Kia ora Woolston Development Project whanau,
The situation
As we are sure you have heard, the government has set COVID-19 vaccine mandates for specific sectors of the workforce as well as made it mandatory to have all staff vaccinated if the workplace intends to require vaccination certificates from the general public before they can enter the premises.
The education sector is one of the workforces which the government has mandated COVID-19 vaccines for all staff and volunteers working with tamariki. OSCAR providers fall under this mandate, especially if they are on school/Kura grounds. As an OSCAR provider which is not located on school/Kura grounds but has the same duty of care to its children, we are operating on the basis that we fall under this vaccine mandate too. It would be highly surprising if we did not.
The good news: all paid employees of the Woolston Development Project OSCAR programmes are vaccinated. Most have had both vaccinations.
We will be ensuring that all volunteers who work on our OSCAR programme are vaccinated. At this stage it looks like we will lose one youth volunteer, which is sad.
What does this mean for parents/caregivers?
You can be assured that the risk of your child(ren) being infected by COVID-19 at our OSCAR programmes is vastly reduced.
For parents/caregivers who are vaccinated, there are no changes. You can come inside the building to pick up your child(ren) as usual.
For parents/caregivers who have chosen not to get vaccinated, you will need to wait outside for us to release your child(ren) to you. This will come into effect on 16 November and we have had a notice up on the table where you sign out your children for some days now so hopefully everyone will have seen this.
If you are not vaccinated, you will need to collect your child(ren) while maintaining social distancing from anyone who is coming and going from our premises. This is why you will have to stay outside regardless of the weather.
Please understand that the virus is the problem here. None of us wants to get sick. We really appreciate your cooperation on this one.
What does this mean for other visitors?
If you come outside the hours our OSCAR programme is running, these restrictions do not apply to you.
If you come during the hours our tamariki are on site, you must be vaccinated.
Regardless of when you come, we urge you to get vaccinated.
Some of our staff members have compromised immune systems and we would really like to keep the risk of them becoming infected by COVID-19 as low as possible.
Ngā mihi nui,
Eddie Hayes
Manager
Woolston Development Project