“Covid” Operations: How Our Partners Are Responding
We’ve asked our service partners to share how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted their organizations. What are they doing to respond? How are they coping with the challenges? How are they continuing to serve the children in our community? Here are a few of their responses.
BLUE SKY FUND:
To meet the unique educational needs presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Blue Sky Fund’s program team is repurposing their experiential education expertise to produce learning resources for students and families at home. For those students without online access, we’re distributing 1,500 hard-copy Home Science Learning Kits to families at ten RPS meal distribution sites; kits include seven science lesson plans and all of the materials necessary to complete those activities. We’re also creating 25 #ThinkOutsideWithBlueSky online learning videos, which are simple hands-on science lessons that can be completed in any outdoor space; these lessons are available on our social media channels and also being referenced in the science curriculum of Richmond Public Schools’ virtual learning platform (RPS@Home).
We’re facilitating weekly virtual outdoor experience classes to RPS middle school students through NextUp’s online enrichment portal. Our Outdoor Leadership Institute team is still recruiting a new cross-cultural group of teenagers for its summer wilderness immersion, and has developed contingency plans for beginning at a later date if need be. In looking to relaunch our programming in the future, we’ve been in close communication with Richmond Public Schools to discuss various contingency plans for delivering our experiential science education to students. We also hosted our annual #BlueSkiesAhead online crowdfunding campaign in early May and raised $33,221 to ensure that Blue Sky Fund is ready and able to relaunch programming once it’s safe to do so.
CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL:
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our community in significant ways, bringing unique challenges to everyone’s lives. As our community’s full-service children’s hospital, Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU is continuing its important work of caring for children with a variety of healthcare needs. We reorganized our emergency department procedures and accelerated our telehealth capabilities significantly to allow our team to see patients remotely when possible. From increasing telehealth visits 600% in a few short weeks, to creating a mobile hematology/oncology lab to make sure some of our most vulnerable patients are as safe as possible, to taking part in cutting-edge convalescent plasma donation trials, we’re here ensuring our community is protected.
Unfortunately, the family and friends of our patients who reside at the Brook Road Campus in the Transitional Care Unit have not been able to visit in many weeks. Our staff and therapists are working diligently to ensure that these children maintain contact with their loved ones through Zoom calls and FaceTime. Further, each child is getting individualized care and attention bedside as they are not able to leave the unit for school and recreational activities. The Brook Road Campus remains committed to keeping this special population of children safe and are therefore taking extra precautions to limit visitors within the environment. We remain extremely grateful to donors like the Kiwanis Club of Richmond who provide such wonderful gifts regularly for our patients that can be used bedside within the unit, especially in a time like this.
CHILDSAVERS:
While our clinic doors remain open for children and families in need of face-to-face therapy, ChildSavers quickly pivoted to remote services at the beginning of March. Since the arrival of COVID-19, we’ve worked tirelessly to move our clients to teletherapy, virtually train child care providers across the Commonwealth, lead online community trauma training, and aggressively fundraise to keep our doors open. The last few months have been extremely difficult and unlike anything we’ve ever faced before, but thanks to our donors and dedicated staff, we’re steadily working to maintain, and even surpass, our annual service goals.
Toxic stress occurs when a child experiences four or more traumatic life experiences. On average, our clients experience six traumatic life events before turning 18. We are committed to remaining open and available to our clients, especially in the midst of COVID-19, a time of enormous stress and anxiety. We’re also working to prevent trauma by training early child care professionals to deliver the best education and care possible. As we’ve seen throughout this pandemic, early childhood care and education is truly the backbone of our community’s workforce and economy.
CHURCH HILL ACTIVITIES & TUTORING:
Online instruction at Church Hill Academy has continued for all 43 students here. Each student has a Chromebook and internet access. Our teachers are finding innovative ways to keep students engaged and learning. More than 70% of students are doing as well or even better than they were before the crisis. We’re also distributing about 400 meals a week to students and families in need. We’ve also been supporting RPS in its meal distribution efforts. We have eight staff serving as lead volunteers at the school distribution sites, and our After-School Director Willis Weber is serving as a volunteer coordinator for the whole system. To date, over 500,000 meals have been distributed. We’ve continued remote engagement at our preschool, Tiny Tykes; teachers are sending home activity packets, videos, and other activities to do at home.
Once the school year ends, Church Hill Academy faculty and staff will shift to planning for next school year. We are hoping to launch a hybrid model in which one class period each day is self-directed, self-paced at home. This will allow us to keep every class in position to shift back to fully online learning if lockdowns occur. We’ll continue with our plan to expand the school to over 50+ students, and add girls’ basketball.
RELATIONSHIP FOUNDATION:
The Relationship Foundation of Virginia is adapting our programs and offering them virtually; our organization has reached more couples through our relationship programming than we did in the previous three months combined! We have expanded our fatherhood programming, giving new fathers peace of mind as babies enter this world in a pandemic. We are offering new curriculum to parents and their children to do together to help families thrive during these uncertain times. Our Boot Camp for New Dads program is needed now more than ever. We’ve had fathers participate (or attend) from the greater Richmond area, as well as Virginia Beach and even as far away as New York. Due to the need for this program, we are planning to expand our reach throughout the state. Our Youth Programming is offering virtual classes for parents and children to do together such as The 5 Love Languages of Children and Media & Manners. These programs are provided to help the families grow stronger and have conversations that will make this time at home more manageable. Our Virtual Date Nights have been a huge hit offering couples an escape from the monotony of the television. From game nights to relationship building, these classes have been a hit. Due to the success of one particular Date Night, Couples Game Night, we have added a Millennials and Boomers edition so couples from all generations can enjoy.
VIRGINIA VOICE:
In this challenging environment, Virginia Voice has adapted to meet the needs of the elderly and visually disabled. While we sent more than 100 weekly volunteers home for safety, staff continues to read the daily Richmond Times-Dispatch live and 15 volunteers are reading materials from home. We have reached out to agencies and other non-profits to share their available resources and information to our listeners. We have become a clearing house of information, creating public service announcements on their behalf to make sure our at-risk population have the information and resources available. This includes a daily 30 minute “Covid-19 Roundup” program provided by the Commonwealth’s “Covid-19 Unified Command Joint Information Center.”
VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE:
While the VMHC facility has remained closed, we’ve been very pleased to offer a wide array of free online programming and educational resources to continue connecting and serving Virginians at home, especially youth. Guests can access these resources through our website at VirginiaHistory.org/AtHome. This new hub for content features details for live and recorded lectures, hundreds of history articles and research material, live webinars for adults and students, special online conversations with curators, virtual exhibit tours, podcasts, teaching resources, and fun activities like digital puzzles and coloring sheets. Collectively, it is one of the most robust portfolios of digital offerings in Virginia. One of our marquee educational programs, Virginia History Day, had to undergo significant changes as well but was successfully moved to an online virtual format. Students registered online through our website, and then submitted digital versions of their projects to the judges. Both teachers and students greatly appreciated the chance to continue this program, saying it created a sense of normalcy in a chaotic situation, and brought the year-long process full circle for them. When the contest wrapped up on May 5, we premiered a virtual award ceremony announcing this year’s winners on the VMHC Education Facebook page and VMHC YouTube Channel, which was warmly received.
Two other new initiatives featured online are the VMHC’s COVID-19 collecting initiative. Just as we have archives that speak to the flu pandemic of 1918 and others, we are encouraging people to submit their personal accounts via journals, photos, videos, artifacts, and audio recording to document the impact of COVID-19 in Virginia. We are not sure when it will be safe to re-open to guests, and, even when it is, we know it will not be the same for a long time. We will continue devoting time and energy to growing our online offerings, and preparing for the day when we can see people onsite once again!