What We’ve Learned About Serving You During Covid-19

Here in Michigan, many of our team members have been encouraged by the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine, and we look forward to traveling in person again soon. To celebrate this hopeful milestone, we wanted to share with you the things we have learned from the rollercoasters of the last year:

• On a foundation of relationship-building
• 'Ways to use virtual TC service well

While we have been able to build relationships with some of our partners virtually, most of our virtual work has been based on in-person relationship-building. We know it’s important to get to know you, your teams, and your students in person to build mindsets, credibility, familiarity, and community.

However, many of our partners have been able to use virtual services strategically. These have sometimes included monthly scheduled meetings to advance specific goals, pulling different groups of experts together who might be physically far apart, meeting parents’ needs and availability, connecting with colleagues across the country, and even collecting video data for observation and unpacking of student behavior. These opportunities will remain available to our partners long after the Covid-19 pandemic has ended.

Our ability to serve you virtually may also depend on the staff in your building. For the most experienced inclusive educators, we can meet virtually. But for teachers new to All Belong and inclusive education, we need to be in person more often. For some of those activities, we want to be sure to reserve our in-person time for leading child study teams or participating in individual student planning (ISP) meetings.

• In-person evaluations
• Virtual ISP’s

From the beginning of the pandemic, our school psychologists have followed the best practices of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) in seeking in-person evaluations to offer a diagnosis. We see this as a best practice that is in the students’ and schools’ best interest, and we are committed to doing what is best for kids. In some cases, holding ISP meetings virtually has been best for the family or school, and we look forward to exploring this flexibility moving forward. For example, one meeting involved a parent Zooming in from a high/low!

We also see the value and possibilities of serving distance partners with virtual educational consultations. The pandemic experience has made many people much more comfortable with videoconferencing technology and increased the value and impact of this service. We would like to encourage our distance partners to explore this process with us moving forward.

• Rates are underwritten by the generosity of our community – not just here but everywhere
• We do not take that for granted and seek to build a stronger community between departments, too

The pandemic has been a trying time for us all, but at All Belong, we have benefitted from being able to lean on each other and our community. Our strategic planning has highlighted the need for increased collaboration between our departments, especially between our teacher consultants, school psychologists, and our church services team. When you partner with All Belong, you gain access to the full depth of our team’s knowledge, and we are excited to share that with you.

Our donors have continued to be generous in their mission of faithfully building belonging, and we are extremely grateful for that. Since contributions underwrite a third of all that we do, our donors are essential to continuing to push this vision forward and serve you well. We take that responsibility of stewardship very seriously, which is why we want to make sure that our time with you continues to impact communities for belonging with persons of all abilities.

Thank you for your continued partnership over the last year, and your faithfulness to all of the students who belong to your community. We look forward to working together creatively to accomplish this mission well in the future–whether we are in person or virtual!