When Stephanie Chambers heard that her son’s weekly therapy sessions were being suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she admits she became worried.
“I was incredibly concerned,” the Penticton mom told Global News.
Chambers’ son, Heath, is five years old and is on the Autism spectrum.
He works with an occupational therapist at Creative Kids Therapy in Penticton every week.
“It helps to regulate him,” Chambers said. “For him to be able to be regulated, it allows the opportunities for learning, for more academic learning that most people are familiar with.”
But with the pandemic forcing the shutdown of services, including face-to-face therapies, Heath is now getting therapy online.
“It is different and it’s been a learning curve from being able to interact face-to-face and now we are over a computer screen,” Chambers said.
Creative Kids Therapy began offering virtual therapy sessions when it could no longer offer them in person at its clinic.
“It felt very critical to us to act on this immediately, when we knew we would be closing our in-person services,” said Jade MacKenzie, one of the speech language pathologists at Creative Kids Therapy.
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“We didn’t want there to be a break in services for our families because we could see there was so much crisis going on in other aspects of childrens’ and families’ lives. We wanted to be a constant for them to offer routine and structure.”
Chambers is grateful for the ongoing service, even if for now, it’s only through a computer screen.
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