How a Sudbury daycare has been operating COVID-free during the pandemic

The head of a daycare in Sudbury says when schools open up next month, nervous parents and guardians should be looking to child care operators, like her, for guidance.

Parents are currently deciding if they will send their children back to school for in class learning, or online classes at home and many are concerned about increased cases of COVID-19 once schools reopen. 

The executive director of the Walden Day Care Centre, Mary-Lou Coffey, points to the success of Ontario daycares in largely keeping COVID-19 at bay since they've reopened. 

There have been no cases connected to daycares in northeastern Ontario. 

Coffey says when she first reopened in April, it was only for children of essential workers.

"To be honest, it was a little frightening at first. We weren't really sure what we were in for," she said.

"But as it panned out and as things moved on, it was not nearly the scary endeavour that we thought it might be."

Coffey says she had time to prepare and remove soft surfaces and disinfect the daycare. While she had to make many changes, she says she was always thinking about the kids coming back to the daycare.

"My goal when we opened was after the kids walked through the door, was to try and maintain a level of familiarity for the kids," she said.

"We came up with a funky little handwashing song to make things fun."

Coffey says now that she has more children at the daycare, she's expanded the practices first put in place when they reopened.

"We're still washing hands, we're still screening, we're still disinfecting," she said.

"All of those things are still happening, just with more children. We're getting a little more comfortable with the situation and it seems to be working. It's possible. We've been doing it since April. We haven't had any major disasters."

Normalizing mask wearing

In the beginning staff were not required to wear masks but that has now changed. She says that's been an adjustment for some children. She recalls how one 19-month-old boy reacted.

"The first time he saw an educator with a white typical mask on, he stood just frozen in his steps and started shaking and crying," she said.

"It just breaks your heart. And you know what he's thinking, the last time he saw a mask like that was maybe in a doctor's office where he got a needle or those types of things."

Coffey says her daycare has been working to normalize masks by wearing fun fabric prints and talking about the topic.

She adds she wrote a book about wearing a mask and tried to talk about new practices, like increased handwashing, in a fun way.