 Major sponsors for Abel Denonair include Green Mountain Support Services of Vermont, Washington County Mental Health, Al-Israel, food sponsors for Abel Denonair include Geffen Foods Israel, Osam Foods Israel. Major media sponsors for Abel Denonair include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, www.thisisthebronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, U.S. Press Court, Domestic and International. Anchor FL and Spotify. Welcome to this edition of Abel Denonair, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label. I've always been your host, Lauren Seiler. Arlene is not here today. On this fabulous edition of Abel Denonair, we would like to thank Washington County Mental Health and our many other sponsors for sponsoring Abel Denonair. And on this edition, we speak about how COVID-19 is dealing with the mental health community. With me to discuss this important topic is Mary Kay Casper, Keith Greer, Mary Molten, and John Cereris. Please excuse me if I mispronounce your name. Welcome all to Abel Denonair. How are you guys doing? Doing well, Laurence. Thank you. How are you? Okay. Good, good. So let's begin. Mary, how exactly has the mental health community been dealing with COVID-19? I know it's been a little bit, you know, messy with services and so on. Go ahead. Well, I think you asked Laurence how exactly, and this is such an inexact type of response because COVID-19 took over our lives now. I cannot believe almost a year ago. And so I'm glad I have my colleagues on to speak about that as they worked in the field. But we've been all hands on deck and the primary thing we needed to address when this all started was communication around safety around the virus itself for all of our clients and staff and home providers and families. And so that was our first priority. And we continue to do that to this day because as you know, the information on how to best be safe throughout this time evolved. So we did that and I think all of those that we serve paid attention to that too. And in, of course, the mix of that is everyone's mental health. And so your question is right on target because that is almost got put to the side as we looked at how we take care of ourself physically, not for us. We tended to meeting with people and we were very aware of how much this would affect mental health for people with previous mental health conditions, no mental health conditions previously, and with people with developmental disabilities and autism. We knew that isolation was going to have a big effect. So from the beginning, we did everything we could to reach out and help people to feel less isolated. A lot of different ways we did that, which we're happy to talk about today. Okay, so why don't we start by talking about some of those services and how your services have changed with COVID? So I wonder if I might pass the hat to one of my colleagues to talk about that. Go ahead. Whoever wants to jump in. I'm happy to start. My name is Keith Greer. I'm the director of the community support program here at Washington County Mental Health. And we serve about 360 individuals who experience major mental illness. The vast majority of the individuals we serve in the community. So, and we have a variety of sites, including Heat and Street, which is where I'm at right now, and several residential programs and a day program where we serve people in the community. And the first thing that we experienced when COVID, this was back in March, was we had to reduce our footprint. So we had to sort of stop seeing people in the way that we had previously been seeing people. And that had a profound impact on the people we serve. You know, we talk about this notion of isolation and loneliness and disconnection that COVID has sort of brought about. But isolation, loneliness and disconnection existed pre-COVID, many of the people that we serve living in the community. So it exacerbated the condition in many, many ways. So to ameliorate or to help sort of create connection in this environment where disconnection and isolation really sort of ramped up. So we had to stop doing our day programming just because we couldn't have congregate care. We couldn't have a bunch of people in the same place at the same time, for very good reason, right? We considered our responsibility to help stop the spread. So because we had to close down those services, what we've been doing is we adopted rather rapidly telehealth services. So we went from, and John has the numbers on these, but as an organization, we went from like doing what? 1,000 hours of zooming to like 250,000 hours of zooming in a matter of a couple of weeks. So we did that sort of in terms of outreach, but not everybody that we serve has the ability to do telehealth, i.e. they don't have either the devices or the know-how or whatever. So we started doing a lot of outreach from our day program. So we delivered meals, we delivered information, including sort of brochures and information on COVID-19 and how people could take care of themselves. And we really started to do that. We ramped that up pretty much immediately. Within a week of closing down our sunrise day program, we started doing a lot more outreach. We're also doing a lot more calls out to individuals. We have a really robust peer support network and we mobilized our peer support to sort of start doing call-outs and outreach to people at night because of that isolation and loneliness that people are experiencing. We're really proud of those services that we've been able to afford to service that we serve. So those are some ways that we have changed in the context of COVID. Thanks for letting me share. Because in my experience, being challenged in the way that I'm challenged, telehealth doesn't work in every single instance, okay? It works for most people, but some people need that one-on-one issue. Like for me, for example, going to my epilepsy doctor, I still do because telehealth doesn't really work in that way, but hopefully we can get back to quote-on-quote normal. I mean, I know it's still a new normal, but do you agree that telehealth doesn't work in every instance? Oh, absolutely, absolutely, Lawrence. We learned, we knew that, we learned it further on who it works for. And so what we apply is if a person needs to actually be seen face-to-face, we do that. And of course now, actually starting in the summer, we were much more back out seeing people and we were back in the community much more so than using telehealth. But then we had the surge. So for some instances, we retracted a little and now we're getting back out there again. I wanna give Mary Kay an opportunity to respond to. Go ahead. Lawrence, thank you for asking me to be a part of this. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate being able to talk about developmental services. Like Keith and Mary have said, isolation is overwhelming for our folks living with developmental disabilities and autism. And from the very beginning, we were really concerned because it's really important for folks to be connected to each other, to see faces, to be in the same room, to socialize, to network. A lot of folks are friends with each other. And when COVID happened, this kind of blew everything out of the water and made it very difficult to provide those kind of services. And for also our people that work out, that have jobs out there, many of them lost their jobs or had their jobs put on hold until it was safe to go. But what's really important to know is that some of our people still got to work because we still have staff that are willing to work face to face and that wanna help out and keep having folks be successful in their employment areas. We also have a lot of our staff that in the very beginning we couldn't actually go in houses and meet with folks or have those one-on-one meetings in the building. And oftentimes folks would actually stand at the, go and stand at the end of a driveway and wave at folks or drive by their house just to see another face to see somebody that really cares about them. So we really tried to find unique and diverse ways to connect with our folks. What I also wanna say is with the learning collaborative, you know, that was, we had to shut it down. We couldn't have it be face to face. But what we decided to do, another way to connect, we had a newsletter that went out to everybody that talked about all the issues that came up with also things like activities and knowledge that we wanted to give out or that we normally do when we're in the learning collaborative classes. The other thing we decided to do is do online classes too. So our staff put together regular classes every day that were available for folks to attend online. And like Ben said, not everybody has internet. And that's something we really are working hard to advocate with the government about. Make sure that everybody has access. Some of the ones you're gonna be giving everybody a computer who doesn't have one or... I wish I could do that. Yes, that would be great. What we did do though is buy tablets, small tablets that we gave to folks that did come to us and say they don't have a computer. So that was one way we offered that service to folks. And then we got them on Zoom that way. So yeah, some folks, I wish we could give computers to everybody but we don't have that ability. The other thing that we're doing is and that we did this year is we had activities outside where we would have drive-by. One of our staff, it was his birthday. So we had a big birthday party and everybody came in their cars and we had cupcakes and gifts and we put up signs and folks came in their cars and drove by and we gave them food and candy. And folks really loved doing that and they got to see each other. Unfortunately, it's wintertime so we can't do that. And the other thing that we're doing now is putting together recorded classes. And we're asking staff if they would like to come in and record classes so that folks can, whenever they want to, get on YouTube and find the classes from Washington County at the Learning Collaborative and see their staff member or see have an opportunity to do a class on different activities and academics and physical fitness that they wouldn't normally get when they came in. So those are some of that that we're trying and we're always looking for ideas from folks in terms of how to get the word out and how to get connected to each other. Now, as far as COVID and everybody's mental health needing to be in check because of what's going on, what are some of the ways that Washington County is really helping people because going back to that WCAX report, way back when you guys were interviewed about you know, mental health and COVID, what are some of the ways that Washington County is really helping with that? I'm very much up here. Sure, Lawrence, I'll respond there. We've been pretty active letting people know to call us. We have a 24-7 line which is area code 802-229-0591. And we have encouraged people to give a call if they're feeling stress and anxiety and we absolutely have seen increases in anxiety. Right now, we have more people coming in our doors than we can serve immediately. We do them in for emergency services, but then for ongoing therapy, we have a bit of a wait list now because we just need more capacity to be able to give people that ongoing therapy. However, we're gonna see more of this and this is gonna be a pressure for us all around the state because the stress of isolation, the stress that people experienced and not being able to gather, to visit with their friends, to have, you know, it may be devices or other means to connect has really added up. So we're there, we're there 24-7, picking up the phone 24-7 if people need to speak and actually seeing them if they need to be seen in an urgent or emergent situation. We also do a lot, as Mary Kay was saying, we do a lot of communicating and educating by sending out newsletters and showing videos on self-care. Here's some tips on how to take care of yourself. Get outside, think about what you would like to do and do one thing for yourself today in self-care. Self-care in terms of, I'm sorry. Self-care, self-care in terms of what? How is self-care helping within this? Well, I think if you, this type of environment where you're just staying inside, if a person just stays inside, becomes unhealthy. If you just stay inside and watch the television, that's not going to be the healthiest place for your mind, for you to feel better and you could get depressed and you can get anxious. So what we're encouraging is that people actually look outside to take care of themselves a little bit if they can take a walk, get out in the air. Think about things that help them to feel good, make their own list of things that have helped them feel good in the past and try to do one of those things every day. So that's the type of tips that when someone calls, they'll get, what's making you feel anxious? Let's talk about that. Now let's talk about how you cope with that and what we can come up with together to help you to follow through with some things that will actually improve the way you're feeling. So, we are seeing people we haven't seen before at all coming through our doors, a lot of new people. So what we know is that the pandemic affects us all. It affects our mental health. It makes us feel insulated sometimes and frustrated that we can't just go and do what we want to do. We used to be, hop in your car and go see a friend and now we're being told, no, you can't do that or if you do that, you have to wear a mask. If I were in a room right now at my office, I would, and I was with someone else in the room, I would have a mask on. These changes are difficult for us and although they've become a new norm, we are all wanting to get back to the way it was. Speaking about new norm, a lot of stores have closed in the Berlin mall, it's very little people in there now. I mean, there's Walmart, but that's about it. Well, and there you bring up the stressors of families, people and individuals who have lost their jobs, families who have had kids home and they're trying to do their work at home because they can't go into work plus help with their kids homework that they're multitasking all the time. So, we have to watch for that as individuals, how much are we letting that pressure cooker build up and how we let off steam during the day so that it doesn't back up on us. That's about take, that's self-care. That's about kind of catching it before it turns into, before the flame ignites, right? And, you know, we find- Speaking about, speaking about flame and all of you guys can chime in here. I know that Gary Gordon has been on our show numerous times. How has crisis intervention stuff? How has that been during the pandemic? Has there been more help with that? Has been more staff with that, et cetera, et cetera? If I said the wrong thing or the wrong quest or the wrong way and the question is, let me know. I'm gonna pop in first, cause I'm probably closest to that particular division then let others speak, but we haven't had any more staff but those folks have been very, very busy. And in the beginning we didn't see a lot of people coming up and accessing emergency services or the emergency room. Now we are because people, as I said, put their mental health aside to take care of their physical health. And now that team is extremely busy around the clock. Yeah, yeah, it's- Anybody else wanna chime in with that? Well, I just kind of wanted to reflect on, you asked initially about how we're sort of communicating stuff and the resources we have here are pretty amazing, agency-wide. Right from the get-go we actually built a website that actually directed, not built a website, but within our website we have a dedicated COVID page that talks about COVID itself, explains what it is to help manage some of the stressors so that people had a better understanding of it. In addition to that, there were self-help guides there, if you will, resources that we had links to that would provide opportunities for self-help, things for kids to go on tours that were so much school-based to try to create as much normalcy as we could. We also sent out emails to our clients as well as our snail mail to let them know what to expect. Connections are a lot of what we're about and that helps to clearly help people get through this. And so that was all a part of it. And we continually sent out, whether it was via snail mail or emails, communicating with our clients as well as staff on what to expect. Additionally, you mentioned the WCAX piece that we did back in, I guess it was in April was the first time we've done that and we were fortunate enough to be able to have a couple of interviews that basically said, we're still here, we're here to help, here's what to expect, here's how to get a hold of us. On top of that, we've recently done some advertising that is via streaming media as well as radio, so somewhat traditional, where again, we're reinforcing that message, we're identifying the fact that people are struggling right now. And if you also, I mean, and we can discuss that later on, if you want us to run some of those PSAs that you guys been running, just let us know. But now as far as the vaccine, here's the situation here. Vermont has been slow with giving the vaccine when other people have been getting it faster. Do you know anything as far as like, how has the mental health, is the mental health community giving the vaccine faster than some other folks or vice versa? Is anybody, you understand the question? I guess I can pop in there. So the hospital is the lead for vaccine for our mental health workers. We've had a very good experience and they're very organized and we have almost half of our staff that are doing face-to-face work have received vaccines right now. And we are currently having the licensed residential homes that we have, where we help folks. And Keith and Mary Kay could perhaps speak more of this, but I believe it's this weekend next week, both staff and clients receiving vaccines. So it's going very well. Our general population, it's all in phases, I still is beginning to come on, I believe with over 75 year olds and those next with severe medical conditions. Yeah, I've heard a number actually and it might have been on BPR recently where about 200,000 folks in Vermont, about a third of our entire population. Because Vermont, I think Vermont has what, 650,000 people. Exactly, and so my understanding is about 200,000. And I think it's roughly about 230,000 have already received the vaccine. So given a third of the population- Going well. That's not so bad, I think. So in the critical care people, frontline workers, et cetera, emergency care. Does anybody, does Mary Kay or Keith wanna jump in with that? Sure, my staff are reporting that the process of getting the vaccine is going really, really well to Mary's point. We have a great relationship with the hospital here and things are going well. And in regards to side effects or anything like that, we're hearing very little about that that some staff are reporting like that some mild side effects. But other than that, I think, what, 300, Mary was the number we heard on Wednesday in terms of our direct support staff. 300 staff have gotten their first vaccine and we're really grateful that the residents of our licensed homes are getting vaccinated as well. So things are going well. I'm really pleased thus far in the responsiveness and the process itself. Mary Kay Casper, do you want to add to that? Sure, I mean, I wanna repeat what Keith and Mary has said. We feel like staff that work face to face with their consumers are getting vaccinated and it's happening quickly so that they can be out with them and our residential are getting that, all those done there. So that's feeling really good. And the other thing is for our area, we're working with the GMSA because they do have information that's being given out to all our consumers that within the state that live with developmental disabilities and autism to really explain what the vaccine is. And what's really great for us is that one of the things that I didn't say that we're doing is going to everybody's home and giving them a bag of all kinds of fun things, but also about, yeah, you just saw that. I want a bag of fun stuff. Yeah, our project bags, but what's also in them is self-care and information, information such as about the vaccine. So we're getting to people directly to give them the information that they need to make sure they're taking care of themselves and they're getting- What kind of fun stuff do you put in there? Like talk about fun stuff for a minute. So what are you putting in there? Like coloring books or pens, pencils, doodling pads, stuff like that? Right, each bag that we send out every other week is a theme. And so our first theme was all about art and crafts. And so we had magic markers and colored pencils and pages to do coloring and drawing. We also put in notes from staff to say hello. We also put in because it was the holidays, something related to the holidays. We're also doing a self-care package that has a stress ball in it and little widgets and some other activities. We're also doing one, you know how the learning collaborative does all these activities around personal care. So we're gonna do all these products that are related to personal care and meditation things and all kinds of fun stuff that can help folks to take care of themselves. Likewise in CSP, from our day program, we've been sending out care packages which include food. I sort of want to call out that many individuals have been experiencing food insecurity. So we're doing our best to sort of meet people on the community frame of food. But as important as the food is this notion of connection and we're bringing information out about COVID-19 and the vaccines, like Mary Kay said, it's really important in regards to our connection with the people that we serve, information, food and fun stuff. We're doing meditation packages and mandalas. Do you guys know what mandalas are? Yeah, okay. What is that? Mandalas are, I liken it to like an adult coloring book with really neat designs and colorful figures that people can sort of color in and it can be a meditative practice. Speaking about food insecurity because I completely forgot about that. What is several things that you guys are doing because that can be a mental health situation as well with food insecurity during the pandemic. Even though grocery stores haven't been closing, however, people are hoarding, I hate using that word, but like going a little bit strange with the toilet paper and certain products that people are trying to get and can't get during the pandemic, paper products, et cetera. And the food insecurity is a big thing. So what's one of the things that you guys are doing with that through this COVID situation? I can address that a little bit. Well, first of all, the Sunrise Wellness Program or our day program that Keith's alluded to a couple of times did an amazing Thanksgiving dinner where they had either dropped off or had people pick up at the location and I think they served about 100 people or close to 100 people. And then they did it again for Christmas which was the numbers were even higher. They made everything themselves. Now, the other thing is our children's program. Generally, I think we were serving about two meals a day to about 50, 60 kids. That jumped in a matter of weeks to becoming an open food source site. And we went from- Is that in- I'm sorry, is that, I apologize, is that in Washington County? Yes, yes, yeah, it's right here in Barrie, actually. Right up the road from our offices, our administrative offices. And that went from five days a week, two meals a day to three plus meals a day because they actually included a snack, seven days a week. And the number I believe was tickling about 300 people. So that grew pretty dramatically. And so that really helped a lot of folks that were food insecure and struggling whether it was for job loss or whatever the case may be, while also still taking care of the kids that we served. So on a daily basis and then some. Now, sometime back, I'm probably doing two topics here, but sometime back, I wanna do like two topics in one. Now, as far as the COVID and ambulances and stuff, how are like with mental health, are ambulances and police departments, cause I know you guys have team two, how is that working within the COVID, is that working differently than, because I know people wearing masks and social distancing, but how is that working within the COVID situation? Is that not working or working? The team two. Yeah, that is absolutely in play Lawrence and continues to work. When we first had the virus outbreak, things were remote there as well. And emergency services along with police were not responding as much out in the community, but when they do respond and are out much more now, they respond together. In fact, we have a clinician that works within both the Barry and Montpelier police departments. So that is, we now have the ability to go out with the police rolling right out with them in the vehicle if there is something going on in the community where a person is struggling. But the emergency services team continues to respond off hours and during the day for additional supports with the police. And they just respond in their own vehicles. If they do their social distancing, they wear their masks, they are very careful around that. But yes, the idea there with team two, which you mentioned is for both police and mental health to work together to help a person to get what they need in the community. Now, Keith, explain more about how your day program is really working during the pandemic. You know, through crisis intervention, through other things that you might, that you probably haven't mentioned. Go ahead. Sure, so because we could no longer have a bunch of individuals all be at the same place at the same time in our day program, we really converted rather quickly to doing a more outreach model. So our staff are calling out to people and what we're doing in terms of identifying individuals that are in need is a close relationship between the screeners. So our emergency personnel, our case managers and our sunrise program. So when people are struggling, what we're doing is saying, okay, so really we don't want people to have to go into the hospital because of their mental health crisis. So what we're doing is in an active way, instead of waiting for people to call, we have a list of people that we're calling every day. And our peer support team is really taken on that work, really embraced that work. So we have a Maple House peer crisis bed and the staff that are on shift, they actually have a list of people that they're calling out to every single night to sort of check in on and make that connection because people are really, really struggling. So that's been a pretty significant shift for us during COVID, our response, our peer response line and our whatever has mostly been reception people will call us. We're now actually actively outweaching to people through whatever means, whether that's through the screeners or through case management have identified oh, this person really needs some support. So that's a big shift for us. How has the screeners been working during COVID? You know, a screener basically, you know, because I mean, we've spoken about this before on the shelf. If someone needs help, they call the screener and then the screener discernments what services they need. So how has that been working? It continues to do just what you said, Lawrence. So, you know, that particular emergency services line gets about 14,000 calls a year and, you know, they talk to people if they, you know, if we have a surge and they can't see someone there, they may see them in the emergency room remotely, but right now they're back into the emergency room. So, or out in the community if they need to be, you know, they're doing what they need to do and they do have to have special accommodations sometimes if there is a surge or there's a situation that might not be safe with too many people, you know, they just have to flex, but they are absolutely there maybe on the phone, maybe on a video, maybe face to face, they're having to make those decisions as they go, but the 24-7 emergency service response is absolutely there. Okay, is there any? They're very busy and they're very busy, as we said. Is there any service that we did not mention? I mean, we have about 18 minutes left, but is there any services that we did not mention that's real important that either isn't running or certain brick and mortar stuff is in running, but is that going to change in the next couple of weeks? I don't think we have anything that we've closed other than our congregate settings. And so what we don't have is an active bunch of people all the time in our buildings because that wouldn't be safe. So we're still really careful about our footprint as has been mentioned within the building and when people come in our buildings, there's a process just like when you go to the doctor's office of taking your temperature and answering a few questions about where you've been. So if clients come in, perhaps for a meeting or an appointment to be seen face to face, they have to go through those safety questions and protocols. But we're open. One thing I would love to talk a little bit about is housing and homelessness and some of the special things that we've done there because as I am sure you know, we have a number of people in our region who are homeless and living in tells and serve a lot of those folks. And we also are always very, very invested in housing. And I'm gonna, again, pass the hat here to perhaps let Keith talk about some of the innovative things that we're doing to create housing. Thanks, Mary. So, you know, you said what have sort of closed down yes, our day programs aren't operating like they were prior to COVID. However, we've actually expanded during COVID into housing and the way that we're expanding here in the community support program is that we are providing more peer supported community based housing supports to individuals. And we actually have three programs right now that started right before COVID and actually have expanded throughout COVID. And one is the tiny homes and we now have two units plus an apartment in Berry that is supported by a peer. So this is a person with lived experience. So we have one, two, three residents there. And we've also developed a single room occupancy peer supported housing unit in Berry. So there's four individuals that are housed there and just started today, Mary, first resident moved in today into what's referred to as arid house. And that's also in Berry and arid house is a place for individuals who have experienced and continue to experience both substance use and mental health challenges. It's a dry house and we have a peer with lived experience as a person. Okay, what is it? I apologize. There's some acronyms there that I need to. What's a dry house? You mentioned a dry house. A dry house is there's no drugs or alcohol on premises. So the program is designed for individuals who have struggled with drugs and alcohol and who need to live by their own choice, need to live in a place where there's not gonna be drugs and alcohol around. Okay, and a single room occupancy is what? So it's one room. So the house has one, two, three, four, five bedrooms in it with a shared living space, like a shared kitchen, shared living area, shared TV. So everybody has their own room, but there's a shared space. And we have a peer staff who lives on premises to provide emotional and social support to the individuals that live there. No, as far as homelessness, these new programs, like, because I don't know if homelessness has gone away, but what other things have you guys been, besides all of this, are you guys putting more housing into play because of the pandemic? Or, because I know, yeah, a lot of people are, according to what Good Samaritan has told me in the past, a lot of people aren't still in hotels. So what are you guys, what more stuff are you guys doing? So I'll speak to that. So homelessness has absolutely not gone away. In fact, we have more people in counts than I think we have had in the past. So we, as of say last week, there are 346 people in our region that are in hotels with vouchers. And about 80 of those are children, Lawrence. So we need to work together as community providers. And what we're doing is joining other community providers, like Down Street Housing and Capstone Community Services, the Family Center, the Good Samaritan, Washington County Youth Service Bureau, and another way, meeting regularly together to make plans for our region to try to brainstorm, how do we find more housing, work with landlords? And that's what we're doing in the program that Keith mentioned, we haven't purchased anything. We're renting a building from a landlord who is willing to sign a master lease with us because there is a support person living within that house. And so what we're doing is trying to create relationships that landlords feel are trustworthy so that, and they know we're there in the background to follow up. So if we could do more of these, we absolutely will. And we're all about partnerships because we don't have big housing money. We don't have a bunch of dollars for housing. We've created housing over the years with partners like Down Street, like the Vermont Housing Conservation Board that gives out money. And that has helped us to build the housing portfolio that we have to help people be housed. So yes, people we serve, and then we're responding to the hotels with our case managers to give support to the folks there and then working with them on finding housing. You mentioned voucher, which our viewers might not know what that is, what exactly is a hotel voucher? I know it's a small question. You guys want me to take a stab at that? Okay, there are different kinds. There are shelter plus care, there are subsidy plus care and plus care, it means that the government has given us Medicaid dollars essentially for housing funds if there is a service component to the housing dollars. So there's some dollars that will come into the state and be matched and by the feds. And that allows an individual who is eligible for the voucher, meaning they meet certain criteria. They have a diagnosis of a mental health challenge or have been in the hospital frequently. There are different criteria and they then can get a voucher that helps them with housing and it pays for it. Essentially pays for it or a part of it. And then there's section eight, which has been around for a real long time. A lot of our folks have section eight housing, which is another category. It's just different categories of housing support with dollars to help people pay for their rent. Okay, now, I know that during the pandemic, I don't know if it's Bernie's office doing this or federal government. I know people that are on SNAP are getting more SNAP food stamps. If you have a mental health diagnosis, do you get more food stamps or more food health due to the pandemic or yes, no? I don't believe so, no. I think that's related to income. And so that hasn't changed during the pandemic. Mary Kay, you're nodding. I'm gonna let you speak to it. Exactly what Mary has spoken to that SNAP eligibility is based on what your income is. And of course our folks, if they're in that income bracket, we'll be able to get SNAP, but they won't get any more than what somebody else would get. But we are also working very closely with our folks to make sure that they are getting it and they're getting supported. So you helped them like if they, during the pandemic, if someone's social security stops or other federal program stops, you helped them fill out applications. Absolutely, absolutely. That's what we're there for. And we're checking in with our consumers on a weekly basis and sometimes on a daily basis to see where they're at, where their families are at and what issues might be coming up even with home providers. So we're, again, it's that communication. John, is there anything you wanna add to this as we have a little time left? Yeah, I guess just sort of reflecting on the homelessness piece. There are a number of our staff right now, they're actually gonna be doing some training. We just completed a survey recently to get a sense of what people's knowledge were about resources that were out there. So there's training that's happening. I think it's actually gonna be happening towards the latter part of this month if not the beginning of next month. So that, again, we can gauge the knowledge of resources that are available to the homeless population so that our staff can direct those folks that are in need to those resources and help facilitate that as part of their case management work. So that's something that is being newly implemented and I think it's gonna have a pretty tremendous impact. Well, you know, other than our congregate settings, we're open 100%. There's no person that comes to our door that doesn't get a service. And so, you know, it's the way that they might receive that service. So we didn't talk about therapy, for example. We have outpatient therapy division and if a person goes there, if they need to be seen face-to-face, they will be, but there are a lot of those clinicians, those counselors that work remotely now because, again, we had a building full of clinicians and we had to reduce the footprint so that we're not too close to one another. That's dangerous. So some of those folks are working from home on a regular basis, but they can stay connected to their clients and that's what they do. Yeah, and just to add to that, Lawrence, and Keith sort of alluded to this before, just from a statistics standpoint, you know, I guess a couple of years ago, we made a significant investment in a technology platform that enabled us to move from basically zero telehealth, particularly in the area that Mary was talking about, just to give you some numbers. On the first couple of weeks, we had 1,100 telehealth meetings. This is in two weeks. 1,100 telehealth meetings within a two-week period. I think it was from, well, for example, like CCPS, we're Center for Counseling and Psychological Services. I think they were doing like zero telehealth and like pretty much about 100%. So they were able to migrate all of their, all the people that they were working with and serve to some form of telehealth. So we really didn't see a lot of a huge drop-off at that point. That 1,100 telehealth meetings accounted for 150 minutes by over 4,500 participants. And that also takes into account, you know, supervisory sessions and stuff like that, amongst the clinicians. By August... That was like 150,000 minutes. Is that 150 minutes or 100? 150,000 minutes. 1,000 minutes, yeah. By 4,500 people and 1,100 telehealth meetings. Now by August 19th, all right, now Greg, this is a few months ago. So you can imagine where the numbers are now. They grew, those numbers grew to 1.9 million minutes by 51,468 participants. Engaging 16,668 meetings. So... Whoa! And that was in August. We stay in touch with our clients. We stay in touch with our clients, Lawrence. That's exactly it. No, no, no, no. That's good. That's good. You know, there was a period of time, if you guys remember, or Lawrence, if you remember, in June, things kind of loosened up a little bit because we were doing pretty well. So there was a little bit more face-to-face engagement. You know, for example, at our kids' program. You know, summer camps were happening and that was able to be done in a very safe environment. So during that period, by August, by August 19th, you know, the numbers were probably down a little bit, but since the surge, it probably ramped back up big time. I can't imagine that we're like, you know, it's numbers are virtually off the charts in terms of minutes, meetings, and participants. So we're still being able to deliver a majority of the services, whether, you know, mostly remotely, by a telehealth. And as was already pointed out, you know, when necessary in a safe environment in a face-to-face capacity. So. Wow. This has been a really good show and you guys provided a lot of information. Can we have that number one more time for people who want to contact, watch the Cali Mental Health plays and the website? Absolutely. So it's area code 802-229-0591. And it's WCMHS.org. Well, I would like to thank everyone for joining me on this edition of Ableton on Air. Arlene is not here today. We would like to thank Washington Cali Mental Health for sponsoring Ableton on Air and many, many, many others. Again, if you need help during the pandemic or need help at all from Washington Cali Mental Health with their services or emergency services, you can contact Washington Cali Mental Health at 802. Go ahead. What was that number again? 802. 802-229-0591. 802-229-0591 or www.wcmhs.org. That is www.wcmhs.org. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time on Ableton on Air. Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Green Mountain Support Services of Vermont, Washington Cali Mental Health, Aleh Israel. Food sponsors for Ableton on Air include Geffen Foods Israel, Osem Foods Israel. Major media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, www.thisisthebronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, U.S. Press Court, Domestic and International. 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