Kispiox Headstart COVID-19 Policies

Culture and Language

The culture and language component allows our children to experience their cultures and learn their languages. Activities give children a sense of belonging and an identity as a First Nations person.

Education

The education component promotes life-long learning with activities that encourage a child’s readiness to learn. Activities also focus on the physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and social development needs of children. Community members, including Elders, are involved in helping with early literacy activities, such as printing and recognizing sounds and words.

Health Promotion

The health promotion component encourages children and families to have a healthy lifestyle. Programming promotes physical activity, such as playground activities and traditional games. Staff promote self-care, such as helping children to brush their teeth, and encourage appropriate assessments for children (for example, vision and hearing testing).

Nutrition

Nutrition is an important part of healthy living. Good food can improve an individual’s health and poor or inadequate food can undermine health. Good eating habits established early can lead to better health throughout life.

Welcome Back! Kispiox Headstart Fall 2020

Dear Families,

We are looking forward to re-connecting with children and families and welcoming everyone back to our program. We have missed you and your children and are excited to see you all in person. We want to ensure that families feel comfortable returning and are informed about how our program will operate now and in the coming months during this challenging time.

Many things have changed in our world lately and moving forward will require some adjustment. We want you to know that the heart of our program will remain the same. We are committed to providing a nurturing and caring environment for your children. At the same time and in order to keep children, families, staff and communities safe we have a number of new policies and procedures that will reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure. In the days ahead we will be asking all of our families to assist us in following these new procedures so that we can keep everyone safe.

Our team will be adjusting our program to put these new policies and procedures in place. We will be re-arranging the classroom environment, daily routines and safety practices to do everything possible to follow the guidelines recommended for physical distancing and increased cleaning published by the BC Centre for Disease Control and the Ministry of Health and licensing.

At the same time, we also want to assure families that children will be cared for in a safe, warm and nurturing environment. Staff will be working to balance physical distancing while continuing to provide the loving care and direct support children need. Additionally, children learn through exploration and play with their peers. It is not appropriate to stop children from interacting as this is important for their social and emotional well-being. Considering this, it is important for our families to think about whether they are comfortable with the risks involved in attending group child care.

In order to keep informed and understand our new policies and procedures please carefully read the information in this package as it includes important health and safety information and details about specific policies and procedures to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19.

In order to keep your children safe staff will focus on:

  • Modelling and encouraging regular hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette (washing hands & how to cough and sneeze safely)
  • Encouraging and planning for physical distancing
  • Ensuring additional cleaning measures are in place

Over the days ahead we will be in touch to answer your questions and discuss the needs of your family. You are also welcome to contact us at any time. We would like to thank all of our families for their understanding and support as we make these changes.

We are going to ask that you do the health check list everyday before coming to the Headstart and that you please contact us if you can not attend for any of the reasons on the list.

We will be assigning drop off times and at what door you drop off, front door or the back. This is to help with parents social distancing.

For now, we will be signing your child in every morning.

For the start of the year Teacher Dustie will be away and Teacher Deb will be staying full days.

If you have any concerns or questions please feel free to contact us

Tina Helin Manager

Samantha Combs Assistant Manager

250 842 4106

kispoheadstart99@hotmail.com

We are so excited to get back to our wonderful days spent with the children.