November 9, 2020
Dear St.Amant Families:
I want to acknowledge that sharing information about COVID-19 positive staff or people supported within St.Amant must feel very stressful for you. We want to ensure that we are sharing all of the information – but also want you to know that if there was a case of COVID-19 in staff or person supported that was close or directly affected your family member, you would know right away.
Many of us are struggling with our mental wellness as this pandemic continues. There are a few free resources available to support you if you are feeling an increase in anxiety, if you are feeling sad or lonely. I also think that when there are so many things that are out of our control, focusing on the things we can control can be a good strategy for maintain mental health. Some ideas we have shared with our employees include:
- We can control the number of contacts we have outside of work and home
- We can control our use of PPE/masks in public, hand hygiene
- We can control our self-care – making it a priority right now
- We can reach out to our friends and family for connection via phone, video chat
- We can spend a bit of time in nature
- We can make a decision to be grateful every day – take one minute to think about the good
- We can use kind language to talk to ourselves and to everyone around us
- We can remember that this won’t last forever
- We can reach out for help:
Over the past week, we have had a few staff members and one person supported test positive for COVID-19. Specifically, one person supported within our Autism Programs, four staff within the Community Residential Program and two staff within Health & Transition Services who have tested positive for COVID-19.
What we know is that consistent use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) combined with staff and participant screening procedures are working well to help prevent the spread within our programs. At this time we are working really hard to support staff to use their PPE properly and consistently with education, reminders and support. All of our outbreak procedures within each program were followed (contact tracing, enhanced cleaning, communication, limiting visitors (where applicable).
I’m incredibly proud of our organization. The resilience and flexibility that our staff and families have shown is really remarkable. Thank you for your kindness toward our team and one for supporting one another. Together, we will get through this pandemic.
John Leggat
President & CEO