Office Safety Precautions in Effect During the Pandemic
To help protect our clients and yourself, you may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. For example:
- Face masks or face shields are required to enter facility. Due to the struggle in obtaining face masks and face shields, you must provide your own.
- Your student therapist will be wearing a face mask or face shield at all times throughout your session.
- You will be asked some screening questions before your session begins.
- You will stay in your car until 5 minutes prior to your appointment time.
- You will sit in the designated chairs in the waiting room.
- You will take your temperature before leaving home and you will not come to the office if your temperature is over 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
- You will be asked to wash hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer upon entering the clinic.
- Restroom soap dispensers are maintained and everyone is encouraged to wash their hands.
- Only scheduled clients are allowed in the office, everyone else is to remain in their car or outside of the building.
- Areas that are commonly touched are thoroughly sanitized after each use.
- You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect. Chairs have marketed “no use” to ensure social distancing, etc. Access to the building will be limited.
- All fidgets and pillows will be removed from client assess. If you enjoy a fidget while processing in therapy, you must bring your own to use.
- Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between clients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
- Immunocompromised clients will only be offered the first appointment times of any given day, so as to limit their exposure.
- We will be ending sessions 5 minutes early and starting sessions 5 minutes late (meaning you will have a 45-minute session) so that I can create time to thoroughly clean in between clients and decrease likelihood of client’s crossing paths coming in and out of the building.
- Child play-therapy clients will not be scheduled one after another and the play therapy rooms will not be used. Your child’s student therapist will provide art/play materials for your child’s use. These will be cleaned in between use by the student therapist.
- All fabric toys have been removed from use, since they are more difficult to clean and disinfect.
- Tissues and trash bins are easily accessed. Trash is disposed of on a frequent basis.
- Common areas are thoroughly disinfected at the end of each day.
- Contact with your student therapist and clinic staff will be minimized. Examples:
- No physical touch is permitted. Student therapists will no longer shake hands or offer hugs at any time.
- Students therapists will be touching the door knobs to all clinic spaces, so that clients do not have to.