Fifth Community Health Advisory: Coronavirus (COVID-19)
What a Difference Another Week Makes?
It's been another unusually busy week at your regional center again. In addition to maintaining our regular workload in support our 16,000+ consumers and their families, this week we completed or are processing over 700 additional purchases of services specifically in response to COVID-19.

In addition to this enhanced workload with our consumers and families we're also calling our licensed homes regularly to check on the wellness of our consumers, implementing new remote intake and eligibility processes where decisions could have life long impacts, reporting everyday to DDS the status of our exposures and implementing a new SIR focus on COVID-19, checking in with our provider community and working with them to get supplies out to where people live, maintaining quality assurance focusing on health issues related to COVID-19, dramatically accelerating all the resource development activities and planning ahead for increased capacity, our administrative staff are expanding their duties to provide increased support of service coordination, our fiscal staff are fielding questions all day, and our IT is in the middle of supporting massive demands for Zoom support, work from home tech issues, new phone technology for remote work, and helping us come up with ways to increase our work at home capacity and productivity. You might say "we're busier than mustard trying to ketchup" (lol).

Though difficult, we know it's difficult for everyone these days and it is our honor to serve our community. We know we're all in this together, every employee of VMRC, every provider and DSP, every community organization partner, every family, and of course every consumer we serve.

More Directives
This week we received two new directives from DDS one describing a method and services that can now be used by families in a Self-Directed way. The second directive was an extension of the deadlines that were originally set for previous directives.

As a way to help people get services as fast as they can VMRC can now allow all of these following services to be provided with the consumers as the employer (choosing, scheduling and supervising workers - e.g. friends, some family members, etc.) to provide:
  1. respite, day care,
  2. transportation,
  3. nursing services
  4. day services
  5. Personal Assistant Services
  6. Independent Living Services, and 
  7. Supported Employment

The only rules for the worker is that they:
  1. Be able to do the work according to the consumer/family 
  2. Be 18 years or older, and 
  3. Not be the consumer’s spouse or parent for the Personal Assistant or Independent Living Skills services.

A few more rules about this program:
  1. The consumer must use a Financial Management Service (FMS) for payroll, taxes, reporting, etc. and VMRC will help find FMS providers, explain the difference between Fiscal Agent vs. Co-Employer, and then the consumer/family will decide who to use.
  2. The worker will be able to start work as soon as they show FMS proof of age and give employment and federal disclosure information.
  3. A separate vendorization of the consumer or individual providing the service is not required.

Sincerely

Tony Anderson
Executive Director
Valley Mountain Regional Center.
Lets Talk Soon

We're continuing our efforts to reach out to targeted groups in our community through the use of Zoom public forums (you use your computer or phone) to give updates and talk about our responses and planning activities related to COVID-19. Here's a link to the PowerPoint Presentation we created to review all the changes so far: Community Forum Presentation

Friday April 3, 2020 Monolingual Spanish Speaking Targeted Forum : 10 am to 11:30 am - CLICK HERE

Friday April 3, 2020 Early Start Targeted Forum: from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm CLICK HERE

Thursday April 9, 2020 Families Targeted Forum: from 3 pm to 4:30 pm CLICK Here .

VMRC Guidance for Consumers/Families/Staff
Coming Back From Vacation

To limit the community spread of COVID-19, the following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommended for consumers/families/VMRC staff/vendor staff to practice:

  • Take temperature twice daily, and monitor for fever, cough or shortness of breath.
  • Stay home and avoid contact with others. Do not go to work or school.
  • Do not take public transportation, taxi or ride-shares.
  • Practice social distancing from others (6 feet or 2 meters).

  • Please follow above guidance from CDC on what to do during the 14-day period.

  • Self-quarantine for 14 days and follow CDC advice.
  • Take temperature twice daily, and monitor for fever, cough or shortness of breath.
  • Stay home and avoid contact with others. Do not go to work or school.
  • Do not take public transportation, taxi or ride-shares.
  • Practice social distancing from others (6 feet or 2 meters).
I received this resource this week from Carlos Flores of San Diego Regional Center and I liked it so much I've been using it as a conversation piece on our targeted Community Forums. It's called " MENTAL HEALTH WELLNESS TIPS FOR QUARANTINE" and you can get the full document in an English and Spanish version .

1. Stick to a routine. 
2. Dress for the social life you want, not the social life you have. 
3. Get out at least once a day, for at least thirty minutes. 
4. Find some time to move each day, again daily for at least thirty minutes. 
5. Reach out to others, you guessed it, at least once daily for thirty minutes. 
6. Stay hydrated and eat well. 
7. Develop a self-care toolkit. 
8. Spend extra time playing with children. 
9. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and a wide berth. 
10. Everyone find their own retreat space. 
11. Expect behavioral issues in children, and respond gently. 
12. Focus on safety and attachment. 
13. Lower expectations and practice radical self-acceptance. 
14. Limit social media and COVID conversation, especially around children. 
15. Notice the good in the world, the helpers. 
16. Help others. 
17. Find something you can control, and control the heck out of it. 
18. Find a long-term project to dive into. 
19. Engage in repetitive movements and left-right movements. 
20. Find an expressive art and go for it. 
21. Find lightness and humor in each day. 
22. Reach out for help—your team is there for you. 
23. “Chunk” your quarantine, take it moment by moment. 
24. Remind yourself daily that this is temporary. 
25. Find the lesson. 
We're working on the updates for the FAQs to answer the new questions that have come in and should be completed by the end of the day today.

Check it out here and visit our Covid-19 Update Webpage regularly at: https://www.vmrc.net/covid-19-coronavirus/


Local County Public Health Resources
  1. Amador County (3 known cases April 3, 2020)
  2. Calaveras County (3 known cases April 3, 2020)
  3. San Joaquin County (178 known cases - 10 deaths April 3, 2020)
  4. Stanislaus County (50 known cases April 3, 2020)
  5. Tuolumne County  (1 known case April 3, 2020)
  6. VMRC - 2 confirmed consumer cases April 3, 2020)
  7. California (9191 cases and 203 deaths)
  8. National (213,144 cases and 4513 deaths)
Worldwide Health Organization