As you can imagine, it has been a very stressful time for families who rely on us for vital birth to three services. Many of these families are already isolated by the nature of their children’s needs and interrupting or delaying services only exacerbates the problem.
While social distancing is a great way to help stop the spread of COVID-19, it creates barriers to providing the essential therapies our children need. It could have easily been a dead-end for services, but instead, our amazing staff has done what they do best – they found hope where there is often none.
Within 24 hours of the governor putting restrictions in place, our therapists and teachers learned to use a new telehealth service, contacted Joya families to get them signed up, reworked schedules, set up home offices, and demonstrated astounding adaptive abilities in order to continue providing vital early intervention services to our Joya families.
It’s been amazing to watch and it’s so comforting to see many of our families and their kiddos still engaging and learning from a safe place that protects the health of all. The great work of our team was featured on Spokane CBS affiliate, KREM-TV. You can see the incredible impact here.
Whether a family chooses to continue with services virtually or not, our Family Resources Coordinators continue to stay in close contact, helping connect families to resources such as meal distribution, unemployment information and crisis care. While our therapy looks different right now, our emotional support for families remains as strong as ever.
Thank you to those who have reached out to help and who continue to support our mission during this time of great uncertainty. We are grateful for those who respond to a crisis by asking, “How can I help?” We are still here, providing compassionate care based on a family’s need, not based on what they can afford. You can help us by sharing our story and encouraging others to support our mission in any way they can.
I will provide another update in the coming weeks as we are re-imagining our traditional Penny Drive Community Day set for April 25th.
Until then, please know the safety of our families and staff remains our highest priority. Please feel free to contact with me any questions or concerns at colleen.fuchs@joya.org.
Be well,
Colleen
COLLEEN FUCHS | Executive Director