From the Board of Directors: Thank You!
To the Staff of Circle of Care:
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank you for your contributions, collaboration and hard work during this unprecedented time.
The pandemic crisis has created challenges for many of us and knowing that Circle of Care continued to provide quality care and services to our clients and their families is to be commended.
The Board is very proud of all of you and very proud to be associated with this agency.
Once again thank you very much for your efforts and stay safe.
Allan Rudolph
Board Chair
Circle of Care
New Virtual Exercise Classes Launched through Zoom
To help keep our clients exercising and engaged, our Exercise and Falls Prevention team has launched new virtual exercise classes.
Last Friday, we ran our first class and we were pleased to have six clients participating from the comfort and safety of their homes. We look forward to continuing to deliver and grow this program, as well as starting to deliver other virtual programs for our clients.
Meals on Wheels Clients Receiving Extra Nutrition through Ensure Deliveries
We were pleased to receive special one-time funding to provide extra food support to our Meals on Wheels clients during this COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, we were able to distribute small packages of Ensure Protein Max® free of charge to our clients as part of their weekly food delivery.
Ensure Protein Max® can be used as a mini-meal or as a snack between meals and offers complete and balanced nutrition. This product is ready to drink, certified Kosher dairy under Orthodox Union (OU-D), and does not require refrigeration.
Distributing “COVID Care Kits” to Vulnerable Clients
Thanks to grant funding that we have received from the Ontario Community Support Association (OCSA), we have been able to purchase 2,000 COVID Care Kits for some of our most vulnerable clients.
Each kit includes three surgical face masks, a pack of Kleenex, a snack, stress ball, lotion, lip balm, hand sanitizer, and a resource card, packaged in a reusable plastic bag that is easy to clean.
These kits will be handed out over the coming weeks to clients in various programs of ours including Meals on Wheels, ADP, Hospice, Let’s Get Together, Friendly Visiting, and iRIDE.
Providing Critical In-Home Social Work Visits
Social Worker Anna Siciliano is providing face-to-face visits to high-risk clients through the Independence at Home Community Outreach Team (IAH COT).
Most clients can be cared for through phone calls and virtual visits, but there are times when these methods are not possible or the level of care required necessitates a home visit.
Anna and her colleague Dr. Asenath Steiman, a geriatrician, recently conducted a home visit in the community. With this particular client, a phone conversation was proved to be challenging because of client’s mild expressive aphasia (language impairment) due to a prior stroke.
At the visit, Anna was able to discuss resources for the client, including a referral to ROPES, a program at Toronto Rehab/UHN to assist with memory strategies for clients with mild cognitive impairment. After the visit she and her colleague provided an update to the client’s primary care provider about recommendations and assessments stemming from the home visit.