Q&A on children and daycare centres

Grandmother: Can a child with a bruise or a scratch go to daycare?

KR: It depends on the wound. Your GP will determine the severity of the wound. A normal scratch from e.g. a fall is no problem in this context.

Anja: There are lots of complications involved in taking a child to daycare. The children don’t understand all this – mum and dad suddenly disappear and the pedagogues are not allowed to hug the children.

KR: It is very important to practice caution when dropping the children off at the daycare centre. Parents and pedagogues should aim to find a balance between reducing the infection risk and displaying love and care for the child.

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Beinta Petersen: How come yoga and football can resume when other sports disciplines can’t? What makes yoga and football special in this context?

KR: It is significantly easier to organise yoga in a safe manner than football. Unlike football, yoga is not a contact activity, and it is easy to practise yoga with a safe distance.

Curious: Sailors returning from abroad are told to go into self-isolation for 14 days. So why can other incoming travellers wander around as they wish?

KR: Sailors and other incoming travellers are given the same recommendations regarding quarantine, even though sailors are generally considered to pose less of an infection risk than other people, since sailors work in a relatively isolated environment. We are not authorised to force people into quarantine; we can only encourage them to do so.

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Jens: Some health professionals have said that life in the Faroes will return to normality soon. Can you clarify this “soon”?

KR: If we manage to guard our borders well, September could be a possibility.

Parent: Children with special needs: where can parents turn to when the current restrictive measures not only cause unease in the children but also halt their development?

KR: They should contact the management of their daycare centre.

Concerned mother: At my daughter’s daycare centre, the guidelines about no more than ten people gathering in the same room are not being adhered to. The rooms are full – 14 children + four pedagogues. Is this OK, or should I contact my local council?

KR: The guidelines say that rooms should allow for a distance of four square metres per child in daycares for preschoolers and six square metres per child in nurseries. The management of each centre is responsible for these configurations.

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Hanna: As I understand the guidelines, no more than ten people should gather in the same room, and everyone must have easy access to hand-washing facilities. My daughter’s daycare group consists of 12 people. To get to a toilet (and the nearest sink), they need to walk through another room with 15 people in it. This does not seem to be within the guidelines, is it?

KR: No, this does not sound quite right. We would advise you to bring it up with the management of the daycare centre.

Heidi: I have two little girls, aged two and five. I have decided to work from home and keep both girls at home with me. I do this first of all to protect my girls but also to avoid putting unnecessary pressure on their daycare centre. My question is: assuming that the current encouraging corona figures continue, when can I expect that the rooms at the daycare centre will be full again?

KR: Our estimate is sometime next month. But it will be a gradual increase.

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Alma: Is anything being done to ensure that children don’t feel left out when daycare centres split the children into groups to follow the 10-people max guidelines? A child can easily end up emotionally hurt if it is taken out of a group. Are these groupings made with the child’s interest in mind, or is it just a practical procedure? Were pedagogues consulted when these guidelines were made?

KR: These groupings are a matter for each daycare centre to decide. The corona consultancy service has had no say in this.

Anita: Have any considerations been made about the children’s mental health as they return to daycare? I work as a pedagogue in a nursery, and I often think about the importance of security and attentive love and care. Have psychologists and pedagogues been part of the planning for the reopening of daycare centres?

KR: We have of course included mental health in our considerations, but there is no denying that the infection risk has been our main concern. Pedagogues have been particularly concerned about children with special needs and how best to accommodate them and show them love and care. We have advised that in certain scenarios it is OK give the child a hug. T

ranslated by prosa.fo