Dear Parents,
I know these are uncertain times. I want to encourage you and remind you that this, too, shall soon pass. I am writing to keep you up-to-speed on what we are doing here at A Brand New Day during this period.
- We are keeping our services running and will continue to do so for as long as we can. We recognize that children and families need these services and especially with schools closed, it can be very tough on families.
- We are monitoring the state of affairs closely and will provide updates via your email, our website https://www.abrandnewdayaba.com/about/blog/, and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/abrandnewdayaba/
- Since school is out and the needs are great for many of our kiddos at home, we are going to be contacting you to see if you would like us to advocate with the insurance for more hours during this time in effort to maintain structure and learning at home.
- We are offering talk therapy to our families via telehealth. We have great Licensed Professional Counselors/Licensed Clinical Social Workers on our team to help you and your family process what you are going through. When we reach out to talk with you about the case and hours, we will see if this is something that you would like right now.
- We have waived our cancellation policy for both our families and our staff. If our staff or families do not feel comfortable with having/performing services at this time, we surely respect those wishes.
- The following is our sick policy (in accordance with the CDC) for illnesses in general:
- Fever. Any temperature of 100.4 or greater is a fever. Session should be cancelled. Please continue cancelling sessions until your child/family is fever free for 24 hours without the use of ibuprofen or acetaminophen.
- Vomiting or diarrhea. The same 24 hour rule applies—sessions should be cancelled until child/family is free from such for 24 hours.
- Rashes or complaints of severe pain.
- Coughing that won’t stop.
- We are instituting the following policies to help mitigate risk:
- Starting this Wednesday, we will have all our teams take their body temperature and report to the office before going to work. We also ask that you monitor your own family to ensure that they are not showing any signs of sickness. If any in your family or our team have a fever, we will not provide services until the individual is fever free for 24 hours.
- We are asking families to limit community events…but we can play outside, go for walks, etc.
- We are asking our teams and families to clean and sanitize doorknobs, tables, and play areas at the beginning of every session. If the family does not have access to cleaning products, we will provide.
- Our teams are asked to wash their own hands upon entering your home and to wash the hands of your child. This activity should occur multiple times throughout the session.
- Starting Wednesday, our clinicians will start building a handwashing protocol into each of our kiddos’ programs. This protocol will be there to help the child learn how to brush his/her own hands independently.
We will get through this together. I know times are tough for most people out there and especially you. I can only imagine how confusing this all must be for your children. However, we, here, will remain calm, diligent, and focused on supporting our families through this.
Please reach out to your clinicians or clinical director if you have any issues or concerns. We got this and steady on!
Your friend,
Anna Reinhardt Thompson, M.Ed., M.A., BCBA, LBA
CEO
A Brand New Day ABA