The doors at the Society for the Involvement of Good Neighbours (SIGN) are closed, but the phone lines are open. While the COVID-19 pandemic has ensured that they can’t operate as normal, they have made major changes to ensure their services are still offered, just not face-to-face.
Andrew Sedley, Executive Director of SIGN, explained that they wanted to ensure they did their part to keep the community safe, their staff safe, and their service users safe. That meant moving to a technology-based delivery service, whether that meant using phones, video conferencing technology, or other means.
“All of our programs are still operating, just doing it a different way to ensure that we have the safety of our community first in mind.”
Examples of the changes have included the Family Resource Centre connecting to families through the Zoom video conferencing service. Walk-in counselling has become call-in counselling, with the option of video if people want that face-to-face interaction.
“Really just looking at changing the way we’re doing things here temporarily.”
They want to lead the way, Sedley said, and they know that many people who are more at risk to complications from COVID-19 are also people who SIGN supports.
“We take this public health issue very seriously, we want to be role models in our community and be able to provide supports in those different ways.”
While the changes are temporary, Sedley said that they might lead to expanded options in the future. Admitting they were hesitant to use technology as well as they could in the past, Sedley said that they have seen positive results from this crisis.
“In a way it may help us grow as an organization to also offer more technology supports to people who may not be able to travel, they may live out of town, they may not have transportation. We do see this as also a way that we can provide services in the future.”
Sedley hopes that beyond SIGN, people are doing what they can to social distance and ‘flatten the curve.’
“It’s a serious situation and we all want to make sure we all do our part.”
