Center COVID-19 Update
We hope you and your loved ones are healthy and adjusting to the stay-at-home request from our government officials. We at the Center have continued to care for the youth entrusted to our care without interruption. Many people have asked us how the Center is operating through the COVID-19 crisis so we wanted to provide you with an update:
- Therapy sessions have continued as always with individual, group and family therapy sessions. To maintain social distancing guidelines, many of these sessions are hosted via video conferencing, but the important topics discussed have remained the same.
- All staff members are screened when they arrive at the Center each day and upon entering the facility everyone is required to wear a mask.
- We are keeping the kids active. Our residential clients now attend school four hours a day and participate in their regularly scheduled therapy sessions and recreational time.
- We are hosting special events for our residents and staff including bringing in a coffee truck, a BBQ food truck, and periodically providing special dinners at the request of the teens from restaurants like McDonald’s and Taco Bell. Many of these special treats are funded through the generosity of friends of the Center like yourself.
- We are planning the procedures we will put in effect when we are allowed to let family members back into the facility. In the meantime, we have implemented video conferencing for visitations. It is working well during this unprecedented period of time and we plan to continue to make it available, especially for our families who live outside of the Houston area.
- We have restricted admissions based on strict CDC guidelines. We will continue to assess when it is safe to admit additional teens to the residential program.
- In the interim, we have expanded our intensive outpatient (IOP) program to help with transitioning kids back home. We now host both daytime and evening group therapy sessions via video conferencing for teens in our IOP program.
The number of kids in our residential treatment program is lower than normal, as we purposely restrict admissions to keep the teens and staff safe. It is, however, negatively impacting the Center’s finances. We humbly ask for help from our friends, such as sponsoring meals and activities, or donating art supplies or sporting equipment, like footballs, basketballs and soccer balls. A general donation to our operational fund is also welcome.
Please let us know if you have any questions about our COVID-19 response.
Stay well!
Robert and Marylou