Since New Jersey residents have been ordered to stay at home due to the Coronavirus pandemic, GBCA Head Start nurses have been providing weekly wellness checks for its families via email and phone. They especially remain in regular contact with all the families that have children with any medical conditions (asthma, allergies, epilepsy, and any child with a compromised immune system) to consistently check-in on their health status and to also ensure that they have an adequate supply of medications.
In order to be as proactive as possible, GBCA Head Start nurses collaborated to provide families with health-related activities and educational materials such as proper hand washing technique, safe outdoor play, talking about COVID-19 as a family, and other fun activities the children can do.
Understanding that they need to remain up-to-date with rapidly developing health issues during the pandemic, health assistants continue to look for ways to educate themselves so they can assist and keep the families properly informed. This includes actively watching webinars related to COVID-19 such as information regarding pregnancy or giving birth during COVID-19 where they learned strategies on how to assist expectant mothers that may experience anxiety.
In addition to weekly health check-ins for each family, families are encouraged to constantly reach out to GBCA Head Start nurses and health assistants with any concerns they have but most importantly perhaps, GBCA Head Start nurses have been working diligently to ensure that their families know they are there for them to assist in any way that they can.
Watch the video below to hear what being a nurse means to these GBCA Head Start nurses.