Recently Noonday held a kid’s ministry leaders meeting over Zoom and Piedmont Church Children’s Pastor Aaron Collier shared the measures they were taking to reopen their children’s ministry during this unique season of COVID-19.
Stages of Opening
Consider opening your preschool area in stages to accommodate a limited number of children, teachers and rooms. Moving from one stage to another helps develop confidence in the system while providing care for a limited number of children. As time progresses, the preschool ministry can accommodate more children in a safe environment.
Check-In
- Check in stations will be manned by volunteers who will check in kids.
- Volunteers will ask the 4 questions to parents
- Are you displaying any of the symptoms of the COVID-19 virus?
- Have you been around anyone with COVID-19?
- Are you under quarantine for COVID-19?
- Have you been diagnosed as having COVID-19?
- Temperature checks will be given to kids checking in.
- One parent takes the child to check-in. Kids are escorted back to their area so that parents are not in the hallways.
- Social Distancing stickers are placed on a child once they have checked in, answered the 4 questions and passed the temperature check.
Facilities
- One way directional stickers will be placed in hallways
- 6 feet apart signs will be placed on the floors and hallways.
- Preschoolers will only stay for one hour with a 30 min. period between services. Worship service times have been adjusted to accommodate cleaning, traffic and volunteers.
- Each session hour will have a certain number of rooms designated for use. No room is used for more than one session.
- Bathroom, temperature and directional attendants will be enlisted to help in those areas.
- All rooms and areas will be cleaned after use each week.
- Sandwich boards are being used onsite to inform parents re. social distancing, etc.
General Guidelines
- Booties for teachers in rooms with kids under 2 will be available.
- No snacks will be offered to preschoolers and children during the sessions.
- Only plastic toys with washable surfaces are in preschool rooms. Plush toys and those that cannot be cleaned have been removed.
- Toys have been placed in two different bins, Bin A and Bin B. Once a toy has been played with by a child, it is removed and placed in a bin for cleaning.
- All teachers will wear masks.
- Custom plastic bags with church logo will replace diaper bags. Parents are to put diapers, wipes and a change of clothes in the bag.
- Rooms will have a certain number of kids and teachers allotted for each session. Parents will make a reservation for the session of their choice. One slot will be left open for guests in each room.
- Should there be a COVID-19 case in the days to follow a Sunday session, parents in the room where the outbreak occurred will be notified by church staff.
- Teachers will be trained on new guidelines and procedures before reopening and their serving in a room.
Parents
- Surveys are being used to obtain feedback and monitor reactions of parents. Survey Monkey is a great free resource to help with this.
- Weekly emails are being sent to inform parents of measures being taken, what they can expect on a given Sunday, and to insure parents the church staff is going above and beyond to insure a safe and clean environment for their family.
- Pictures are made of the staff cleaning the spaces and sent to parents to reassure them of the sanitary measures being taken.
- Provide a checklist of what and who cleaned the area. Post this in a visible place.
- Red, yellow and green wristbands are provided to communicate their level of comfort re. distancing and physical contact.