A skin cancer patient is hoping her story will encourage school children and their parents to take the slip, slop, slap' message seriously.

Kirsty Blackburn was diagnosed with skin cancer at the age of 26. She has now been given the all-clear and is helping The Bradford Skin Cancer Action Group launch a new teaching pack for schools and youth organisations in a bid to address the year-on-year rise in cases of skin cancer.

Children in Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale will be the first to take advantage of the project - Protect Your Little Sunbeams - before it is rolled out nationally.

The pack uses comic characters Captain Safe Sun, Junior Safe Sun and Evil Professor Sunburn to get across serious sun safety messages to children. It is hoped the children will then pass the message on to their parents.

The Bradford Skin Cancer Action Group from Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust came up with the idea for the project and it has now been sponsored by Skcin (the Karen Clifford skin cancer charity) in association with Uvistat Pharmaceuticals Company.

Bradford Bulls players, consultant dermatologist Andrew Wright and clinical nurse specialist Catherine Wheelhouse, from Bradford Teaching Hospitals, will also attend the launch event on Tuesday at Odsal Stadium during Sun Awareness Week.

Mrs Wheelhouse, a member of the British Association of Specialist Skin Cancer Nurses, has lobbied Parliament for a ban on coin-operated sun beds.

"It is a dangerous fashion," she said. "Children are being taught that smoking is bad for you and we are hoping to continue that work with skin cancer. The message is not about staying out of the sun but about showing them in a fun and easy-to-understand way how to best protect themselves when they're outdoors."

Slip-slop-slap is a health campaign which urges people to slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen and slap on a hat when going out in the sun.

In the UK skin cancer is the fastest rising cancer and rates of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, has increased by 43 per cent in the last 25 years. The youngest person to be treated for skin cancer in Bradford this year was 13 which is exceptionally rare, said Mrs Wheelhouse who added 15 people between the ages of 19 and 26 have also been treated.