Dear Goodstart Families,
Sending your child to the high-quality early learning centre they regularly attend is even more important today than it was yesterday.
We know that children are well served by continuing with their usual routines at times of uncertainty and stress but that many parents are concerned about their child’s health and well-being due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Some of the things we are doing to keep children and educators safe within our centres include:
- Our centres have very well practised infection control procedures and our teams have the training to ensure good hygiene is occurring on our watch.
- Our centres are cleaned daily with hospital grade cleaning products and in the right way.
- We are strictly enforcing rigorous exclusion policies for children and Goodstarters in all our centres in line with advice from the public health authorities, with whom we are in frequent contact. At times we’ve gone higher than public health requirements because we know the health risks in our centres.
- We’re banning all, but essential visitors and we’ve put a stop to excursions, and enforcing social distancing by adults in line with Government guidelines. We’re using our extensive educational expertise to implement social distancing practices for children as well.
- If children are sick, please keep them home. If educators are sick, we will send them home.
COVID-19 is different from other diseases. One thing we do know is that children who contract the disease are likely to develop mild, if any, symptoms. While no-one knows why this is, it’s a key reason why the Chief Health Officer of Australia, Professor Brendan Murphy, says it’s safer to have children together than at home with adults.
There is a real risk that having children at home could mean they can pass the illness on to more vulnerable people (such as the elderly or the chronically ill). We know that many parents are thinking about using alternative types of care, especially those offered by friends and family. We want you to know all the facts to help you make the safest decision for the important people in your life – your children and your family.
We’ll continue to do all we can to keep our centres open to offer high quality early learning in safe environments during this challenging time.
Please read on for more detail on the actions we are taking. You can also view our response here.
In our centres
We have strong hygiene measures already in place in all our centres to protect our children and Goodstart teams, and our centres remain open.
We are also enforcing strict exclusions to protect our Goodstart family.
We will close centres if we have a confirmed case of COVID-19 or if we are instructed to by Public Health. In the event of a closure, no fees will be charged, and we will advise you immediately of the issue.
As a further level of protection all non-essential activities such as incursions, excursions have been cancelled and non-essential visitors will not be admitted to our centre.
These activities provide additional learning experiences for children but due to the current situation we must do all we can to protect your children and our team.
Highly experienced in health and hygiene
Many families are understandably nervous about their children’s health.
Our team is highly experienced in dealing with outbreaks of infectious disease and we have Public Health approved infection control processes.
The health professional on our national Health and Safety team are working with us and advising on infection control procedures. We use hospital-grade cleaning products and have rigorous hygiene practices and protocols in place.
Hand washing remains the best defense against the spread of illnesses and all staff and children are implementing this within the centre.
It is also important to remember that maintaining your child’s daily routines and positive relationships can be beneficial during uncertain and stressful times.
We need your help too
We all need to play a role in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Please keep your child home and notify us if:
- they have a temperature of 38°C or above. We will not be doing specific temperature checks at the centre, however we will still be monitoring children during the day as we always do
- they are unwell or showing symptoms of COVID-19
- they are undergoing testing for COVID-19
- they have recently returned from any overseas country since the 13th March.
- if they have been in in close contact with confirmed COVID-19 case.
If you have any questions, please contact your Centre Director or you can call 1800 222 543 for more information.
- Julia Davison, CEO, Goodstart Early Learning