LA County Issues Guidance For Child Care Providers
By Mariana Dale
Published Mar 31, 2020 10:00 AM
(A student at Mother's Club in Pasadena, low-income families receive subsidized preschoolCredit: Deepa Fernandes)
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No more “circle time” – that’s one of the guidelines the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued for early care and education providers who continue to operate during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Child care is considered an essential service in California and providers have been encouraged to continue operating if they can comply with the following requirements:
Children are cared for in the same groups of 12 or less — no new kids can be added to an existing group, and mixing between different groups is prohibited
Larger facilities must keep groups in different rooms
Adult providers must stay with the same group of children
The guidelines also ask that providers try to practice social distancing by restricting visitors to facilities, spacing out children’s activities and focusing on individual activities like coloring and puzzles. At the Child Development Center at Fairplex in Pomona, there’s now an empty seat in between every kid at lunch. Parents, many of whom are also essential workers, drop their children off at the lobby instead of walking back to their classrooms.
“At the end of the day, our number one goal is to make sure that we keep our children and our team members safe and provide an important service for our families to be able to be out there and be first responders and keep our community safe,” said executive director Holly Reynolds.
Fentanyl and other drugs fuel record deaths among people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. From 2019 to 2021, deaths jumped 70% to more than 2,200 in a single year.
