Stephanie, I am not sure if this helps, but I thought I should share what my center does. First I have to explain that I work at the center that provide childcare for medically fragile children, called Priscribed Pediatric Extended Care (PPEC). Some states have PPEC, but not well known to general public. We are considered as a medical facility, has at least one nurses in a classroom and a nurse's tech who has ECE background. We are considered essential so we are open. Although we are medical facility, our resources are limited to daily use, in case of outbreak in the center. Here is what we do now. I hope you can get an idea what you can do.
1. Screen employees, parents and children in the foyer which is blocked from classroom and hallway with door. Screening has to be done by others, not self. Temperature over 99.1 with forehead thermometer (there is a kind you don't have to tough the forehead to read temp) can't stay and 48 hours fever free to come back. Questioning about sore throat, cough, exposure to COVID last 14 days, travel in the last 14 days. Record them and name of the person screen with signature too. When someone gets positive CDC will ask, who had contact with who and what type of contact. So recording will make this easier for the director. Director should avoid contact with children so the director can be present without quarantine. Only essential workers' children are allowed to come to keep numbers low.
2. No visitors or therapists are allowed to come in the building.
3. Employees wear masks at all times in the area children are and wear gloves when toutching children. Wash hands between helping each child. To pick up child, employee wears a hospital gown (the ones regular doctor has). Assign one gown for each child and wash gowns daily. Take off gowns inside out to store for the day.
4. Only assigned nurse and nurse's tech are allowed to access to the assigned children. No other staffs are allowed to help. Again, keep the record so CDC can determine who needs to be quarantine.
5. Let children spend as much times outside. It's almost impossible to keep them separate, but outdoor is better than indoor. Sanitize outdoor toys after use.
6. To do activity at table, assign seats a part, provide materials individually.
7. Don't leave toys on the shelves. Give each child a tray, pick toys for the day and keep the toys in their tray. Sanitize daily or during a nap time.
8. No family style meal times. Let each child has their food. Assign their seat apart.
9. Crest a quarantine room, in case a child becomes ill. Empty the room so sanitizing after is easier. The room should have a door. Stock up with sanitizing materials, gloves, N95 mask for the designated employee, hospital grade washable PPE gown, phone, child's emergency record, termometer etc.
10. One employee is assigned for extra cleaning throughout a day. The employee is not allowed to help with children at all.
I know childcare center has minimum resources for PPE. The nurse I work with told me, paint suits or coverall can be used for PPE gown. Face shield for weldering can be used too. Handmade mask with maxipad as a filter, if no N95 mask is not available. Of course it's best for government to provide right kind of PPE, but if doctors and nurses have to create their own PPE in some areas, we might have to do so too. I hope this helps...
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Kazumi Francis
Priscribed Pediatric Extended Care Tech
Caring Hearts
Crestview FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-03-2020 04:02 AM
From: Stephanie Louis
Subject: The Government Should Provide PPE for Childcare Staff
You bring up alot of valid points. To add on what your saying;
1)How am I, as an educator, suppose to tell a child to stay 6 feet apart from their peers? I'm afraid that some children may suffer emotional trauma because of everything going on and some educators may not know how to handle it or might be too nervous to handle this situation.
2) What if all the educators in the daycare center do not feel comfortable going to work for all the reasons you listed above? Should they choose between: health, paying bills and protecting their families?
4)There's been doctors, nurse and medical staff that got coronavirus, while using protection at work and these employees were required to learn proper hand-washing, glove and mask protection to even get the job. How would we truly protect ourselves if were still at risk with protective equipment?
What should we do in this situation?
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Stephanie Louis
Assistant Director
Everett MA
Original Message:
Sent: 04-01-2020 01:07 PM
From: Tim Kaminski
Subject: The Government Should Provide PPE for Childcare Staff
State and local governments as well as health officials have decided to close University and Public Schools for the rest of the school year or at least through the end of April due reduce the risk of spreading the corona virus. Public school teachers and staff are being paid to work from home, or getting paid to be at home due to safety concerns even though they are not working. Most states at this point have been put on some type of lock down, with orders for the public to "Stay at Home" and not participate in group gatherings and to social distance from everyone.
At the same time, those same state and local officials are telling childcare centers that they need to stay open so that "essential workers" can still go to work. The term "essential workers" is pretty broad based at this point, which means that not only would a center have families and children coming to them that work in the healthcare industry, but additional families and children that are exposed to the general public in places such as grocery stores, hardware stores, restaurant delivery services etc. If there was so much concern about public schools and public venues being a risk to people getting the virus, why then was that same level of concern or respect not shown to childcare centers, young children and the staff and teachers that work in these locations.
All healthcare workers and first responders have been told that they need Personal Protection Equipment to decrease their risk of getting the virus and as we know there is a shortage of this equipment nation wide. However the guidance for childcare centers from the CDC and local health authorities, including childcare licensing, has been to limit access into the center, take temperatures, hand wash, clean surfaces, and limit group sizes to 10 and limit the students interactions with each other. From what planet do these people live on. Childcare Centers have the exact same level of exposure during the day that public schools and hospitals have due to the nature of the business. There is close human contact throughout the day because we are taking care of interacting with kids. If these same kids parents, work in environments where they are potentially exposed to the corona virus, then common sense would say, that those people are increasing the risk, that the virus will be introduced into the center, even if the parent never steps foot inside the center. The children can easily carry it in after hugging or kissing their parent good bye, or by the virus being on the surface of other items brought into the center by the child.
Therefore if the government is going to ask that we stay open, they need to provide us with the proper protection and mandate that this protection be used while attending to the students, just like in the other high exposure settings.
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Tim Kaminski
Director/Owner
Gingerbread Kids Academy
Richmond TX
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