Resources to Share with Families
Emergency Child Care for Essential Workers
Visit our COVID-19 Child Care for Essential Workers for more information about child care optionsfor critical infrastructure workers.
COVID-19 Information for families
- NCPMI and the University of South Florida's Helping Children and Families Cope page has a lot of great resources, including scripted stories for helping young children understand why they can't go to school right now, a "staycation kit" with offline ideas for children's activities, and tips for how to help young children deal with hard emotions. Their Family Engagement page has handouts on everything from making diapering easier to how to help your child stop biting. Note that the materials for families are listed at the bottom of the page under "Related Resources."
- A Comic to Help Kids Understand Coronavirus (NPR)
- Talking to Kids about the Coronavirus (Child Mind Institute)
- Zero to Three's Tips for Families Talking to Children About the Coronavirus
- American Academy of Pediatrics COVID-19 Resources
- Child Trends Resources for Supporting Children's Emotional Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Fred Rogers Center Support for Helpers during Coronavirus
- Save the Children's Coronavirus Resources include tips for talking to children about the virus, helping kids cope with school closures, relaxation activities to do at home with kids, lots of ideas for activities you can do with kids, and recommendations for free educational apps and web sites, organized by age group.
- Child Care Aware Resources for Families (en Espanol)
- 10 Things You Can Do To Mange COVID 19 At Home (a short video from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Ideas for Children's Activities during Social Distancing
- New Orleans Public Library is hosting Virtual StoryTime
- New Orleans Public Schools Resources for Distance Learning (four and five year olds)
- The 2020 Census is in full swing, and there are lots of activities families can use from the Statistics in Schools program to communicate pre-numeracy skills and promote the census in age-appropriate ways. The Pre-K toolkit even includes a downloadable Everone Counts! Story and Activity Book.
- The Atlanta Speech School offers a free online preschool for children ages 18 months to four years through Cox Academy.
- New York City Department of Education has learning at home resources for infants through preschoolers available in ten different languages
- Boston Public Schools offers at-home learning materials for children from pre-k to 2nd grade
- Teaching Strategies' Healthy at Home toolkit offers a free selection of resources from The Creative Curriculum® and ReadyRosie™ providing families with information and resources for supporting the children in their care.
- Teachstone (the makers of CLASS) has great COVID-19 resources and ideas for bringing incorporating CLASS (and high qualioty adult-child interactions) into your everyday activities at home.
- High Scope has printable ideas for Active Learning at Home for infants, toddlers and Preschoolers
- Frog Street is making its online learning programs free
- The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has lots of ideas for how families can support their youngest learners
- Texting services that send parents information and activities via regular texts include
- Bright by Text (prenatal through age eight): text LBP to 274448
- Vroom (birth through age five)
- PBS PreK-12 Resources for Emergency Closings
- Read, Wonder, and Learn - watch children’s authors read their books aloud
- Lunch doodles with Mo Willems: well known children’s author (who was raised in New Orleans) is releasing a new video with a story and illustrations each day
- Audible is making audiobooks of children's literature in six different languages available for free
- Take a virtual field trip: take virtual tours of zoos, Yellowstone National Park and even Mars!
- YMCA 360 has free on-demand exercise classes for kids and adults
Community Resources and Benefits
- The Parenting Center at Children's Hospital's staff of Parent Educators is available, as usual, to the public. Parents who have questions about development and behavior - transitions/routines, eating, sleeping, challenging behavior, milestones - can call (504.896.9591) or email (chparenting@lcmchealth.org). Their Breast & Bottle infant feeding support group is reconvening virtually and they'll be offering other support groups soon!
- The Junior League's Diaper Bank is offering expanded access to free diapers.
- The Louisiana Department of Health's Office of Behavioral Health's new Keep Calm Through COVID crisis phone line is staffed by trained counselors who can offer information and service coordination, linking callers to mental health and substance abuse counseling services. Call the Keep Calm Through COVID hotline at 1-866-310-7977 at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All calls are confidential.
- Cox Communications is offering 60 days of free internet service for families with school-age children and AT&T is now offering two months of free service to families who sign up for their Access From AT&T program, which provides lower-cost internet for families that make a limited income.
- Gig Economy Worker Fund: The New Orleans Business Alliance is offering grants of $500 to $1,000 for "gig economy" workers who live in Orleans Parish and who have been affected by the slow-down of our economy due to COVID-19. Gig economy workers include ride-share drivers, musicians, arena workers and festival production staff.
- Unemployment Benefits for workers who are unemployed as a result of COVID-19
- Total Community Action's food pantry (4518 Thalia Street, New Orleans) offers supplemental food assistance to families daily between the hours of 8:00 a.m.-5:00p.m, effective March 31 – April 3, 2020. During the emergency declaration, all families are eligible and encouraged to participate in the supplemental food distribution once weekly.
- Call Second Harvest Food Bank's toll-free line (1-855-392-9338) to learn about local food pantries throughout Southeast Louisiana, and get assistance applying for SNAP and other community resources.
- Schools throughout the state are stepping up to provide free meals to anyone under age 19. For more information, see:
- Lyft offering free ride codes to & from school meal sites Mondays & Wednesdays. Use promo code CV19NOLAPS20 in app.