Youth Center Operations
The Youth Center (YC) will be following the health and safety protocols issued by New York State (NYS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for COVID(19) and communicable disease prevention and management, ensuring compliance while maintaining a safe and healthy Youth Center. In order to properly identify and forecast next steps in the event of a positive COVID-19 case and/or close contact, we are encouraging all parents and guardians to send proof of vaccination status for their child (e.g. screenshot, email, hardcopy of vaccination card).
Health & Safety
The following health and safety actions and ongoing monitoring should be executed:
- Visual and temporal temperature screening of children and employees upon arrival for symptoms and history of exposure.
- Promote healthy hygiene practices such as frequent hand washing.
- Hand sanitizers accessible to guests, children, and employees.
- Ensure that parents/guardians, children, and employees are wearing a cloth face covering before entering the facility. If participants or parents/guardians do not have access to face masks RIOC will provide one for them.
- Encourage social distancing through increased spacing, small groups, and limited mixing between groups.
- Adjust activities and procedures to limit the sharing of items such as belongings, supplies, and equipment.
- All YC staff are trained on the new NYS health and safety guidelines protocols for COVID-19.
- Increase in frequency of regular scheduled cleaning and sanitizing of the Youth Center and all RIOC owned facilities.
Implementation of Physical Distancing
- To maintain social distancing and to enhance program quality at the Youth Center, the Youth Center will reduce group sizes of no more than 15 participants, create living groups, and maximize indoor and outdoor spaces. To accomplish this, increasing the Center’s use of non-permitted and permitted spaces during the year.
- Participants will be placed into living groups that are formed based on age. In addition, the participants in the same living group will follow the same program schedule to avoid interaction with other living groups.
