Why now?
The year 2020 is an interesting time. When the year started out, it seemed that it could be a great moment in our history; a new decade, a year with 20/20 vision and clarity.
For most of us, this year has not yet delivered on that promise. It proves instead to be a time of great uncertainty and fear, even isolation.
As a parent of a child with behavioral, mental health, or developmental issues, this time may be especially challenging. You may be asking yourself not only how to get the right kind of help for your child; but also, how to do so while most service providers are closing their doors.
On top of that, we already knew of the long waitlists that existed before the threats posed by the Coronavirus. Parents of kids with mental and behavioral health issues were already in crisis. The local children’s hospital has an 18 month waitlist. One of our clients, who we assessed almost two years ago, is still waiting for a call back from her local children’s hospital.
In some ways, CLEAR Child has been preparing for a storm like this. We already knew that children with autism and other issues are really hard to get into an office or diagnostic clinic. We already knew that working parents or parents with young kids at home have to make massive scheduling adjustments to get their kids to appointments.
So, why NOW? The year 2020 is a great time, we would say ‘high time!’ to use telemedicine as the primary method of service delivery. Doctors are doing surgery remotely. Conducting psychological consultations and evaluations remotely is WAY easier to do than that. We know, from years of telepsychology practice, that this works. We can offer the very same clinical supports online as we do in-person. As far as this “new age” of social distancing goes, we say, “bring it.”
