COVID-19 Testing Program Dramatically Expanded for Massachusetts Child Care Programs

Non-Profit Neighborhood Villages and Department of Early Education and Care Partnering to Provide Up to 13,000 Pooled Tests Per Week 

BOSTON, MA (September 20, 2021) - Following a highly successful program this summer, a first-of-its-kind, free COVID-19 pooled testing program for early education and care programs is being dramatically expanded across the Commonwealth. Massachusetts is the first state to apply the federal government’s Operation Expanded Testing to the child care sector. 

So far, more than 260 child care providers in Massachusetts have signed on to participate in the expanded testing program. The child care testing program in Massachusetts was launched last year and administered by Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-based nonprofit that advocates for solutions to the greatest challenges faced by the early education sector, with funding and support from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). Neighborhood Villages and EEC partnered together to launch a pilot testing program that administered more than 27,000 free tests at child care facilities. With this expansion, the state will now conduct up to 13,000 tests of children and staff at child care facilities each week. 

Testing will be administered by Affinity Empowering, Inc. on behalf of Eurofins Clinical, as part of Operation Expanded Testing (OET), a federally funded program that offers no-cost, “click and go” COVID-19 surveillance testing to schools and community organizations OET uses PCR, the gold standard for COVID-19 detection, and a pooled testing system that allows for results to be typically returned within 24 hours.

“Massachusetts is the leading state in the country in offering free, comprehensive COVID testing for the child care sector,” said Neighborhood Villages co-president and chief innovation officer Sarah Muncey. “As we continue to confront the Delta variant, this program is essential to keeping our care providers, children and families safe - and allowing our parents to continue to work. We are so thankful to Commissioner Aigner-Treworgy and the Department of Early Education and Care for their leadership and for dramatically expanding this program to reach thousands more families. We also want to thank our partners at Affinity Empowering for administering this program and to the Biden Administration for ensuring that that child care sector is included in this testing program.”

During the pilot program, there were 37 asymptomatic positive COVID-19 cases identified, allowing appropriate contact tracing and quarantine to take place in the community to limit spread. The testing allowed classrooms to stay open and care providers, children, and families to remain safe. 

“Providing these testing resources, along with PPE, is a vital mitigation strategy that will help to ensure that programs stay open and that child care remains available to working families throughout the year ahead.  We are thrilled to be scaling this program to support the health and safety of the families, children, and providers throughout Massachusetts,” said Commissioner of Early Education and Care Samantha Aigner-Treworgy.

“Massachusetts has made a great choice providing COVID-19 tests to child-care centers across the state. Surveillance COVID-19 testing, especially tests conducted with the gold standard PCR method of detection, is such an important measure to help reduce outbreak risk and maintain peace of mind in our communities,” said Anne Haslerud, Vice President of Recruitment and Enrollment at Affinity Empowering. “This is a great example of how local organizations, state and federal governments, and a company like Affinity Empowering can come together to provide a truly important service during a time of need.”

Since February 2021, state-funded pooled testing has been offered at K-12 schools across the Commonwealth, with low positivity rates among students and staff. This program for early education and care is a critical addition to that effort, with the CDCidentifying providers in childcare settings as one of the groups that should be prioritized for COVID-19 screening. Nationally, the early education and childcare workforce is 92% female and 41% people of color. 

Early education and care providers who would like more information on the testing program or to begin the registration process can visit maearlyedtesting.com

A recent study by American Academy of Pediatrics shows that children represented 24% of new COVID-19 cases as of May 13th, 2021. That means that even as adults and adolescents continue to get vaccinated, COVID-19 can still spread. Establishing a regular testing protocol for the early education and care sector, is key to keeping children and educators safe. Routine screening  can help (1) identify and isolate positive cases, (2) curb transmission, and (3) reassure and protect the health and well-being of childcare providers and parents.

Enrolled early education and care providers in the new testing program can test all staff, educators, and children in their program weekly at no cost. 

In pooled testing, samples are gathered from multiple people in one early education and care program and mixed into pools. This process tests the pool of samples. If the pool tests negative, then all the individuals in the pool are negative. If the pool tests positive, then individual samples from that pool are re-tested to see which person tested positive. The provider can then implement contact tracing and other protocols to address immediately the individual case or cases, which can help avoid the need to close down an entire facility. The whole process, start to finish, takes about 36 hours.  

Neighborhood Villages, founded in 2017 by Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, is a Boston-based systems-change non-profit that advocates for early education and care policy reform and implements scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges facing providers and the families who rely on them. For more information, visit https://www.neighborhoodvillages.org/our-work.