Children's Ministry Team Letter

Message From The MBC Children’s Ministry Team  

The Children’s Ministry Team has given much thought, time, and prayer into when and how the children should return to the classrooms. To ensure the safety of children, volunteers, members, and visitors, the following plan has been developed to guide the reopening of the Children’s Department at Meadowbrook Baptist Church:

The Center for Disease Control recommends during this COVID-19 pandemic:

• The key to slowing the spread of COVID-19 is to limit contact as much as possible. While school is out, children should not have in-person playdates with children other than from their households. If children are playing outside their homes, it is essential that they remain 6 feet from anyone who is not in their own household.

• Children 2 years and older should wear a cloth face covering their nose and mouth when in the community setting.

• It is important to comfort crying, sad, and/or anxious infants and toddlers, and they often need to be held. To the extent possible, when washing, feeding, or holding young children: Childcare providers can protect themselves by wearing an over-large button-down, long sleeved shirt and by wearing long hair up of the collar in a ponytail or other updo.

• Childcare providers should wash their hands, necks and anywhere touched by a child’s secretions.

The NC Baptist Association recommends the following considerations for opening Children’s Church Service:

• Eliminate toy boxes and an overabundance of toys. Bring out only the amount of toys volunteers are willing to clean at the end of the session.

• Train leaders on sanitation guidelines for handwashing, diaper changing, and cleaning toys. Clearly state expectations for sanitizing during the session.

• Purchase no touch thermometers and perform temperature checks on children and leaders before being allowed into the classrooms.

• Have volunteers staff the check-in station to limit physical contact within the check-in station.

• Consider options for dropping off and picking up the children: Allow only one parent to drop off and pick up children, or have designated drop off and pick up locations at the entry to children’s areas with only the teacher escorting the child to class.

• Restrict diaper bags and other personal items from being brought into classrooms.

According to the NC Governor’s Executive Order, social distancing is one of the keys to stop the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, the Children’s Ministry Team at MBC feels it would be extremely difficult to adhere to the social distancing guidelines for our children in a classroom setting. Most children will not be comfortable wearing masks and they are unable to grasp the understanding of social distancing of 6 feet. It is not feasible to ensure what or who each child has touched.

Schools are closed throughout the remainder of the year due to COVID-19, thus a classroom setting could place our children and volunteers at risk. Children will be safest at home. If they are brought to church, the safest place for each child will be to stay with their parents until these safety measures can be conducted. The Children’s Ministry Team will continue to provide monthly lesson packets for the children until children’s services resume. In addition, activity sheets will be available each week the children attend church as they sit with their parents. We will not schedule Nursery volunteer workers at this time. However, the Nursery will be cleaned each week and is available to the mothers and their infants. The Children’s Ministry Team will implement the safety standards stated above (CDC and NC Baptist Association Guidelines) when reopening occurs if the guidelines are still in place. As the state transitions between phase 2 and 3, we will re-evaluate this plan.

-The Children’s Ministry Team