Daycare Facilities

Four Tips to Help Keep Childcare Centers Sanitary

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One of the issues amplified by the pandemic is that keeping children safe from contagious diseases must always be a priority. However, accomplishing that goal takes work. Anytime larger groups of children gather there’s a meaningful chance of spreading infectious diseases. That’s why initiating a regular cleaning schedule and routine is crucial. Review the four tips for keeping a childcare facility clean for more information.

1. Focus on Sanitizing Surfaces

While constantly cleaning high-touch surfaces isn’t always easy, doing so will go a long way toward minimizing the spread of germs in childcare settings. Infectious diseases spread easily when multiple children share the same spaces all day. Colds, the flu, Covid, and other illnesses can be reduced when proper cleaning precautions are taken. In most cases, even when child care staff members handle routine cleaning during the day, consider using professional childcare cleaning services to deep clean the facility regularly to protect staff members, the children, and the children’s families.

2. Clean All Spills Immediately

Food and drinks stain surfaces quickly when they’re not cleaned promptly. However, those spills also increase the odds of harmful bacteria and mold. Since young children are curious, they may be tempted to taste spills, which will spread germs quickly. Staff members are encouraged to keep cleaning supplies within easy reach so all spills can be dealt with immediately. If a stain doesn’t come out using standard cleaning techniques, professional janitorial experts, such as Corvus Janitorial Systems, can generally resolve the problem during a scheduled visit.

3. Separate Dirty Objects for Cleaning 

During the day, staff members and children are encouraged to place dirty items in receptacles for cleaning. Children should be encouraged to place dirty items in the containers, and staff members should congratulate them for doing so. The central idea is to prevent the spreading of any dirt and contamination. Staff members can clean and sanitize items at the end of the day. 

4. Prepare for Emergencies

Every childcare facility will face cleaning issues. That’s expected when large groups of children are present all day. However, facilities are always encouraged to prepare for emergencies. That may mean keeping personal protective gear for everyone on hand and knowing when suspending operations might be required to keep everyone safe. Deep cleaning is often required when significant issues develop. Those might include an outbreak of a childhood disease, the threat of Covid, or the suspicion another contagious disease is present. Keep the contact information of childcare cleaning professionals, like Corvus, on hand to handle those situations. 

Those four tips are vitally important for all childcare centers, but there are other strategies facility owners and staff members can implement to reduce the likelihood of serious issues developing. Here are a few ways staff members can sanitize the areas throughout the day.

Don’t Spare the Soap and Water

Cleaning toys, dishes, and other commonly used items in a childcare center will always be an ongoing process. Staff members should always have the correct cleaning products to tackle routine cleaning chores. Remember that cleaning products designed to remove dirty floors will be different than those used for washing dishes. A professional cleaning service can perform these duties for you. 

Experts recommend carefully washing any dirty items using the recommended cleaning products. Once an item is thoroughly washed, rinse it completely to remove any remaining contaminants and soap residue.

Always Disinfect Items Used in Childcare Centers 

Although using plenty of soap and water will always be important, that step isn’t enough. Soap and water remove dirt but washing alone will not sanitize items. To minimize the spread of germs, sanitize everything. Discuss a center’s needs with cleaning professionals who are skilled in disinfection services if you’re unsure how to sanitize items used throughout the day.

While a bleach and water solution is recommended for quick cleanups, there are other options available to keep childcare centers clean and sanitary. Use the water and bleach mixture for quick wipe-downs of counters, door handles, and other frequently touched surfaces.

Dishwashers and clothes washers provide the level of cleaning needed to sanitize bedding, dishes, and hard toys in a childcare setting. The detergents and high heat are sufficient to kill most germs. Again, if you’re unsure how to clean specific items, take the time now to discuss the issue and get cleaning recommendations from a commercial cleaning service like Corvus.

Follow Your State and Local Guidelines

States and municipalities generally have regulations for cleaning and disinfecting a childcare center. Those regulations provide guidance when it comes to cleanliness and offer advice on how and when to clean specific areas within a facility.

At the same time, those regulations may not be sufficient to protect caregivers, children, and the children’s families in some situations. Rather than taking any unnecessary risks, discuss your center’s needs with a cleaning or janitorial service. Being proactive pays off when the incidence of diseases is reduced in a childcare environment.

Use Caution When Selecting Cleaning Products

Many cleaning products contain ingredients that could prove harmful to staff members and children alike. Even many products used in hospital settings are dangerous to children, which means staff members must read all labels carefully to ensure a specific product is safe to use around young children. Rather than taking unnecessary chances, stick to bleach and water solutions or use cleaning products recommended by local authorities or childcare center experts.

Stay on Top of Evolving Conditions

Because conditions change all the time, paying close attention to evolving care guidelines is strongly recommended. Covid precipitated a significant number of changes for all types of institutions, and childcare facilities didn’t escape untouched by those changes. Staff members must be provided with training materials as conditions evolve to ensure everyone stays as safe as possible.

Contact a Commercial Cleaning Service for Help

The easiest way to protect children and staff members is to have a commercial cleaning service, such as Corvus Janitorial Systems, schedule regular cleaning services for childcare facilities. The first step is to contact cleaning experts to discuss a facility’s needs and request a quote for the needed services. At Corvus, all it takes is a quick phone call or online request for a quote.

4 Reasons Why Your Daycare Center Needs Professional Cleaning Services

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Everyone knows that kids, and especially toddlers, can cause some serious messes, both at home and in daycare facilities. If you run a daycare center, chances are good that much of the day is already taken up by putting away toys, cleaning up spills, and wiping tiny hands and faces. After all of that, you shouldn’t have to worry about deep cleaning the entire facility at the end of each day.

Some daycare owners think they’ll save money by sticking to more topical cleaning and organizing tasks and ignoring the bigger jobs like disinfecting surfaces, mopping floors, and sanitizing frequently touched items. Unfortunately, that’s not an acceptable solution. Parents who entrust their children’s health and safety to daycare facilities expect them to be provided with a clean and hygienic environment, and it’s your job to make sure that’s what they find. 

If you don’t have time to worry about deep cleaning the facility after a long day of running after rambunctious kids, don’t worry. There’s a better solution. Read on to find out about just four of the many reasons your daycare needs professional cleaning services.

1. Keep Kids Safe

One of the most obvious benefits of professional daycare cleaning is that it eliminates potentially harmful germs, which means it’s less likely for even young, carefree attendees to pass transmissible illnesses on to others. Of course, in an ideal world, parents wouldn’t send their children to daycare with the sniffles, and this wouldn’t be a problem. In our world, it’s commonplace for kids to arrive at daycare with stuffy noses, runny eyes, and other cold symptoms.

Hiring a professional cleaning service for your daycare won’t just help to prevent the transmission of illnesses, either. Professional cleaners will be better able to choose the right sanitizing products and use them correctly than the average daycare worker, which means you won’t have to worry about dangerous chemicals being left behind on high-touch surfaces or airborne VOCs being left behind. Potentially dangerous cleaning chemicals can pose a serious risk to anyone, but children are especially susceptible.

2. Increase Attendance

These days, parents are more protective of their kids than ever. It’s not uncommon for new parents, especially, to check out every daycare in town before deciding who to trust with watching their children. If what they find when they enter your facility is a dirty, unkempt space that could pose a danger to their kids, those parents will look elsewhere for childcare help.

If, on the other hand, your daycare facility is clearly clean, sanitary, and well-maintained, it will earn parents’ trust and let them know that you are making every effort to protect their kids. The best part is that once one parent notices the difference that hiring a professional cleaning company makes on the overall appearance of your facility, it will start a chain reaction. Parents talk, and if what they’re telling each other is how great they feel about leaving their kids at your daycare every morning, it will help you bolster the facility’s attendance role and the business’s bottom line.

3. Improve Employee Morale

Daycare workers aren’t professional cleaners. They’re trained to provide care to children, which often involves picking up messes here and there, not to use potentially dangerous cleaning chemicals or make sure that every surface is perfectly sanitary. When the day is over, no daycare worker wants to stay behind after tidying up and getting everything organized to mop floors, wipe down toilets, and disinfect every surface.

If you want to keep workers happy and on track, hiring a professional cleaning service to perform regular deep cleanings is a great way to start. It takes an arduous task off of employees’ to-do lists so that they can focus on those aspects of their jobs that they are trained to perform, like taking excellent care of your daycare’s young attendees. Happy employees are more productive and better able to provide exceptional care than daycare workers who are stressed out not just about having to learn new skills and being held responsible for the health and safety of the kids in your care but also about their own wellbeing.

4. Maintain Consistency

Daycares need to be cleaned regularly and meticulously to avoid creating health hazards. As any parent will tell you, young children have developing immune systems that can’t protect them against even common colds, and they don’t understand the importance of maintaining good hygiene. As a result, they’re far more likely than adults to spread illnesses between each other and send them home with other kids to infect older family members. Missing just one day of cleaning can increase this problem tenfold.

It’s understandable that exhausted daycare workers who are also tasked with cleaning and sanitizing the facility after-hours might wind up cutting corners. After all, they’ve been running after kids all day, and that takes a lot of energy. Hiring a professional cleaning crew to come by after-hours to make sure everything is clean and sanitary can make a big difference because professional cleaners never cut corners and always maintain a consistently high level of professionalism.

Trust the Experts

If you run a daycare, you can’t afford to let your guard down just because the coronavirus pandemic is finally under control. The kids entrusted to your care are susceptible to a wide range of infectious diseases, as are the adults that pick them up at the end of the day or provide care at home. Keeping your facility clean and sanitary is the key to protecting the health and safety of both the children entrusted to your care and their families.

If you want to develop a reputation for excellence and find ways to stand out from the crowd, you can trust Corvus Janitorial Systems to help. We have all the right equipment, experience, and expertise to clean, sanitize, and disinfect even the dirtiest daycares, and we’ll be happy to work on your schedule. Get in touch today to discuss your daycare facility’s cleaning needs and how we can help you meet them.

Top 3 Reasons Your School Should Hire a Professional Cleaning Service

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Of all the investments schools make, hiring a janitorial service is one of the most effective. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people go through schools every day, and keeping surfaces clean does much to improve staff and students’ health and well-being. Here, we’ll list a few reasons for schools to hire professional cleaning services.

Increasing Productivity

When a person’s surroundings are clean and uncluttered, their mind will be as well. It’s been proven that a neat, tidy, and sanitary workplace encourages productivity. In schools, the philosophy applies everywhere, from cafeterias and assembly halls to classrooms and gymnasiums. While clutter and dirt can be distracting, a clean and neat school environment allows teachers and students to work productively all day long.

Supporting Health and Improving Hygiene

From stomach bugs to the coronavirus, it’s easy to spread infection in a school. Regular school cleaning services bring numerous benefits, as well as an in-depth knowledge of the differences between cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfection.

1. Cleaning removes dirt, impurities, and germs from hard and soft surfaces. It works by using detergent and water to strip contaminants from surfaces. While the process doesn’t always kill germs, it does reduce their numbers and lower the risk of infection.

2. Disinfection kills viruses and bacteria on objects and surfaces. Here, team members use special chemicals that, when applied properly, eliminate germs. Disinfection doesn’t always remove contaminants or clean surfaces, but it further reduces the risk of dangerous infection.

3. Sanitizing reduces the number of bacteria and viruses on surfaces to a level deemed acceptable by public health agencies. The process works by disinfecting or cleaning surfaces, thereby reducing infection risk.

Because children’s immune systems aren’t as well developed as those of adults, it’s more important than ever to maintain a sanitized environment. While working in a school comes with certain challenges, our team of cleaning specialists will use industrial-strength cleaning solutions to maintain the highest standards of safety, hygiene, and health for staff and students.

Janitors Can Clean Almost Anything

Schools typically have standard disinfection and cleaning procedures. In most cases, it involves the sanitizing of high-touch surfaces such as toys, phones, bathroom fixtures, computer keyboards, musical instruments, countertops, and desks. In high-transmission areas, daily disinfection may be required.

Not only do our crew members provide routine cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfection services, but we can also step in on an as-needed basis. Our on-call janitors will immediately clean visibly soiled objects and surfaces while following safe handling requirements for biohazardous materials such as blood and bodily fluids. We’ll remove spills, disinfect areas, and clean surfaces, and restore them to their former usability.

When they clean the same buildings and surfaces each day, in-house cleaning crews often overlook certain things. School superintendents, principals, teachers, and students can count on us to make buildings look clean and neat while creating a warm and welcoming environment for all.

Bonus Benefit #1: Custom Options

Professional cleaning services work with teachers and principals to determine the safest and best cleaning options for their schools. By working together, these two groups can create cleaning schedules for locker rooms, cafeterias, classrooms, gyms, hallways, and other areas. With the right plan in place, it’s possible to save time and money while ensuring that everyone has a healthy and positive school year.

Bonus Benefit #2: Saving Time, Money, Stress, and Hassle

Hiring a cleaning service allows principals and supervisors to create a schedule and free up time for other, more important duties. Simply choose the areas to be cleaned—and how often it should be done—and we’ll take care of the rest. When teachers and administrators have less to worry about, they have more time to focus on their students.

School cleaning is an investment that brings long-term financial advantages. While it seems costly in the beginning, professional cleaning eliminates the need to buy cleaning tools and supplies—which decreases spending. Scheduled cleanings keep schools healthy and clean, reducing student absences and educator sick days.

There’s almost nothing more frustrating than running out of something important. It can be difficult to keep track of soap, toilet tissue, paper towels, and other janitorial supplies, along with all the other responsibilities associated with working in a school. When all these duties are left up to a few people, the to-do list can seem almost impossible to finish. With comprehensive cleaning services, it’s easy to ensure a consistent supply of janitorial aids.

Bonus Benefit #3: A Better Educational Experience

A student’s environment has a significant effect on how well they learn, and it’s no surprise that a clean school will always outperform an unclean one. It’s been proven that students get higher grades in cleaner surroundings, and that graduation rates for clean schools exceed those of unkempt campuses. By providing a clean environment, administrators can improve students’ well-being and, by extension, their performance.

Bonus Benefit #4: Positive Parental Involvement

Keeping a school clean helps parents get involved in a positive way. When they realize that their kids are well cared for at a clean, sanitary school, they’re more likely to participate in parent-teacher association meetings and extracurricular activities. As administrations make a commitment to their schools, it may encourage more parents to do the same.

Make a Better Impression With School Cleaning Services

We’ve all been told not to judge books by their covers, but it’s only natural to make assumptions about a school’s safety and quality based on its appearance. Making a good first impression is important in all industries, including education. For visitors, staff members, and students, coming to a warm, welcoming, and clean environment is the best way to start the day. Clean windows, neat classrooms, uncluttered hallways, and sanitary surfaces show respect for the learning institution and all those who enter it.

Don’t let recent changes in the school environment be a distraction—hire a professional cleaning service you can count on. With help from the team at Corvus Janitorial Systems, administrators can keep staff, parents, and students safe, happy, and in good health. Contact us or call today to receive a customized quote.

Disinfecting and Cleaning to Open Your Daycare Facility

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As we inch toward the end of shelter-in-place orders, it’s important to be ready when our businesses open back up. We don’t want to be left scrambling when the time comes. For businesses that focus on the young and old, such as daycare and childcare centers, keeping things clean is particularly important. And that’s true now more than ever before. Following compliant, safe, and healthy cleaning practices will help us avoid preventable illnesses while we work on getting back to normal.

These practices will keep you, your staff, and the kids you care for healthy. If you’re not sure where to get started with disinfecting and cleaning to open your daycare, here are some tips from the friendly experts at Corvus Janitorial:

Give Everything an Initial Deep Clean

Before you open back up, it’s important to give everything a thorough, deep clean. This helps remove dirt, germs, and debris before you sanitize. This can be done with regular soap and water. Just scrub all of the surfaces, wash, and rinse. Make sure you hit all of the high-touch surfaces like bathroom fixtures, light switches, desks, and cubbies. Any toys or teaching tools that are shared should be cleaned, too. This will make sanitizing and disinfecting much more effective when you get there.

Give High-Touch Surfaces Some Extra Attention Moving Forward

The words cleaning and sanitizing are often used interchangeably, but they mean two different things. When you clean, you remove surface dirt, debris, and some germs. When you sanitize, you use a product that will kill 99.9% or more of the germs on these surfaces. Both cleaning and sanitizing are important when you want to keep your daycare truly clean, healthy, and safe. You’ll want to give those high-touch surfaces we mentioned earlier more attention than you used to. Any other areas that are handled a lot or shared should get extra attention.

When you’re dealing with kids, things can get messy. You’ll want to clean and sanitize throughout the day if you can. Durable, plastic toys that have been chewed on can be run through the dishwasher when you can sneak them away. Other toys can be disinfected and left to air dry. Instead of chasing children around to sanitize their toys during the day, it may be easier to sanitize these after pickup and focus on surfaces, counters, and cubbies during the day instead.

Look at the number of children you care for, the number of staff members you employ, and the number of high-touch surfaces you have, then use your best judgment to determine the right cleaning schedule for you. You can also build off of your old cleaning schedule – use it as a baseline and add additional steps from there. Once open, daycare facilities should be cleaned and sanitized at least once per day moving forward.

Use the Right Cleaning Supplies, In the Right Ways

Whether you’re gearing up for your initial clean before you open or you’re looking for ongoing cleaning practices to follow, it’s important to use the right products. Using them the right way is important, too. Before all of this happened, casual home cleaners might wipe a counter with a watery paper towel and call it a day. This won’t be enough anymore. Using an EPA approved disinfectant and following the proper dwell time is key to keeping things truly clean.

Read the label of your preferred cleaning products or check the EPA’s website to see if they’re approved. You can also find the answer to how long you should let the product dwell on a surface before you wipe it away. Many cleaning supplies have a 10-minute dwell time for maximum efficiency. For others, it might be two minutes or five. Follow the instructions on the label for the best results.

Create an Efficient and Safe Cleaning System

Many daycares are dealing with baby colds and shared toys, so you may already have a cleaning system you prefer. But with everything going on right now, it’s a good time to revisit it; there are ways to make it safer that you may not have thought of before it was a necessity. First, try to limit cross-contamination. This means keeping the mop you use for the bathroom in the bathroom and using a separate one in the hallway or playroom. If you use cleaning rags or dish towels, keep these separate, too. Limit exposure wherever you can.

With some extra effort, the right supplies, and an effective routine, we can keep our daycares and other businesses safe. We’re all in this together. And when it starts to feel overwhelming, give the experts at Corvus Janitorial a call. We’re always available to help. For ongoing cleaning once centers reopen, we’ve got our own updated practices in place. Just keep in mind that the process may have changed a bit since we last visited your facility. We’ll need a bit more time to sufficiently clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces to keep everyone safe. We’re also focusing more on power-scrubbing bathrooms and ceramic floors, and carpet cleaning. These areas harbor germs and could benefit from a slightly more aggressive scope of service.

How Corvus Can Help Your Childcare Facility Reopen

At Corvus, we understand the pressure and uncertainty that has arisen from the coronavirus pandemic. Thorough cleaning and disinfecting procedures matter now more than ever. To that end, our dedicated franchise owners and teammates have added new tools to our cleaning arsenal. These tools include electrostatic disinfectant sprayers and disinfectant fogger machines. Both tools enable Corvus professionals to sanitize and disinfect large spaces and areas that are often missed with standard disinfection practices, such as the underside of tables and chairs.

The Corvus Janitorial Systems team is here to help as America begins the process of reopening businesses and facilities. Cleaning and disinfecting are critical to open up daycare centers. If your daycare or childcare facility is in need of a professional cleaning partner, or if you simply require a deep clean and disinfection before opening up, inquire here for a free quote or give us a call at (855) 919-1346. We are happy to help!

This piece is meant simply to inform, not to provide any legal or medical advice.

About Corvus Janitorial Systems

Founded in 2004 to make people’s lives better, Corvus is a full-service commercial cleaning franchisor that offers cleaning services through reputable local Franchisees. Corvus has been guided by its mission to transform people and transform places by consistently delivering independence, security, and freedom to Franchisees who deliver high-quality cleaning to offices, educational buildings, medical buildings/offices, recreational centers, industrial parks, and other spaces. The company has 17 regional support offices across the United States with nearly 900 Franchisees. For more information regarding Corvus, visit www.corvusjanitorial.com or www.corvusjanitorial.com/franchise for franchise information.

Daycare Cleaning Service for your Facility

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The importance of daycare cleaning

It is known that young children are at a greater risk of exposure to toxins and germs than their adult counterparts. Common cold, the flu, coughs, sore throats and diarrhea are just a few of the illnesses that run rampant in daycare facilities. It is estimated that children in child care and school settings will have as many as 8 to 12 colds…each year. In addition, one of the most likely groups to get hepatitis A are children and workers in daycare centers. With this in mind, operations managers at daycare facilities must do all they can to maintain a safe and clean environment for the children in their care. Cleaning services for daycare facilities can be an answer for facility managers looking to ensure the most thorough clean.

 

Daycare cleaning procedures: Cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting

Cleaning comes first in child care facilities

The first step to creating a germ and toxin free daycare facility is to clean. Cleaning removes dirt and other grime from surfaces. All surfaces, including windows, carpets, glass, doorknobs, bathrooms and toys should be scrubbed, washed and rinsed. Dirt can prevent sanitizers and disinfectants from working properly, so it is critical that all dirt is removed in this step. A mild detergent and water solution is best; avoid cleaning detergents with lots of chemicals. Green cleaning solutions are the best; they have less effect on human health and the environment than non-green alternatives.

Sanitize areas in your daycare facility that are touched by many hands or come into contact with food

Choosing the correct daycare cleaning supplies is important to maintain a healthy facility. In order to properly sanitize, you will need an appropriate sanitizer. Sanitizing lowers the number of germs on surfaces and objects to a safe level. Sanitizing is done using products called antimicrobials.
Antimicrobials are agents that kill microorganisms or inhibit their growth. Antimicrobials are intended to kill germs, making them pesticides. Because they are pesticides, caution must be used when using sanitizers in a child care setting, as these pesticides can be harmful to humans. For example, phenol, found in many common sanitizers and disinfectants such as Lysol and Pine-Sol, can cause many problems such as heart damage, respiratory damage, and liver, kidneys and eye damage. Any product used to sanitize or disinfect must be registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The most commonly used sanitizer and disinfectant used in daycare facilities is bleach. Bleach is a good sanitizer because it is readily available, relatively inexpensive, easy to use and has a short killing time. Sanitize all door knobs, railings, faucets, and eating utensils.

Disinfect areas in your childcare facility that come into contact with bodily fluids

Sanitizing is great, but disinfecting all areas in your facility that come into contact with any bodily fluids is key to keeping the children in your care healthy. Disinfecting kills germs on surfaces and objects. Areas to disinfect include diaper changing areas, toilets, mouthed toys, water fountains and any other surface contaminated with blood or other fluids. Again, bleach is the most commonly used disinfectant. To properly disinfect, apply a disinfecting solution to an area and allow it to air dry for a few minutes. If the area is going to be used right away after disinfection, rinse the surface with a solution of soap and water.

 

Why use a cleaning service at your daycare facility?

Cleaning can be strenuous, time consuming and difficult. That’s why professional janitorial services may be your best option for cleaning your child care facility. Professional cleaners know what it takes to properly clean, sanitize and disinfect facilities, making the children in your care safer. At Corvus Janitorial, we have a plethora of professionals with years of experience cleaning daycare facilities. For more information on the services we offer to child care facilities, click here.