Proper hand washing in a child care setting is the single most important line of defense in preventing the transmission of disease-causing organisms. Keeping the environment free of bacteria helps keep your employees healthy and ready to come to work. It also lowers the risk of cross-contamination between the children, reducing the number of sick children.

When Should Hands be Washed? Child care staff should ideally wash their hands upon arrival at the child care center. Hands should always be washing before handling food, preparing bottles or feeding children and before handling any utensils or equipment. Child care staff should be cognizant to wash their hands after assisting a child in using the toilet or changing diapers. It is also important to wash hands after removing disposable gloves. Ozark River’s Lil Premier Portable Sink is child-height and provides instant scald-free hot water to facilitate proper hand washing for both adults and children.

Children should also be encouraged to wash their hands upon arrival at the child care center. This ensures that any germs they may have picked up on their way into the center are eliminated. They should wash their hands after a visit to the toilet and after each diaper change. When the children return from the playground and, before and after a water activity, hand washing should be strongly encouraged. Playground equipment almost never gets cleaned and harmful germs — such as mucus that kids wipe from their noses — can linger for days. Sandboxes are also a haven for germs and it is very important to wash children’s hands after they play in the sandbox. Ozark River’s Lil Premier Portable Sink doesn’t need any plumbing but can simply be set up in a convenient place in the classroom so that it’s close by when hand washing is necessary. If the sink is close by, it increases the odds that children will use it. All you need is an outlet — to plug in the sink and you are ready to go! Let’s keep those germs far away!