How Our Programs are Adapting
Category: News
August 5, 2020
Many of our families had significant family, health or other life challenges before the coronavirus, and things have only gotten harder. Through the challenges, we’ve seen our staff, volunteers, supporters and client families adapt, learn new skills and take on new roles.
To ensure our families feel connected and have access to services and resources, we were able to provide emergency technology devices and email addresses to help clients keep in contact with their therapists and educators. We continue to curate and share educational resources for our clients on topics such as safety protocols, COVID-19 testing, meal and prescription assistance, virtual learning, mental health and wellbeing, and so much more. We even rallied our volunteers to provide additional support including meal and care package prep, and virtual tutoring.
We continue to offer our full suite of services and are enrolling new clients in all of our programs. While the programs may be delivered a little bit differently, we’re finding that there is strength, comfort and growth in these difficult times.
Here are some ways that our core programs have adapted.
Counseling and Emotional Support (No Estás Solo): Our team has created webinars on emotional well-being during the COVID-19 crisis. We also launched online parent support groups for clients and the broader community. The groups are designed for first-time parents, expecting moms, and parents of children with special healthcare needs, and are offered in English and Spanish.
Guidance for First-Time Moms (Nurse-Family Partnership): Families appreciate that they have a personal nurse now more than ever, as some doctors’ offices are delaying appointments or not allowing partners to attend. Any Baby Can nurses are seeing a high response rate to new service delivery methods. While Nurse-Family Partnership has offered one-on-one calls to clients since program inception, introducing telehealth video calls is new.
Child Development Services (Early Childhood Intervention): At the core of our Early Childhood Intervention program is a coaching model that translates well to telehealth. We’re encouraging flexibility in service delivery, sometimes conducting visits for shorter periods more frequently, to allow for the challenge of increased interruptions. Staff has also altered their work schedules to offer more flexible virtual visit times, including evenings.
Parenting and Childbirth Classes (Family Education Program): While many classes were abruptly interrupted in mid-March, instructors helped students finish out their work, in some cases doing one-on-one calls so clients could complete the course. Since then, classes have been held through teleconference or phone meetings, and are offered in a virtual group setting or as private classes.
Parent Coaching and Support (Healthy and Fair Start): Our Parent Educators have continued to be a steady force in their clients’ lives, even virtually. During each visit, they encourage parent-child bonding, answer questions and check in on milestones – all of which have been more valuable than ever. Monthly group connections have also been adapted into virtual formats to continue to provide families opportunities to connect and strengthen their supports.
Medical Case Management & Respite (CARE/Candlelighters and CHAT): The individual guidance that clients receive through our family health programs have been extremely valuable during this time of crisis, especially for families with kids facing a childhood illness or hearing impairment. Our case managers have helped navigate medical appointments, delayed procedures, virtual school, insurance and so much more.
As is core to our mission, we will continue to adapt and be flexible to community and client needs, meeting families where they are—physically, emotionally and culturally—and fostering strong, resilient families to reach their full potential.
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