Photo: Courtesy of Jodilynn Machado

At the YMCA Southcoast in New Bedford, coping with the COVID-19 pandemic started with offering emergency child care.

Now the Y is also getting ready to reopen its child care program by early July – working to keep children engaged and meet strict state safety regulations.

Providing emergency child care

“We’re changing gloves constantly, between every transition that we do, gloves are being changed, masks are being put on,” Jodilynn Machado, the Y’s child care director, said last month in the midst of providing emergency child care for 30 children ages 2.9 to 13 years old, including seven preschoolers.

In addition, Machado and her staff were also doing a lot of cleaning, sanitizing chairs, toys, and anything else that the children in their care have touched.

“We also check in with parents,” Machado said, “we always ask them if there’s anything that they need that we can assist them with.” One pressing need for many families has been food. So the Y has connected them to food programs.

When a staff member’s relative tested positive for COVID-19, the Y sprang into action, alerting families, closing for three days, and hiring a company to do an extensive cleaning, while the exposed staff person and the children that person supervised went into quarantine.

“Thankfully, everybody has been healthy, and the quarantines are over.”

What has Machado been most proud of as an emergency child care provider?

“Seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces when they come in.”

Preparing for “reopening”

Reopening is a global challenge – especially when it comes to safely reopening children’s programs, but the Y is getting ready, hoping to open by early July.

Machado is being guided by the state’s reopening guidelines — “Minimum Requirements for Health and Safety,” released by the Department of Early Education and Care – and by the lessons that she has learned from being an emergency provider.

“One piece is that we have to address the social-emotional piece,” Machado says. “Kids come to the program having social-emotional challenges and then they also have to follow all these safety rules and restrictions. So we’ve educated staff about these issues.”

While the Y’s early childhood program normally has 39 children, it is now only licensed for 30. Currently about 16 families have said they would return for care.

“They don’t have alternate plans, and they have to go back to work,” Machado says.

The early childhood program’s day, however, will be shorter. The day used to run until 5:30 p.m., but now it will only run until 4 p.m. That’s the only way that the program can safely operate and meet state safety requirements with its relatively small staff.

Practical preparations for reopening include improving logistics and, when possible, adding elements of fun.

Rugs and many toys have been removed, and the classrooms look a little bare. Each child will have their own individual play kit. Tables have tape running down the middle and will feature pictures of each child in the program to visually remind them of both where they should sit and what seats not to sit in.

“We can’t do all the things we normally do with preschool, all the things that make us who we are,” Machado explains. ”We normally offer swim lessons, but there are no swim lessons right now.”

But there will also be more kid-friendly aspects, including signs about standing six feet apart and games and songs that emphasize this message. The program will help children adjust to seeing teachers in masks and face shields by sharing photographs of teachers with and without this protective equipment. And kids will be asked to Zombie walk – with their arms out – to maintain social distancing.

Machado knows there will be challenges, such as getting young children to wear masks. And, despite all the lessons the Y has taught about sharing, children will now have to learn not to share so that they won’t spread the virus.

“But we’ll get it done, and we’ll make it fun,” Machado says. “I’ve been with the Y for 18 years, and we’ve seen a lot of things happen, so when we have to, we do what needs to be done.”