smol and The Hygiene Bank have joined forces to support the thousands of teachers that are supporting pupils in hygiene poverty.
Our latest research shows that:
- School staff spent £40m of their own money supporting pupils in hygiene poverty in past year
- 80% of school staff have seen a rise in hygiene poverty in schools over the past year, as our research report reveals 4.2million adults in the UK are unable to afford hygiene basics
- Over a quarter of state school staff (28%) have seen children miss school entirely due to hygiene poverty, as staff note children arriving in dirty uniforms and with unclean hair
- Almost 9 in 10 (88% ) state school staff say they or another colleague have personally supported a pupil in hygiene poverty, with over a third (40%) personally washing pupils’ uniforms leaving teachers ‘distraught’, ‘powerless’ and asking for ‘radical change to be implemented’
What's to be done?
The government’s Child Poverty Taskforce MUST agree that any child poverty strategy is INCOMPLETE without plans to clean up child hygiene poverty.
How can you help?
Please use our template (linked below) to write to your own MP. Simply insert your own details so the email makes sense (it just takes a couple of minutes).
