‘Be prepared for everything.’ Day camps share lessons learned for a safe return to school

Thestar.com
Sept. 1, 2020
Noor Javed

As two million students across Ontario get ready to return to school, day camps, which have been running for much of the summer with almost no cases of COVID-19, could provide some insight into how to create an environment where kids can learn and play safely.

Some lessons learned from almost two months of summer camp include the importance of creating cohorts, strictly controlling the environment, increased hand-washing, and “being prepared for everything.”

In June, when much of the province was in lockdown, day camps and daycares across the GTA were planning programs that could accommodate large groups of children in relatively close proximity, with stringent new health and safety rules in place.

“When we began rolling out the CampTO program, it was early on in the summer  and at first we weren’t even sure if we were allowed to offer it,” said Janie Romoff, general manager of parks, forestry and recreation for the city of Toronto. The province was still in Stage 1 of the lockdown, limiting congregations and gatherings.

But towards the end of June, the province put out guidelines for day camps that could be opened when a municipality entered Stage 2.

“What we learned is that you can operate programs for children safely, you can implement the appropriate health and safety guidelines, and you can adapt programs so that you can still deliver what the objective of the program is so that you can have some level of return to normalcy,” said Romoff, adding that camps had the benefit of being open in the summer, so they could use outdoor spaces whenever possible.

Youngsters at a day camp at Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto practise physical distancing during an end-of-day event in mid-August.

The day camp guidelines from the province included reduced group sizes, use of masks indoors, physical distancing, mandatory health screening and enhanced facility cleaning. Camp groups were also required to stay together in a cohort for the entire week, and not to interact with other campers.

In Mississauga, day camps have been running since early July, with no outbreaks or confirmed cases of COVID-19, said Lisa Boyce-Gonsalves, manager of program delivery with the city.

She said Mississauga has been running camps in 13 areas, with some locations having upwards of 50 kids. The camps didn’t require face masks, but relied heavily on keeping the cohorts to 10 and under, she said.

“I think what helped our programs was we had cohorts and they didn’t intermingle,” said Boyce-Gonsalves. “That was a really important piece for keeping track of the kids, and ensuring everyone was safe.”

She said the camps also had screening questions for parents every morning, “so that gave us opportunity to ask parents and guardians about their health before the kids got to camp.” The camps, like many others, also made sure the sign-in happened outside, to limit the number of people allowed to enter the facilities. “We had a very, very controlled environment.”

CampTO launched its programs in mid-July at more than 120 locations, and went a month before it saw its first and only case of COVID-19 in August, when a participant tested positive for the virus.

Romoff said the staff immediately implemented safety measures, such as shutting down programs at the centre for the rest of the week and notifying the families who had children at the location. In addition, Toronto Public Health notified those who may have come into contact with the child. Those who were at high risk of exposure were instructed to seek testing and self-isolate for 14 days. Those at low risk were simply advised to self-monitor and seek testing if they had symptoms.

“It was handled quite professionally. There was obviously some concern, but the process that we had in place controlled the spread,” said Romoff. “In this case there was no spread at all.”

Rules for day camps in Vaughan, which saw no cases of COVID-19, required kids who failed screening or temperature checks to have a doctor’s note that cleared them from the virus in order to return.

Similar health and safety guidelines were recently introduced by the province for schools, which will require all members of a class cohort to be sent home to self-isolate in the event of a single positive case among the group.

While a controlled camp environment is somewhat different from what schools will experience, Boyce-Gonsalves says being adaptive, increasing sanitization and ensuring limited sharing of supplies between class cohorts are measures school boards could easily implement.

Romoff said the city of Toronto will continue to follow the guidelines from the summer, and the province’s most recent ones, for its after-school programs this fall, and a “complete return to instructional program, and swimming programs” -- many of which have been running all summer.

If Romoff has any advice for teachers and school boards preparing for the year, it’s simple: “Be prepared for everything.”