GLAD House Services During Covid-19 Closure

With schools being out of session, GLAD House has recently made many changes to the services that we provide in order to best serve our kids and families. We are so grateful that the past support of our community has enabled us to quickly respond to the changing situation.

Here is how the GLAD House team is serving the children of addicted parents in our Cincinnati community:

• Kids first. As always, the health and well-being of our kids is our top priority. Our therapists are reaching out for weekly contact with each one of our kids to serve their mental health needs. While we miss our kids tremendously, it is very exciting for our therapists and kids to be able to connect through tele-therapy.

• Provide essential resources. Each of our kids are from low-income families, and our kids used to eat dinner on school nights at GLAD House. GLAD House therapists are helping our families receive the food and necessities they need. Some of the resources are coming from GLAD House’s own Helping Hands Pantry, which we drop off (from a social distance!) at their front door!

• Reinforce coping skills. Now more than ever, healthy coping skills are essential to manage this stressful situation. At GLAD House, our kids learn those skills every day. Our therapists are keeping in contact with our kids to reinforce the skills they have learned, and help them navigate how to apply those skills to their new stay-at-home lives.

• Stay engaged—from home. We are utilizing our website and Facebook presence to provide helpful information (such as where kids can receive free meals), and healthy activities to keep kids engaged at home.

• Teach the community. While we currently cannot hold our after school program, we are seizing the opportunity to focus on better preparing the community to treat this unique population of children. Our Outreach Coordinator is conducting virtual trainings to mental health providers and parents called “Roadmap of Trauma-Informed Parenting Strategies” (R-TIPS).

For many of our kids, GLAD House was their safe place—a respite from volatile home lives. Your support now is more vital than ever as we endeavor to keep our kids connected, physically and mentally safe, and be fully ready to open our doors to them when the time comes.

We know that each one of us is being impacted differently by the COVID-19 situation, and we are committed to staying safe together and emerging stronger as a community. Thank you for being a part of the GLAD House family.