03/16/20
Good Morning,
I am writing to you with an update on the significant planning that Lifeworks and The Arc of South Norfolk are doing in response to the growing outbreak of Covid 19. Our leadership teams have spent the past few days in intense evaluation, planning and communication regarding the ever-changing environment surrounding this outbreak.
Our Leadership Teams and Board of Directors are announcing that we are closing our Lifeworks Employment Centers and Arc of South Norfolk Day Habilitation sites for services and programming as of Tuesday, March 17
th
. These sites will stay closed until at least April 7
th
in accordance with the directive of the Governor and the Department of Public Health. These sites are located at:
Lifeworks Employment , 1400 Providence Highway, Norwood
Lifeworks Employment, 1580 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury
The Arc of South Norfolk Day Habilitation, 789 Clapboardtree St., Westwood
The Arc of South Norfolk Connections Day Hab, 1580 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury
We know that this has been a challenging, difficult time and the next few weeks will be unusual and unprecedented. Our two agencies will work together to ensure the support for the many people served by our agencies and their families. Today, Monday, we will be meeting with staff and the people we support explaining to them how we will implement this order.
We will be assigning day program staff from each agency to work in Lifeworks residences as well as help support our family support and autism support centers. We will coordinate our staffing so that each of our Day Program locations will have staff available to answer phone calls. We will have our case managers stay in contact with the people we support and their families/ staff.
It is important to note that as of Sunday evening, we do not have any known instances of Covid 19 identified with persons served, families or staff. We will seek to keep you informed of all information and changes for our agencies as we move forward. The best resources for this information are mass.gov/covid19 and our websites
www.lifeworksma.org
and
www.arcsouthnorfolk.org
.
We have links to Mass.gov and important fact sheets on our websites. On behalf of our Leadership Teams and Board, all of you are in our thoughts and it is our plan for our agencies and our staff to continue to be an integral support for all of you.
Sincerely,
Dan Burke
