Hands Up for Hygiene
Ann Marie Mccullough talks about her Food Standards Agency grant funded project developed following a local health-needs survey and carried out by Stockport Council Environmental Health and Trading Standards Service.
An overwhelming theme that emerged from the survey was hand washing and infection control, particularly amongst school aged children. A ‘hand hygiene awareness’ project was developed. Children were chosen as recipients of the programme because of the particular risk they pose in contracting and spreading enteric infections. Schools were identified as the most appropriate setting in which to deliver the message.
Aims and Objectives
Aim
Good personal hygiene is essential for good health and hand washing is an important part of maintaining this healthy lifestyle. The aim of the project was to target as many primary aged children as possible with this message within the allotted timescale.
Overall Objectives
- To support teachers, midday assistants, parents and carers in promoting good hand hygiene and to change the culture with regard to effective hand washing.
- To teach children about the spread of germs and disease.
- Increase awareness amongst the target group about the importance of hand washing in reducing the spread disease.
- To facilitate the teaching of a good hand washing technique.
- To use schools as a setting for the health based message.
- To work in partnership with ‘Sure Start’ to deliver a programme in the ‘Sure Start’ area to reduce the incidence of enteric infections amongst the under 4’s.
- To develop a teaching resource to support teaching staff in sustaining the hand hygiene message.
Partners
Stockport Council Environmental Health and Trading Standards
Adswood and Bridgehall
Sure Start
PZ Cussons
Stockport NHS Primary Care Trust
Stockport Education Service
Methodology
A range of health professionals including health visitors, school nurse’s, Community Development workers and Infection Control staff were surveyed via a questionnaire. The health workers were asked to suggest topics that they felt were important health issues within the borough. The External Liaison team (a team within environmental health) looked at the results of the questionnaire with the objective of developing projects around any issues that were raised. One of the key issues raised was effective hand washing in school age and preschool children.
Facilitators spent half a day in each school working with the children and staff to promote the hand washing message. A range of activities were developed to engage the children and demonstrate how germs can be spread and the importance of effective hand washing. An Ultra Violet ‘Glo box’ and ‘magic’ disclosure cream was used to demonstrate effective hand washing. Objects covered with the ‘magic’ cream were passed around the class to demonstrate how easily germs can be spread. All the children took part in an exercise using disclosure cream and the ‘glo box’. The cream was put on their hands and they were able to view them before and after washing.
A discussion then took place about how effective their hand washing had been. Many of the children noted that they had missed areas on their hands. They were then shown an effective technique for washing their hands.
All 97 schools in the borough were given a Hand Hygiene Teaching Pack containing worksheets and support material linking to the National Curriculum. The idea of the pack was to help teaching staff sustain the hand hygiene message. Those schools that did not take part in the workshops are able to use the pack to support science and PHSE lessons.
Resources
The project was funded by a Food Standards Agency Grant.
Evaluation
There are 97 primary schools in the Stockport borough. The intention was to target a percentage of the schools in the months from June until December 2004. Sixty-six schools were visited during this period and a total of 4,520 children took part in hand hygiene workshops. Every child that took part in a workshop was given an information leaflet to take home.
A selection of qualitative and quantitative methods were used in order to establish that the main objectives of the project had been met.
- School Questionnaire Teachers were asked to evaluate the workshop sessions, activities and support material.
- Schools were given questionnaires to complete following the workshop session. A total of 56 questionnaires were distributed and a response rate of 64% was achieved.
- Home Questionnaire A sample of children from the schools visited were given questionnaires to take home. These were designed in order to determine whether the children had shown any increased awareness of the importance of hand washing at home. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed and a response rate of 25% was achieved.
Qualitative Information Staff and children were asked at the end of each workshop to write comments – what they liked, did not like and what they had learned on post it notes. This allowed for immediate feedback and a record of qualitative information. Feedback showed that without exception those taking part rated the scheme as good or excellent and that the message had had an effect on subsequent hand washing behaviour. .
Future Developments
We will make effective use of the evaluation and use it’s findings to improve the project long-term. We are pleased with the success of the project and the positive feedback from the schools that took part. We would like to share our experiences and good practice with other local authorities and are currently considering options for dissemination of the teaching materials
Contact Details
Contact Name: Ann Marie Mccullough
Job Title: Environmental Health Officer
Address: Environmental Health & Trading Standards, Stopford House, Piccadilly, Stockport, SK1 3XE.
Telephone: 0161 474 4181
Email: Ann-Marie.Mccullough@stockport.gov.uk
Organisation: Stockport Council
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