School's back, and as the kids get their heads together it's likely you'll have some uninvited guests come home for a sleep-over. Current statistics from NSW Health indicate that 23 per cent of the students that have participated in Nitbusters have head lice. Any one with a head can catch them - regardless of age, sex, background or how clean your hair is. And it takes only one infested head to infest a whole class. So, who you gonna call?

What is Nitbusters?

Nitbusters is a joint project between NSW Health, NSW Department of Education & Training (DET), and the Federation of P & C Associations. It aims to educate schools, children and parents about head lice and how to remove them. To be successful, treatment must be community-based and ongoing. Nitbusters achieves this by treating an entire school in one Nitbusting Day and teaching school communities how to manage treatment in the future.

Nitbusters is aimed not so much at eradicating head lice as, more realistically, at identifying and managing them. Nitbusters tries to educate communities through schools about the most effective ways to reduce populations of head lice.

Nitbusters has held training days in many primary schools in New South Wales since its inception in 2001. At most training days, neighbouring schools participated and subsequently ran Nitbusting Days in their own schools.

How does Nitbusters work?

Nitbusters is self-supporting and has been widely promoted among the public, private and Catholic school systems. Initially, a number of training days and seminars were held around NSW with community health and school nurses, public health nurses, school liaison and welfare consultants, and school prinicipals and teachers.

The aim of the pilot was to hold demonstrations in as many of the 40 school districts in NSW as possible. Schools were nominated and one school was selected on a first come basis in each school district. In some country areas, several schools were chosen in the one district to compensate for distance.

Nominated schools were asked to encourage neighbouring schools to attend the demonstration day.

The objective of the demonstration Nitbusting Days was to reach as many potential Nitbuster teams as possible so that they can run the program in their school community and tell others how to do it.

NSW Health emailed or posted the Nitpack to each school and began organising their Nitbusting Days. On a Nitbusting Day, children who have a signed parent consent form are screened and treated for head lice using a simple method of head lice combing with conditioner. Parents and school groups also learn about treatment options and how to co-ordinate a Nitbusting Day in their schools throughout the year.

Nitbusters is not difficult to co-ordinate or run. All you need are eager parents, a supportive school, and lots of kids with head lice to make a successful Nitbusting Day.

The following is a list of schools where demonstration days have been held. You may wish to contact the school and talk with principal and parents, probably through the P & C, about their program.