the Hand Hygiene Packs?

Children need to understand why it is important to wash their hands. To do this they need help from their parents, their carers, their teacher or from a member of staff at their nursery. The purpose of the pack is to support those roles and provide practical advice so that children introduce the simple practice of hand washing into everyday life. Encouraging children from an early age to wash their hands will help to ensure that this practice becomes a lifelong habit.

3. Why is frequent hand washing so important?

Frequent hand washing is one of the single most important things we can do to help to reduce the spread of infections and prevent ill health. For example, good hand hygiene in children will help to prevent the spread of common communicable infections such as colds and tummy bugs. Getting this message out to children will also help to influence their hand washing practices at home as well as at school.

4. What is covered in the pack?

The pack contains

Posters featuring cartoon characters called Sammy Soap, Sally Splash, Rosie Rinse and Mr Dry to encourage regular hand washing.
Colouring-in and join-the-dots pictures of the characters.
Tips for teachers to help make hand washing part of the school day.
A fun reward chart that can be filled out when children wash their hands. (This can be photocopied or downloaded and given out to pupils each week.)
Stickers of Sammy to reward children for washing their hands – these could be given out at the end of each week.
A Sammy hand puppet
A counting chart (Maths sheets)
Letter puzzles (English Sheets)
An online survey to help us gauge the success and usefulness of this campaign.

5. Which age group is the pack designed for?

The pack has been designed specifically for use by children between the ages of four and six and is supported by materials available from this website.

6. Can I download Sammy Soap?

Yes - there is a downloadable image of Sammy on this website. This can be printed out at any size you want, so it can be used in lots of different ways. For example, you could use this to make your own reward chart. Or, you could print out a large Sammy and put him onto cardboard to act as hand-washing monitor.

7. I’ve used the materials contained in the pack, where can I get more?

All the materials contained in the pack are available for download from this website.

8. What else is being done to encourage good hand hygiene?

The online education packs form part of a wider hand hygiene campaign to reduce avoidable infections and viruses.

‘Give Soap a Chance’ was launched in March 2009, following the success of the NHS in Hull and East Yorkshire in tackling infections within the region’s hospitals.

The campaign has been supported with the production a series of leaflets, posters, stickers and business packs, whilst hand-washing demonstrations and presentations have been attracting the crowds in shopping centres, business conferences and schools throughout the region. As well as capturing the imagination of local and regional media, the campaign has been praised by officials at the Department of Health in Whitehall, London.

This has given the campaign extra kudos. We are very pleased to have the chance to show what we have been doing to tackle infection prevention and control in our region, and we hope that further meetings will enable us to share some of our good practice to tackle this problem on a wider scale.