Sending end of year love from the EAS family
When starting to write this blog, I honestly had no idea where to begin. How do I sum up the year that was, with all of it’s ups and downs and the changes that we have all had to go though to live within a new realm of normal?
For us at Explore and Soar, the last 12 months have been based on improving awareness around mental health within our business and the community. In the past year we have had to learn new and greater methods of support for both our team and our families. We have conducted our intervention sessions in a way that placed mental health and wellbeing at the absolute forefront of our delivery of services. Each of our actions and decisions for both ourselves, the team and our families have been governed by benefiting mental health.
I don’t know a single person who hasn’t experienced challenges this year. There have been so many ups and downs that at some point throughout this year, we have all needed some space and time to recollect our thoughts and focus on our wellbeing. It’s been amazing to see individuals in both our team and community finding the strength, determination and flexibility to pull through such an uncertain time. I am so grateful to have such a supportive team who made many adjustments this year and always put our families first.
As OT’s we work in a lot of areas associated with mental health, some of which we have shared with you in our blogs this year; supporting a parent therapist relationship, emotional regulation based on a continuum, DIR/Floortime for social skill development, parent self-care strategies, health promotion and planning for the whole family, skills based learning for gross and fine motor skills, as well as self-care. All our clinicians and customer support team members have loved sharing their knowledge and information with you, in order to raise awareness of mental health and promote positive engagement. We’ve noticed a greater sense of open communication this year. Our families have reached and asked for greater support when needed, which has allowed us to provide the tools needed.
With all the changes that have occurred over the last 12 months and navigating lockdowns, availability to our family, friends, community members and businesses there has been significant shifts within different communities, some for the better and some not so. This too has been the case with our services. I shared with you all some important news in November this year about changes we are making in 2022 for our team and our communities. This has not been an easy decision, but by focusing on our own mental health, work loads and ability to support all clients and their families in order to give them the best intervention support and access to services, we have had to make some hard decisions.
This has led to withdrawing intervention services within the school environment. This isn’t withdrawing all communications, connections observations, meetings or education sessions, it just means no more regular weekly/fortnightly or monthly intervention. This change has been inevitable especially due to the circumstances of the last 12 months and all the events that have transpired. It does however allow for a whole other side of intervention approaches and ways to deliver services to our clients and their families in the community and within their home. It is opening up a different way of thinking and support for you all - one that has been asked for time and time again by our families.
To see a personal message from me about these changes, watch the video below!
For us to continue to service and provide a range of services to support you all, it means constantly reviewing what’s working and what’s not working and pivoting as a team to further enhance our point of difference when being a part of our community. For this reason, it brings us much joy and excitement to be closing this year and stepping into 2022 with a sense of positive change and new access to services for you all. We will be diving into more of these once the new year is upon us.
As always, with these changes we would love to hear your feedback so please do not hesitate to contact us.
As we close the year my greatest recommendation to you is to stop and slow down, take your time, tick the non-negotiables off your lists and leave the negotiables until you can. Enjoy the time you have reconnecting with family again, going on holidays and sharing space and time with all your loved ones. Enjoy simply being in each other’s presence again.
To celebrate our end of year at Explore and Soar, we will be taking time out on the 17th December to share a Christmas lunch and a scavenger hunt! Connecting and celebrating overcoming the year of challenges. We will be following this with 3 weeks of rest, celebrations and quality time with all our favourite people. We wish the same for you, and a positive start to the New Year in 2022.
We truly cannot wait to get started and see you all then. May you have a safe and happy holiday break! Thank you so much for your support in 2021. Merry Christmas!
Until next time,
Jess