Ongoing operations in the Coronavirus health crisis climate
In light of the return to the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) and the payment of gap fees, you should inform your families as soon as possible about the latest changes to your operations.
ACA has produced a template letter for our members to use as a starting point for writing to their families via a letter or email.
This has been emailed to members directly. If you have not received it, please contact your relevant ACA state body.
Health and safety
Some of your families may express their concern about their child’s health and safety in your service.
We recommend that you take a proactive approach and send your families regular notices to reassure them about the health status at your centre (ie. whether there have been any suspected cases or exclusions) and that you are following the advice of the Federal and State Governments.
You may wish to send them a link to our webpage "Is it safe for children and educators to continue attending early learning services in the current climate?".
Additionally it's a good time to remind them about your centre's best practice risk-management approach to infection prevention, hygeine standards and hygeine practices as required under Quality Area 2 (Children's Health & Safety) of the National Quality Framework.
You can may wish to refer your families to the DESE information for families here.
We also recommend Health Direct's webpage on the Coronavirus for parents considering school or childcare exclusions - it is updated regularly and offers useful advice to help decide if their child should be kept home or not. It also has a useful Coronavirus Symptom Checker.
Please note that the health care advice above advice may change at any stage, so please continue to check for the latest updates
In terms of a possible mandatory closure, we have produced a
document
template letter
folder
which you may wish to use as a starting point for notifying your families as soon as possible. Parents may have questions about whether they will be charged a fee. At this stage this is a business decision, pending further government announcements.
Click here to return to the Coronavirus Guidance Homepage.