Children have the right to a clean and safe environment

In October we celebrate Children’s Week, this year’s theme is “Children have the right to a clean and safe environment”.

Supporting the grown-ups in children’s lives to think deeper about how they help children to be aware of and take action on the UNCRC Article 24: Children have the right to good quality healthcare, clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that they will stay healthy.

When considering “children have the right to a clean and safe environment” it is so easy for us to think about sustainability and the broader external environment. Not only is it easy to think about, but it is also super important that this is considered within our day-to-day practice.

But what about if we delve deeper into the environment from the perspective of the services in which we provide children care, and the immediate internal and external environments where this is done.

• How clean are the environments?
• And how safe are they?

Our initial responses may be “very” especially as we need to meticulously ensure our policies and procedures are withheld.

When was the last time you got onto your knees and really had a look at what was happening at the child’s level? Or even, onto the floor where our bubs and smaller toddlers really love to explore.

What are the environments like now? Still clean and safe? A little overwhelming because everything seems a little bit bigger now and potentially a little dustier or sandier than you thought.

What about the safety aspects? Does the view that you have when you really get down to look, change?

Getting down and having a good look under our physical structures, such as sinks and tables, is a strategy many educators use to ensure they are able to keep the environments clean and safe at all levels.

It is amazing how easy it is to miss small hands rubbing left-over paint where us grown-ups don’t normally look and a friendly reminder that when we double check, we are helping to uphold the rights of children.

Consider practice when encouraging children to evaluate their learning and whether or not you plan for supporting children to tidy and/or clean up after themselves as an activity is finished. Whilst it may be easier to quickly do it behind them, does this help everyone long term?

Reflecting on yourself, is it easier to dump everything in the sink and clean it up “later” because everyone is so busy – what does this show children about how you provide a safe and clean environment? Sometimes it can feel a little uncomfortable to think about how our actions are influencing the next custodians of our environments. It’s okay, we have all been there, and we can all grow and do better.

Here are some tips on how you can help celebrate and highlight the importance that “children have the right to a clean and safe environment”:

• Have clear systems and expectations within your room. When everyone has the same expectations for the best clean and safe environments, keeping them that way is a breeze!
• Develop guidelines or a contract with the children in your room to keep the space health and safe for all.
• Explore activities that encourage the children to which you work to maintain cleanliness and safety.
• Use your words to remind children of their rights within everyday language. For example, use language like “you have the right to a clean environment, let’s clean this up now, so that someone doesn’t have to wash their hands in dirty water.”
• Get down, look up and under! Looking through the perspective of children you will be able to find places that might need some extra cleaning or maintenance to ensure safety.
• Build awareness into your daily rituals and find times within your day to remind children of their rights.