Our Burton center is closed THROUGH Monday, November 16th - children can return to therapy in Burton on Tuesday, November 17th, as long as they continue to exhibit no symptoms of COVID-19.

We are very pleased to report that our two staff members who were positive with COVID-19 have both recovered quickly. We do have one additional staff member from Burton who is considered a probable case at this time, and is waiting on test results. That staff member has been quarantining and we will update families individually should this become a positive case that has an impact on your family. It is not expected that a positive result for this person should cause any additional concerns for families, as there was no further contact thanks to the quarantine and closure.

We are also very pleased to report that no families have contacted us with any symptoms or health concerns for their children since the closure began. We hope that all families will see this as positive confirmation of the effectiveness of all our mitigation strategies.

Thank you all for completing our parent survey! We got a lot of additional responses since the last newsletter and it's useful feedback. We'll check in again in December with a short survey, but as always, feel free to reach out to your BCBA with any feedback you have for us.

We will suspend all travel between buildings for staff members for the foreseeable future. We had limited travel to 1-2 individuals, including our Executive Director and Family Coordinator, but we will stop all travel between buildings at this time, to ensure that we do not carry any potential illness between the groups.

There are a few things parents will need to know with this change:

• In the past, we would occasionally fill a session with a therapist from another building. That will not happen now. If something happens and we don't have staff for your child's session, that session may be canceled. As you know, we have a number of strategies in place to avoid cancellations, including Lead Therapists, BCBAs who can fill in for sessions, and even our Office Manager who can fill in for sessions.
• If one of our building BCBAs should need to miss work for an extended period of time, our Executive Director, Amy Hund, may need to fill in for that BCBA in order for the children to continue to receive services. If that should happen, we have a couple of options:

1. Amy will come to the building in person, wearing PPE and following all our standard protocols, but really focusing on maintaining her distance from the children physically OR
2. Amy can provide some supervision remotely, using telehealth. We are looking into ensuring we have a dedicated device in each building to easily allow this.

At this point, our plan is for Amy Hund to work primarily in the Burton building, to support that team. You may also see Amy driving items between the buildings if needed, but we will do a curbside drop off and clean any items thoroughly before they are used.

Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns, we are trying to share as much information as possible to reassure you that your children's health is our top priority.

We have added a music time after lunch in both buildings! We piloted some different videos in October to begin this, and one that we found the kids liked the most is Nick the Music Man. the children eat lunch from 11:30-12:00, and then we use a guided video from Nick to engage the children in a group music activity. They vary in length up to 30 minutes, and it's a really fun way for the kids to interact, imitate each other, and have some active fun after lunch.

Check out one of Nick the Music Man's videos here.

Please remember that when a staff member is absent for any reason, our first priority is to continue to provide services for your child. This may mean a different therapist working with your child.

When we make a schedule change, keep in mind that it can be very beneficial for your child, in that it helps him:

• Learn to handle unexpected changes (often a challenge for children with ASD)
• Generalize skills to a different person
• Learn totally new ways to play and interact, since everyone is a little different

Rest assured that all of our staff in each building are familiar with all of our children - they see each other every day, and many times this may be a staff member who used to work with your child regularly coming back to him. We have different staff members lead group lessons throughout the day, so each staff member interacts with all the children daily. We also work in small groups to cover lunchtime and music, so every staff member has interaction with your child during that time as well.

If you have any concerns about your child working with a different therapist, please reach out to your BCBA directly, but know that this is a regular part of our program. Over many years of providing this type of therapy, we can assure you that a staff substitution for one day is definitely less disruptive than an unexpectedly missed day! And of course, no matter who is working with your child, we all follow our regular mitigation strategies, including health screening, frequent hand washing, face masks, and shields, to protect your child.

Email: info@sc-centers.com
Website: www.sc-centers.com
Location: Burton and Brighton, MI
Phone: 810-344-8082