At every Cuddles Childcare Centre in the Perth area, hygiene is a major priority. We cannot stress strongly enough how important the issue of hygiene is to us. In an environment where people are bringing their children to us on a daily basis, those children are going to bring microorganisms in with them. So are staff members.
The only way to manage all of the microorganisms that people bring in and reduce the likelihood of spreading colds and childhood diseases is to ensure that the environment is as sanitary as possible. Luckily for you, your children and our staff, good hygiene greatly reduces the ability of microorganisms to spread and find new hosts.
What We Do at Cuddles Childcare Centres
At Cuddles Childcare Centres serving Perth and its suburbs such as Queens Park, we go to great lengths to ensure hygiene. Here are some of the things we do at each centre.
We educate children and staff about handwashing. Children are expected to wash their hands every time they go to the bathroom, blow their nose, touch anything dirty or eat. The staff has the standard professional requirements that a food service worker would have.
Children are also educated about oral hygiene.
In each centre, the foyer has a hand sanitiser for guests.
When serving food, each staff member wears a hair net and gloves.
The staff keeps the centre clean. On top of that, a professional cleaning crew comes in every weekend and thoroughly cleans the building.
Door mats are replaced once a week.
We have our school vans cleaned by professionals once a month.
We clean our green bins once a month.
Air conditioning and fire equipment are serviced every three months.
A professional pest control service visits each centre once every three months.
Why it is So Important
There are many reasons that it is important to keep a clean environment. The most important is that better sanitation results in less disease. We have seen studies published by the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing (PPPHW), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and numerous other organisations. The consensus of all of them is that handwashing diminishes the amount of people contracting many diseases by as much as 50%.
We focus on handwashing because it is one thing everyone can control. We can’t always control what is being done to our groundwater or our air, for example, but we can control our hands by simply washing them. Dirty hands not only spread bacterial, viral and fungal diseases, but can also cause chemical cross-contamination if there are chemical substances on one’s hands.
Handwashing is a habit that can make a huge difference in whether or not your child gets sick and the frequency of times your child gets sick.
As for food sanitation, we are also very aware of the way pathogens can be transferred through food. We make sure that we never contaminate food with our hands or with hair falling into food. We also adhere to all food sanitation practices.
Keeping our facility clean is another way to ensure the safety of your child. A dirty facility can spread diseases. It can also attract colonies of insects which can help spread disease. Mice are also quite attracted to a dirty facility and can play a huge part in spreading disease. If we keep the facility clean and have pest control personnel visit, it keeps insects and vermin out, removing one less risk factor for infectious diseases.
Further Information
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has compiled a guide called “Staying Healthy: Preventing infectious childhood diseases in early childhood education and care services.” The guide was updated in 2012 and basically confirms what we already know from over 20 years of caring for children and searching for ways to make our childcare centres as safe and healthy as possible.
Contact Cuddles Childcare Centres
If you need child care or are dissatisfied with your current child care centre, call any of our Perth locations or fill out the enquiry box to your right.
