Family Centre - Early Years Program - Fort William First Nation

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Thank you for continuing to follow the public health and safety measures that have kept our families and community safe. Our collective effort continues to ensure your children can learn with their friends in our program.

The Ministry of Education is committed to keeping you informed of measures Ontario is taking to protect public health and safety, and the purpose of this communication is to inform you of the following measures.

On April 7, 2021, the government announced a province-wide Stay-at-Home order starting April 8th for at least four weeks until May 6th in response to worsening trends in key community health indicators across the province.

During this period, childcare, before, and after school programs will remain open to support families. Early ON, Child and Family Centres may not offer in-person programming during this period, but may continue offering virtual programming during this time. Day camps will also be closed for this period.

As we head into this time-limited government action, we want to take the opportunity to highlight the importance of continuing to follow public health and safety protocols in childcare settings and in your day-to-day activities. With spring break and the nicer weather around the corner, it is more important than ever that we continue to follow public health advice and do our part to keep COVID-19 from spreading in our communities.

At this critical point in the pandemic, here are some public health measures, intended to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, that we ask you to continue to follow if your children are attending early years and childcare programs:

Screening every day, including during spring break, for COVID-19 symptoms before attending childcare. (The COVID-19 School and Child Care Screening Tool is available to assist families with symptom screening);
Practicing good hand hygiene habits throughout the day;
Practicing physical distancing;
Providing a non-medical mask or face covering for your child to wear each day (masking is mandatory for all children in grades 1 and above, and recommended for children age 2 to senior kindergarten); and
Avoiding sharing objects, toys, food, water bottles or other personal items.

Strictly following these public health measures is of the utmost importance in ensuring schools and childcare settings stay open and safe during the province-wide Stay-at-Home order.

Outside of childcare settings, we encourage families to continue to:

Socialize with your own household.
Activities or playdates with those outside your household should be held outdoors and limited to no more than five people, with physical distancing and masking where distancing is not possible.
Stay home and get tested if you feel ill.
Refrain from travelling.
Refer to Ontario.ca/covid response to learn what public health measures are in place in our community based on the COVID-19 response framework. We also suggest checking out Thunder Bay Health Unit website as it may also have helpful resources and supports.

For the week of April 12-18, pharmacies that currently offer testing and assessment centres across the province will accept appointments for children attending childcare and child care staff for asymptomatic testing. The Ministry of Education will be working with school boards to offer school-based clinics. Parents are encouraged to take advantage of this testing capacity to have their children tested to support a safe return to school on April 19 and continued safe operation of childcare.

Please stay at home as much as possible and continue following the direction of public health officials so that we can keep schools, early years, and childcare programs open.

With every effort, we will continue to provide our families with opportunities to connect with each other, gain supports and use our services through virtual programming during this time. Please follow the Family Centre on FWFN community webpage for up coming news and program activities/events.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I am available by telephone. (807) 285-9368 or by email at [email protected]

Thank you for your efforts in these unprecedented times.

Sincerely,

Valerie Charlie,
Early Years Program Coordinator
Fort William First Nation Family Centre

The Family Centre would like to take this opportunity to inform families that we are in hopes of doing more virtual learning. As programming is at a stand still due to COVID-19, we want to provide our children and families with a variety of resources that you can do from home. We would love your input in providing us with any ideas that are of interest to you and your children. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Some ideas we have so far are as follows…