Dear Harmony Garden Families and Friends,
Every decision that I have made throughout this pandemic, has been to keep families safe. To keep my staff safe. To keep our clients (some with severely compromised health) safe. We are first and foremost, a health care provider. It’s easy to forget that sometimes, because of all the early childhood music classes, enrichment services, community music therapy events, camps, concerts, and FUN we have at Harmony Garden! And boy, I SURE MISS THE FUN!
To be completely honest, we are still short staffed at Harmony Garden. Kara and I have been working our tails off trying to keep everything going. It is time to step that back, for us as well as for you. The stress of doing things safely has been and seems to be increasingly hard on our own mental health. We aren’t going anywhere, but we are in need of these changes for ourselves as well.
With the new MDHHS Executive order on Gatherings and Mask Wearing (MCL 333.2253), we are making some changes.
The following changes at Harmony Garden will go into effect 11/17/2020:
- All in person Harmony Garden Sprouts classes are CANCELLED through the end of 2020. Our original policy when people signed up, stated that we could and would go virtual if MDHHS guidelines made it so we needed to. I also realize that all of our Sprouts families joined these classes for their own personal reasons and may not want virtual classes. I’m cancelling the remainder of our Fall Indoor Sprouts Session (we are at week 4 of 6) and will NOT be offering virtual substitutions. It will be up to each individual family if they want to donate the balance of their class to Harmony Garden or want a reimbursement for the remainder of the session. We are not keeping credit on accounts at this time.
- All individual Music Therapy sessions will go on as normal with added PPE. If a client is able to make the switch to telehealth, we do strongly suggest that transition. Although, telehealth does not work for all of our clients, so we are going to continue to see our individual clients for both in-person and telehealth music therapy at this time. The only change coming to our office for these sessions, is that the music therapist will be wearing both a mask and face shield for all direct service sessions. If your family member will not respond well to both of these (mask and face shield), then they may make the change to telehealth. As before, all clients who are able, are required to wear a mask during their individual sessions, unless they are not capable of doing so.
- Music Therapy Day Program will continue as an in-person group. The new order specifically states that “gatherings for the purpose of medical treatment, including mental health support services” are allowed to continue if we are staying within their social distancing rules and numbers for capacity within our space. Our Day Program participants are welcome to switch to telehealth for this group AT ANY TIME! All previous mask requirements for clients and support are still in place. The music therapists will also be wearing a face shield.
- Our current Ukulele class will continue with in-person classes through the end of this session. This class is small and the participants are very good about social distancing and wearing masks, keeping this class safe to run.
One FINAL announcement about Harmony Garden’s music therapy services. We will be closed for ALL in-person music therapy sessions/groups and telehealth sessions between December 21st and January 3rd. Your music therapist will be sure to update you on these dates, as it gets closer.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for continuing to support Harmony Garden Music Therapy Services. I’m terribly sorry that I have had to cancel our early childhood programming for the remainder of the year, but we are planning a few virtual classes this winter and can’t wait to get outside in the spring again! Stay safe my friends.
Sincerely, Jaime
