How to prepare for COVID-19 in your organization

Pay extra attention to your existing prevention efforts.

• Encourage clients and staff to wash hands often. Post signs.
• Ask clients and staff to cover coughs with inner elbow, inside of shirt collar or tissues. Post signs.
• Ask clients with symptoms to wear a mask or to cover their cough. Post signs in English and Spanish.
• Well-stock all restrooms with soap and paper towels.
• Provide hand sanitizer at key locations: by entrance, phone, computers, elevators, etc.
• Consider setting up temporary handwashing stations at entrances or other places with limited access.
• Avoid touching your face, nose, eyes, and mouth.
• Stock up on supplies of tissues, hand sanitizer, and gloves as available.
• Provide plastic-lined wastebaskets for used tissues and masks.
• Staff should use gloves when picking up used tissues or emptying waste baskets.
• Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces several times per shift. Pay particular attention to doorknobs, banisters, tabletops, and handrails, pens, phones, bathroom fixtures, keyboards, etc.

Shelter and housing providers should also:

• Screen for symptoms upon entry.
• Do your best to separate people with symptoms from healthy people.
• Offer a separate space for eating and resting if you can.
• Follow this detailed Interim Guidance on COVID-19 for Homeless Service Providers.

Considerations for staff.

• Encourage sick staff and volunteers to stay home. Send them home if they start feeling sick at work.
• Plan your staffing to minimize the number of staff members who have face-to-face interactions with clients with respiratory symptoms.
• Don’t designate staff and volunteers at high risk of severe COVID-19 (those who are older or have underlying health conditions) as caregivers for sick clients.

Resources for specific types of human services providers.

All human services organizations

• Guidance for People at Higher Risk for Serious Illness.

What to do if you:

• Have suspected or confirmed COVID-19. 
• May have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. 
• Have symptoms but weren’t exposed to someone with COVID-19. 

Housing and Homeless Service Providers

All homelessness providers

• COVID-19 Tips for homeless service providers.
• Interim guidance for homeless shelters—CDC.
• Recommendations for homeless shelters facilities—DOH.
• Webinar: Infectious disease preparedness for homeless assistance providers.
• Sanitation and hygiene guide for homeless service providers—Public Health Seattle and King County.
• COVID-19 Infographic for people living homeless.

Street outreach workers

• Novel coronavirus outreach worker training—Public Health Seattle and King County.

Emergency shelters

• Interim guidance for homeless shelters—CDC.
• Infectious Disease Toolkit.—U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Residential facilities—Adult family boarding homes, transitional housing.

• Home Isolation Guidance for Families and Individuals Living in permanent Supportive Housing.
• Prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Homes and Residential Communities.

Home Care Workers

• COVID-19 Guidance for In-Home Care Providers—DOH.
• COVID-19 Guidance for Field Staff.
• Guidance to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 in Homes and Residential Communities—CDC.
• Guidance for Home Care Agencies—DOH.
• Guidance for Parents and Caretakers—DOH.

Other

• Senior center administrator and employee resources and recommendations—DOH.
• COVID-19 and Opioid Treatment Programs.
• COVID-19 and Office-Based Buprenorphine Prescribers.