Message to parents and carers from Public Health Wales and Flintshire County Council

As your local Director of Public Health and Chief Officer for Education, we felt it was important to write to you as your child/children return to school, to ask for your help in working with us to make this return a success.

The pandemic has had an impact on all of our lives but I think you will agree that our children have been affected more than most. I know as parents you will have felt the strain of your children not being at school. You may be worried about their wellbeing, their chances to grow and develop, losing out on their friendships and fun, or about
them falling behind with their learning.

The steps that we have had to take together have been hard, but have saved lives, protected the people most at risk and helped to make sure that our health and care services can continue to care for us when we need them. The success of our local vaccination programme continues to provide more protection to those at risk. We will keep
working hard to reach everyone as quickly as we can.

We are not able to relax yet, we still need to be careful and keep the levels of infection as low as possible, but we can take the first step and begin to get our children back to school. In managing the pandemic locally and protecting our population, we work closely with colleagues in the Health Board, the Local Council, voluntary and community organisations and Public Health Wales but we cannot succeed without your help and that of everyone who lives in Flintshire.

Our Headteachers and all their staff have worked very hard to make our schools as safe as possible. When your child goes back to school we need you to continue to help to control the spread of the virus by:

• Not sending your child to school if they are unwell even if you are not sure if it is coronavirus
• Continue to work at home if at all possible
• When you take your child to school – always keep your distance from other parents and don’t stay around and chat
• Don’t invite other children (or their parents) to your home to play or stay, even outdoors and even if they are in the same bubble at school
• Unless you have no choice, please do not share a lift to school or other activities with other families
• Make sure your child understands the importance of washing their hands regularly

Thank you for your help in keeping the virus in check and helping us to keep schools to stay open this time.