WONDERING HOW WE’RE COPING UNDER THE COVID PANDEMIC?
So far, so good.
REMOTE OPERATIONS
Anthesis has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic like everyone else during 2020. When the first stay-at-home orders were issued in March, 85% of our program participants were forced to stay home because they were deemed vulnerable. We closed our program facilities in order to ensure that staff and participants were not in contact with each other. Slowly, we began to convert our operations to remote activities that included phone calls and video conferencing to keep in touch with our participants while they were required to stay home 24/7. This was extremely difficult for many since one of the main reason’s individuals attend our programs is for the socialization and community integration aspects. These initial months were very difficult for a lot of people.
During the summer, our wonderful staff began to engage in new methods of delivering services electronically to our participants. A Facebook group was created for one program to communicate with each other; Zoom sessions were developed to teach skills, learn new tasks and to share time together which helped to bring back some of the socialization that was missing from their lives. During the warmer summer months, we also began providing in-person services to some individuals who were comfortable with wearing masks and staying socially distant from each other which helped get some individuals out of their homes even for short periods of time.
FOLLOWING CDC GUIDELINES
Following the guidelines provide by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and local Departments of Public Health, Anthesis developed policies and procedures for staff to follow while doing their interactions with the participants. We received grants and our fundraising events were focused on COVID to assist in purchasing personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as hand sanitizer and disinfectants to ensure that we are continually protecting everyone. Education of the safety measures needed to prevent contracting the Coronavirus was the primary subject of many trainings with the participants.
As we end 2020 and begin preparing for 2021, it does not look the pandemic will be ending anytime soon. There is great hope that the vaccines being developed will help slow down the spread, but COVID will probably be with us well into 2021. Anthesis staff is continuing to find ways to be creative in providing services using electronic methods. More participants are gaining access to computers and tablets so that we can become more interactive with them. Increasing the amount of time we can spend with each participant is our priority and how we can play our part in creating meaningful experiences for our participants. A huge debt of gratitude needs to be expressed to all staff of Anthesis but especially our direct care staff who continue to be dedicated to serving their participants in these difficult times. We all hope that this will end soon so we can get back to whatever the new “normal” will be but we have become a stronger organization through all of this and ready to tackle whatever comes next.
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