From the Office
To our Y Families
During this increasingly challenging time, we want to reassure you that we are continuing to closely monitor, adapt and respond to the evolving situation in order to provide support and care for everyone in our community as best we can. All of our decisions and actions are based on advice from the Australian Government and to date we have been advised to continue services.
Staffing Changes
In order to continue services we have had to make a number of changes to the way we operate, one of which is reducing the number of staff we have on site. We will still be maintaining the required child to educator ratios, however, due to significantly reduced attendance rates we no longer have the capacity to maintain all staff at this time. As soon as this situation changes, staff will return to work.
This has been an incredibly difficult decision, which has not been made lightly. We are working closely with staff who have been stood down to ensure they are supported through this time and are ready to return to work as the situation changes.
Interim changes to our drop off and pick up procedure
As we continue to revise and adapt our health and safety in response to Covid 19, we will be implementing a new drop off and pick procedure. From Monday our front doors will be locked and families will need to ring the doorbell for access (the door bell will be sanitised regularly). Our staff will be expecting you and greet you at the door with the sign in register. The same procedure will apply at pick up. We hope you understand these measures are in place to protect our families and staff.
Government Updates and information
The most up to date Government information regarding your eligibility for child care subsidy, additional child care subsidy, family tax benefits, child support and more is located at the Australian Government Services website: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/subjects/affected-coronavirus-covid-19/families-coronavirus-covid-19
If we can be of any assistance please contact us at the Centre.
Explaining Coronavirus to children
We recently shared this resource on our Children Programs Facebook page to help families explain Coronavirus to children. If you missed it, here it is again.
At home resources
With some of your local play and recreation centres temporarily closed, please find below some great online resources to keep your family entertained and active during isolation periods at home. These are all free and we encourage you to share them with friends and family.
Blockly
https://blockly.games
Learn computer programming skills – fun and free
Ted Ed
https://ed.ted.com
All sorts of engaging educational videos
National Geographic Kids
https://www.natgeokids.com/au/
Activities and quizzes for younger kids
Duolingo
https://www.duolingo.com
Learn languages for free. Web or app
Tinkercad
https://www.tinkercad.com
All kinds of making
Red Ted Art
https://www.redtedart.com
Easy arts and crafts for the little ones
Twinkl
https://www.twinkl.com.au/
This is more for printouts, and usually at a fee, but they are offering a month of free access to parents in the event of school closures
OR
Attached are some additional home resources which might be helpful at this time.
eWater
As a unique advantage of our exclusive partnership with eWater, the Y is pleased to offer our families access to take-home eWater supplies for sanitising and cleaning. There are some important usage guidelines to take note of here and your centre will advise how they will facilitate refills.
Please bring a minimum of two clean and dry spray bottles (One can be used for the Cleaning Solution and the other for Sanitiser). Spray bottles can be left with us in the morning to be filled and will then available when you arrive to pick up your child/ren.
As mentioned, there are guidelines to use, with the most important being that eWater has a 7 day expiry i.e. it is effective for one week only. You will need to conduct refills weekly.
We really appreciate your cooperation in implementing these measures to ensure our centres remain a safe environment for everyone short description, vision, values etc