Illness and Infectious Diseases

 

To ensure your child is comfortable, if they are unwell, we ask you make alternative arrangements for their care. If your child is showing signs of an illness or infectious disease while in our care, we will contact you and request that you collect your child.  While this may be inconvenient, particularly for parents who are both working, we appreciate your cooperation with this as we try to keep cross infection to a minimum. If we are unable to contact you, we will contact the emergency contact person as listed on your child’s enrolment form to collect your child.

 

To minimise the spread of infectious diseases, anyone with, or displaying signs of an infectious disease will be excluded from the service for the period recommended by ‘Staying Healthy in Childcare’ (National Health and Medical Research Council, December 2005) or until a medical practitioner has provided a clearance letter to state the child is no infectious and are well enough to return to the program.

 

If your child is suspected of, or has been confirmed to have an infectious disease, please notify staff so the appropriate arrangements can be made to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children, families and staff.  We will also advise you of any infectious disease in the centre (whilst maintaining strict confidentiality) by either placing a sign on the front noticeboard detailing the condition, by newsletter or by personally contacting you.

 

To prevent the spread of infectious diseases, we encourage families to fully immunise their children in accordance with the ‘National Immunisation Program’ (NIP) schedule.

 

Exclusion times for Infectious Diseases

 

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recommends that children who are physically unwell should be excluded from attending school, pre-school, kindergartens, childcare centres and family daycare.  The NHMRC (December 2005) has been used as our authority for the following exclusion times: