By Brooke Grmela
At FirstLook one of our many joys is providing educational classes to our clients.
Class topics include prenatal education, newborn care, toddler care and life skills. Some are first-time parents; others are seeking to become better equipped as parents. Client Coordinators, Interns, and the Case Manager enjoy meeting with clients and being part of their support team!
Then COVID-19 happened,
and the FirstLook team decided to continue seeing clients for essential medical care. Those essentials are pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and as needed STI testing. We had to rethink how to continue classes with our 20 or so clients that were already signed up. We also wanted a way that new clients coming in would be able to benefit from classes as well.
It was time to go virtual.
With the help of our SAGU intern, Lana, we are using Google Meets to connect with clients, watch the video together, and discuss the subject all from the comfort of home. We offer classes at 2:00 pm Monday through Thursday, and a 6:00 pm class Thursday evening alternating each class topic. Parents are so excited to be able to complete as many classes as they need quickly. Normally they would come to the center once a week, spend an hour here and have to wait another week for the next class. Now they can join us virtually each day and complete classes more quickly!
Parents and parents-to-be love the classes which are relevant, fun and educational.
Going virtual with classes wasn’t in the immediate plan for FirstLook, but this quarantine period has caused us to step out of those comfort zones and jump into the virtual world! We are loving it and the parents are too! We had eight parents in attendance last Thursday night!
If you or someone you know is interested in joining FirstLook’s virtual classroom, please click here to view our upcoming parenting topics.