When the UK went into lockdown in March, Jessica Breakwell kept all five of the nurseries she runs in Hertfordshire open. Many of the parents were essential workers, and most of the children needed her nurseries to stay open too. Almost all the toddlers Breakwell cares for became eligible for government-funded childcare when they turned two, either because their parents are unemployed or on very low incomes, or because they are in local authority care or classed as vulnerable. Some of the children who arrive at her nurseries at 24 months old are developmentally only between 8 and 15 months old; Breakwell makes sure that by the time they leave to start school, they are reaching or surpassing their development milestones. She sees part of her job as supporting parents, some of whom have had difficult childhoods themselves and may find it hard to model the loving, stable parenting they so want for their own children. She partnered with a local food charity after lockdown began, so that she and her staff could deliver groceries to families she knew were struggling, or to parents too afraid to go out.
In early May, a box arrived at one of Breakwell’s nurseries, sent by the local council. It contained masks, aprons, gloves, bin-liners, disinfectant and one bottle of hand sanitiser, to be shared between her five nurseries. The emails she’d received from Hertfordshire County Council in March about keeping her nurseries open to care for the children of essential workers had made no mention of any need for personal protective equipment (PPE) and offered no advice on how to prevent the virus spreading within her nurseries. A letter in April had conceded that children cannot “social distance” but assured her that “good handwashing practice is sufficient”.
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