Information provided by County of San Benito

In a release on August 27, 2020 the County of San Benito gave the following information about youth controlled supervised settings guidance: California Department of Public Health (CDPH) released  guidance on groups of children and youth in controlled, supervised, and indoor environments operated by local educational agencies, non-profits, or other authorized providers, including, but not limited to, public and private schools; licensed and license-exempt child care settings; organized and supervised care environments, i.e., “distance learning hubs”; recreation programs; before and after school programs; youth groups; and day camps. Guidance and directives related to schools, child care, day camps, youth sports, and institutions of higher education are not superseded by this document and still apply to those specified settings

The purpose of this guidance is to establish minimum parameters for providing specialized services, targeted services and support for students while schools are otherwise closed for in-person instruction in ways that maintain the focus on health and safety to minimize transmission.  This guidance enables schools to provide supervision and care for students, including specialized services for students with disabilities and English learners, access to internet and devices for distance learning, and in-person support for at-risk and high need students

The package of guidance includes:

The documents are linked above and live on the respective pages of each of the Departments and will cross reference each other.

Public Health Guidance on Cohorts for Children and Youth

  1. Provides guardrails to safely provide necessary in-person child supervision and limited instruction, including targeted support services and facilitation of distance learning in small group environments and applies to the environments described above.
  2. Defines a cohort as a stable group of no more than 14 children/youth and no more than 2 supervising adults who stay together for all activities and avoid contact with people outside of their group.
    1. Provides direction around how to operationalize cohort sizing and limitations in cohort mixing.
  3. Allows for one-to-one specialized services by a provider who is not part of the cohort, for activities that include but are not limited to occupational therapy services, speech and language services, and other medical, behavioral services, or educational support services as part of a targeted intervention strategy. SBE FAQs provide further detail on specialized services.

4. Provides direction for staffing including, allowances for substitutes when needed and staff meetings.

5.  Physical distancing between adults must be maintained as much as possible, and adults and students must                     use face coverings at all times, pursuant to the CDPH Schools Guidance regarding face coverings.

Public Health COVID-19 Case and Contact Management within Child Care Facilities

  1. Supplements California’s guidance for Child Care Programs and Providers, other CDPH guidance, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guidance for Child Care Programs that Remain Open.
  2. Focuses on areas that are not fully addressed in the CDC guidance, including but not limited to: case and contact management, and considerations for closure of the child care facility or classes/groups within the facility.
  3. Specifies that for this document “childcare facility” refers to all group care facilities for children who are not yet in kindergarten in an elementary school.
  4. Provides direction and appropriate next steps for when a child or staff members gets sick at a child care facility.
  5. Provides direction that closure of a childcare facility should be considered in consultation with the local health department if there are cases identified in more than one cohort or for family child care homes, when exclusion of the individual from the home is not possible.

A complete list of Industry Guidance can be found at:
https://covid19.ca.gov/industry-guidance/