Resiliency - Daily Tip #4

About a week has gone by and we have, quite remarkably, transferred all our services to telehealth, a secure online platform via Zoom, which allows us to support our clients remotely. Individual therapists, group facilitators, therapeutic mentors have all had great successes with the clients they serve. Even our student intern has been able to maintain her internship. Our community space called artLAB is now also virtual, and unfolding in surprisingly very beneficial ways for our "socially distant" community. But we need your help if you can, Virtual artLAB is currently free so that it can reach all those affected by job losses, drops in income or ongoing financial hardship. At the same time we are ourselves a small business fighting for the jobs of all our own employees. If you can make a donation, we will accept it with gratitude at https://artrelief-107880.square.site.

This is all very new territory to us, and certainly we have a lot more to learn. But for now, our priority is to reach everyone we currently serve remotely, and we are finding that this means something different for each individual or group.

Behind the scenes, our team began immediately working with each other and sharing resources to be able to rise to the challenge, and continue to support their clients and each other. This is really amazing! I want to give huge a shout out to the ARTrelief team for demonstrating FLEXIBILITY, TEAMWORK and RIGOR in these very trying times. I am really proud of working with such wonderful humans who have each others' backs.

A month ago I would have never imagined this could happen so smoothly, under so much pressure, and with so little preparation. But the fact of the matter is we had been thinking about the need for offering remote services for some time now, as well as creating a life-balance work culture allowing for working more hours from home. And just like that, in lightning speed, we find ourselves propelled in what we had only begun to envision.

So here it is, for ARTrelief anyway, the silver lining. Our ship is sailing through the storm. Our resiliency is keeping us afloat, and the lessons learned will no doubt lead us to a more empowered way to deliver our mission. More empowering for the client who will have more choices and easier access to our services, and more empowering for our employees, who with a wide range of varying needs, will have more control over the ever so difficult art of finding work-life balance.

The ARTrelief Team

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash - A woman 's silhouette with a sunset in the background. She is standing in a victory pose with her right arm and fist extended towards the sky,