After a briefing on COVID-19, Children’s Paradise Preschool & Infant Centers made the decision late Friday to keep all centers open. This action was taken after serious consideration for the needs of the children and families within their care. Many of the families attending Children’s Paradise programs across North County are the children of First Responders and the front-line employees who are keeping the emergency and supply-chain services our communities need fully operational. The parents needing childcare are doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, food-service workers, convalescent home workers, grocery clerks and store re-stocking staff. Julie Lowen said “It is easy to forget how much work goes into our community as it seems to just normally hum along. Lose any of these people and we risk limiting our own access to the food and supplies which support our lives.”
Parents with resources to keep their children home are being encouraged to shelter-in-place. Families without other options continue to be served by the professional team of care-givers and teaching staff in five locations across North County.
Julie Lowen said “We also are the first line of support for the first responders such as firemen, sheriff’s officers, nurses, doctors, the people re-stocking the shelves at stores, the people creating food, helping seniors, typically keeping community services working during an emergency. Our families rely upon us for more than childcare. We are connecting families to the food, diapers, child care and other support services they need to prepare for the potential quarantine. Many people do not have paid time off nor do their employers have the capacity to pay them if they simply stay home. Many people cannot afford to keep a supply of 4 to 8 weeks of provisions in their homes. We are the center of every community support network. Our families rely upon us and we will not be letting them down now. Certainly not now.”
Providers across San Diego County have also responded and, with the exception of about 200 centers, most childcare centers and Family Home Daycare Providers remain open and ready to serve children and families. A strong network of providers are working as a team to support one another. The Children’s Paradise team and others are also participating on a county-wide Childcare Task Force call every morning where all of the agencies playing critical roles connect to link their services and work as a team to become collectively more efficient and effective in the delivery of critical goods and services.
Soon Children’s Paradise sites will become emergency pick-up locations for food, diapers and other critical supplies for families in need within our community. Go to http://childrensparadise.com/ to obtain more information about available resources or visit 211.com. Lowen said “Hopefully soon we will have an organized network of seamless supplies so that every family living within our communities can rest assured we have got this. We have got this for them and we have got this for us.”
A Children’s Paradise is a community resource and plays a significant role in the lives of their families.
Lowen said, “A full-day full-year pre-school is a family support system. So on a normal basis, we are providing food, clothes, diapers, access to health care, access to housing, access to all sorts of developmental services connecting each child to each need. We connect too every single agency within the 211 and seamlessly help our families get resources from those agencies like everybody expects us to do, this is our job! I am so proud of this amazing team of providers. What a community treasure!”
