community teaching plan aims at educating young children to learn and adopt effective hand hygiene characterized by a proper frequency and quality of handwashing behavior.

Community Teaching Plan Handwashing Discussion

Introduction

Children pick harmful disease-causing germs from what they touch. Young children are at a greater risk of contracting infectious diseases such as meningitis, common cold, flu, and chickenpox through poor hand hygiene. Other dangerous diseases that children can acquire from poor hand hygiene include respiratory infections, diarrhea, and salmonella, which they can also transmit to other people. Knowledge and proper education on hand hygiene can help children to avoid contracting and spreading harmful germs that are a threat to their lives. Effective handwashing is a major primary prevention approach in preventing deadly diseases caused and spread by poor hand hygiene. This community teaching plan aims at educating young children to learn and adopt effective hand hygiene characterized by a proper frequency and quality of handwashing behavior.

Summary of the Teaching Plan

This teaching plan aims at teaching school-age children between 5-6 years about proper handwashing. The activity took place at the kindergarten with a class size of 30 students. Given the age bracket of the children, several effective teaching techniques were used to help in improving their concentration as well as to pass the message effectively. I used posters with elaborate pictures to help the children easily memorize what they are taught. Role-plays were also used to help the children experiment with, explore, and even investigate what they are taught. I also used popular songs such as ‘row the boat’ and ‘happy birthdays’ to break the learning monotony as well as create a happy learning environment enjoyed by the children.

The children watched a video on handwashing then led to practice by themselves supervised and guided by an adult. I provided the children with flashcards that have detailed visual lessons that teach children the art of effective handwashing. The major objective of the lesson is to help the children to learn proper hand hygiene through handwashing. Some of the learning outcomes include; knowing when to wash hands, the importance of washing hands, and proper hand hygiene. Children must develop a handwashing etiquette using elaborate yet simple steps. These steps keep them from developing ailments and diseases caused by germs.

The epidemiological rationale for Handwashing

Hand hygiene-HH is rapidly becoming a critical health concern for the public. The efficiency of hand hygiene is obtained by a combination of hand drying and washing efficiency. However, there is very scanty information to the public, especially young children about efficient hand hygiene behavior. Young children are the most susceptible to infections such as the flu, cold, gastrointestinal ailments, and other respiratory viruses (Staniford, L. J., & Schmidtke, K. A. (2020). These problems are caused by poor handwashing behavior or the lack of it. Besides, poor hand hygiene in children is the number one cause of stomach problems and diarrhea. Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) indicates that 1 out 5 children suffer from respiratory problems such as pneumonia, whereas 1 out 3 children get infected with diarrhea due to poor hand hygiene. This statement means that many children risk contracting infectious diseases if proper hand hygiene is not observed.

Effective handwashing is one of the best ways of curbing disease transmission in young children. Using soap is the best approach in removing disease pathogens from the hands while preventing infectious diseases from spreading among the children. In this lesson, I will teach the children how to wash their hands effectively and the importance of handwashing. Most of the children from the study group are already aware that they need to wash their hands regularly. However, there is a gap in terms of information/education about how to properly wash hands. An empirical study conducted in 2019 by Suen et al., indicated that handwashing is 85% effective in removing microorganisms from the hand (p. 9). This factor means that simple handwashing with soap protects children from harmful bacteria and viruses that may cause serious health infections.

Many illnesses in adults and children begin with contaminated/dirty hands that have disease-causing viruses and bacteria. The hands of young children can easily get contaminated after using a toilet. For example, just one gram of human feces contain up to 10 million viruses and 1 million bacteria. Feces of young children are more pathogenic compared to adult feces. This fact alone shows how dangerous poor hand hygiene can get