As outlined in our bulletin on Tuesday, in general we do not expect services will have to access the Close Contact Exemption Scheme.

Close Contact Exemption Scheme and rapid antigen testing – Early Learning Bulletin 15 February

However, early learning services could access the scheme to supervise the children of those who are unable to have them at home, and where the service needs to bring staff, who are asymptomatic close contacts, back on site to meet adult:child ratios for these children. This is not intended to be used to enable the attendance of all children.

We recommend you engage with your parents, caregivers and whānau to establish:

• how many children must attend your service (no evidence required)
• other care options that would be available for them.

To access this scheme, your service will need to be registered a critical service on MBIE’s Critical Services Register. If you think you may need to access the scheme, you can either register now or register at the time that your staff need access.

You do need to sign in using RealMe but the process to register is very straightforward once you are logged in. When you are asked for your primary business activity, please select ‘miscellaneous’ from the drop-down list. Once you have registered, you will receive a confirmation email with more information.

To read more about registering as a critical service and testing and returning to work during Omicron, see the MBIE website:

Close Contact Exemption Scheme registration portal – MBIE

Testing and isolation requirements for businesses during Omicron – MBIE

We have updated the contact tracing toolkit and step-by-step guide for managing Omicron for Phase 2.

Self-isolation period for close contacts:

• has reduced from 10 days to seven days
• where people must take a test on day five
• with a further negative test and no COVID-19 symptoms, they can return to the service on day eight.

Note: those people who were self-isolating for 10 days under Phase 1 can now follow Phase 2 guidance.

Early learning services connected to a confirmed case – Te Mahau

The National Investigation and Tracing Centre has developed a new COVID-19 registration spreadsheet that will be emailed to you if your service has a positive case.  

This link will require a service to register with CTUT

• once registered you’ll receive a spreadsheet that includes close contact details 
• you will be asked to provide only the information known to you (eg you should not ask for a NHI number). 
• once completed upload the spreadsheet to CTUT

Note: CTUT is interactive and can help with what you need to do at each step.

Due to the number of Omicron cases in Auckland, Public Health is working with Reach Aotearoa to support the case management process. Once confirmed, we will provide early learning services with the most up-to-date information.

In the meantime, continue to follow your current processes.

We encourage services to continue hosting ITE students on their professional experience placements as they are covered by the vaccination mandate and do not pose an additional health risk to children attending early learning services. 

Several initial teacher education (ITE) providers have contacted the Teaching Council with concerns that some early learning centres are hesitant to host ITE students on their professional experience placements under the red light setting. 

While non-essential visitors are to be excluded from visiting early learning services under the 'Red' light setting, fully vaccinated staff, support people and volunteers are allowed to enter early learning services. 

The professional experience placement is an important component of ITE and needs to continue with as little disruption as possible to maintain the pipeline of qualified teachers entering the profession.  

As you may be aware, under the traffic light system, people with COVID-19 will self-isolate in the community.

Back in November, the Government announced funding for the welfare support and resources needed to support individuals and whānau who contract COVID-19 and need extra support while they self-isolate.

Additional support for people isolating at home – Beehive

The funding enables supporting agencies and providers to deliver on the Care in Community welfare response.

If you are aware of any whānau self-isolating and who need additional support, we have included a list of the food providers and community connectors available in each region.

Food providers and community connectors – MSD

To support mental health, resilience and emotional wellbeing for our tamariki and rangatahi, the Ministry of Health has partnered with Whāraurau to offer parents, whānau and caregivers free online versions of the Triple P: Positive Parenting Programme across the country.

There are three free Triple P online programmes available to help positively support children to reduce anxiety, build emotional resilience and life skills and cope with challenges:

• Fear-Less Triple P Online – for parents and caregivers of children and teenagers (aged six to 14 years) who have significant anxiety
• Triple P Online – for parents with toddlers to 12-year-olds
• Teen Triple P Online – for parents with ‘tweens’ or teenagers aged 10 to 16 years.

These programmes will also provide whānau a toolkit that equips them to stay calm, guides behaviour positively and encourages children’s learning.

Find out more about Triple P and register for programmes – Ministry of Health