Our Health Policy

Our health policy was developed for the well being of your child and other children attending the centre.

We do understand the difficulty of finding alternate care for sick children, but the health of every child must be our first consideration.  To determine what is a significant illness in a child is difficult for both parents and staff.  There are three important issues in determining when a child is too ill to attend:

  1. The protection of other children from communicable disease.
  2. The comfort and safety of the child who is ill.
  3. The capacity of the centre to look after an ill child.

Please keep your child at home if they:

  • Have a fever of 100 Fahrenheit or 37.8 Celsius
  • Have a cold with heavy discharge (clear or coloured)
  • Have diarrhea, vomiting, nausea
  • Having difficulty breathing or is wheezing
  • Have infected eye (e.g. Pink eye) or skin infections (eg. Impetigo)
  • Have an undiagnosed rash
  • Displays symptoms of communicable disease: sniffles, red eyes, sore throat, headache, tummy ache, stiff neck or any of which are accompanied by fever. (e.g. Chicken pox, measles, mumps, scarlet fever.)

If you suspect that your child has a communicable disease, please take them to the doctor for verification.  It is important to inform staff if your child does develop a communicable disease so that we can notify the other parents as well as the health unit.

Your child may return when:

For the foreseeable future we will be enforcing our longer period of time to remain home during an illness.  We understand how this makes things more difficult for you but we remind you that we are here for all our families and everyone’s health is important.

    • The fever has been gone for at least 48 hours
    • The child has minimal clear discharge
    • Vomiting and diarrhea has subsided for at least 48 hours
    • They are ready to resume normal activities (including outside play)

During the pandemic outbreak – anyone showing any signs of illness will not be able to attend care.  If we have to send home mid day when it was suspected previously and brought to your attention – you will be required to keep your child home for an additional 24 hours from the already 48 hours.  Please keep your child home if ill.

A note from your doctor should accompany your child upon return to the centre if they have had injuries such as broken limbs, head injuries, sprains, etc.  resulting from falls or accidents.

If your child becomes ill during the day, the parent/guardian will be notified immediately and will be required to arrange alternate care for the child.  If we are unable to reach the parent/guardian, the emergency contact person will be notified.

All staff participate in our health procedures and reinforce with the children how important hand washing is to keep the germs away.  All the toys are sanitized before we rotate them for “new” toys.  During the pandemic we have been washing and rotating toys daily.

Medication

It is our policy that we will administer prescription or non-prescription medication, if necessary.  In order to administer prescription medication – it must be from a pharmacy labeled bottle.  In order for us to administer non-prescription medication we require a note from your physician AND a “Permission to Administer Medication” form completed and in the child’s file before our staff will be able to administer any medication.  Those children requiring puffers or an eppy pen must bring it with them each day.