COVID-19: How We’re Responding

March 16, 2020 BY Kelly C. Bawden, MS, CCC-SLP

Almost a year ago, our Leadership Team gathered together for their annual discussion of our company-wide, year-long theme. We chose All Together Now because it represented the “all boats rise” philosophy we bring to our work. Of course, we had no way of knowing then what we know now, that we would be leaning on those simple words to guide our decision making during the surreal times we find ourselves in today.

Like every other business in the country, we have been working tirelessly to stay up-to-date with COVID-19 developments as they come and to respond both thoughtfully and quickly. Here’s what we’ve been up to, and our plans for the coming days:

Our People

Our specialists are what make us unique, and we’re committed to taking good care of them so they can take good care of their families and their students. We are working closely with individual specialists to help them navigate their unique situations, paying particular attention to their ability to continue working with students and retaining benefits when possible. Specialists have been patient and trusting as everyone knows we are in a tremendously fluid situation.

Our Districts

We are in active, daily conversations with each of the districts we serve. We are collaborating with them to come up with creative solutions to unprecedented problems, and, as is the case every day, different districts have different needs. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. The bottom line is that kids need services, pandemic or not, and our clinicians stand ready to deliver them. 

Our Community

This is no time for hoarding resources, be they toilet paper or knowledge. That’s why we’re fast-tracking our plans to make our Telepractice Certification Training available to the public at large. This is a 3-module, self-paced online training program that we have developed in-house to train our Hello clinicians. We will be making it publicly available to both individuals and school districts this week. You do not need to be affiliated with us in any way to access this course, and SLPs should know that it is approved for 6 CEUs by the Oregon Board of Examiners. We feel grateful to know about serving students of all different abilities via telepractice, and we’re honored to share that information with anyone who needs it. 

We’ll do our best to keep our website and social media channels up to date, so please check back often. We’ll also be sending out occasional emails with updates to our telepractice course and telepractice resources. If you’re not already on one of our mailing lists and would like to receive these updates, please click here here and we’ll get you added. 

These are the strangest of times we find ourselves in. It is our sincere hope that you and those you hold dear are staying well amid the upheaval. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do to support you, your district, or your students in the coming days and weeks. We’ll do our best to help you ourselves, and if we can’t help, we’ll do what we can to connect you with someone who can. Because, as we said above, we’re all in this together.