Contest

Abrazos Family Support Services's Mobile Beacon Moment

If awarded with a Mobile Beacon Community Grant, how will your organization use the monetary donation?

Abrazos Family Support Services, (aka Abrazos), a 501-c-3 nonprofit organization, has been providing specialized services to individuals with developmental disabilities and delays in Sandoval County, New Mexico. The wide array of services includes developmental evaluations, screenings, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, infant mental health services, respite services, autism services, and home-based living services.

In March 2020, after months of increasing awareness and fear of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, the New Mexico Department of Health took steps to protect the lives of New Mexicans with developmental delays and disabilities and their families by eliminating face-to-face appointments. Abrazos serves 700 families in their homes and communities, and we have been completing this task for over 40 years without interruption. We recognized the need to adjust our delivery model from in-person to telehealth and within 24 hours we were prepared to offer these essential services to the families that depend on us. Abrazos’ experience, knowledge and technology enabled us to quickly adapt and provide the same care and services through the face of a computer screen.

Now nine months strong in providing telehealth services to our clients with developmental disabilities, we know that without up-to-date computer technology and equipment we would fail in providing these essential services to the community. For that reason, receiving a $10,000 donation from Mobile Beacon will be used to support our technology infrastructure.

In these months we have challenged ourselves to become even more efficient. We have converted our document storage from a hard-drive server to a cloud-based platform. We have converted from mailing paper documents to clients for signatures to electronic signature capability. And now our next technology endeavor is to implement an electronic health record. This system, at a minimum costs $75,000. Mobile Beacon’s support would be used for that effort.

How will your organization use the 10 mobile hotspots with free internet service?

Abrazos provides specialized services to infants through adults with developmental disabilities and delays in Sandoval County, New Mexico. This county consists of nearly 4,000 square miles located in central N.M. The diverse geography of this county has a population of 140,000 people living in 6 municipalities, as well as numerous unincorporated communities, and seven Indian pueblos and six tribal entities. The need for rural internet access has never been more apparent than when COVID-19 hit the state of New Mexico. Access to telehealth services, remote learning for school children, and remote business operations all suffered because of the lack of internet access. Abrazos’ service providers rely on the Mobile Beacon internet hotspot devices we have to provide services to our clients living in these remote areas. An additional 10 mobile hotspot devices and free internet will be used to strengthen our services.

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The Journey of a New Developmental Specialist...

Imagine starting your first career job after graduating college and days later that job is turned upside down. For Kalyn Kollie, a 23-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico, that is exactly what happened. Kalyn was hired at Abrazos Family Support Services as a Developmental Specialist in February of 2020 and was so excited to start her profession after receiving a degree in Child and Family Studies from the University of New Mexico. A Developmental Specialist provides children, under the age of 3-years old with developmental disabilities or delays, and their parents with support and skills to improve the child’s health and development.

Three weeks later, in mid-March, the State of New Mexico mandated all Early Intervention programs convert the delivery of services from in-home appointments to telehealth appointments due to COVID-19 and to mitigate the health risk of being exposed to the virus. Abrazos was proud of its ability to utilize experience, knowledge, and technology to make the conversion from in-home appointments to telehealth appointments within 24-hours. But for Kalyn this sounded frightful. “I only had two clients and I was still in training with my peer coaches. They came with me to my in-home appointments and mentored me as I worked with the two children and their parents. ” stated Kalyn, “The thought of having to take on telehealth seemed overwhelming, especially when clients in the Early Intervention program are all toddlers! How do you interact over a computer screen with a toddler?”

It is a pretty sure bet that Kalyn’s first client and family were probably as nervous about receiving services over a computer as she was in providing it. But she did it and now 9- months later Kalyn is confident in her ability to teach developmental strategies. That confidence, combined with her ability to interact, has made her telehealth experience a success. She credits her capabilities to the support she has received from her peers at Abrazos and the state-of-the-art technology provided to her to successfully perform the telehealth appointments.

Kalyn fondly describes one of her first clients, Jessie, a 6-month old baby girl diagnosed with torticollis (tightened muscles causing a tilted head or trouble turning the neck) on her right side. “Jessie’s parents were skeptical of telehealth at first, but they also realized that in order to get the necessary care their daughter needed, telehealth was the only option.” Kalyn is proud of the teamwork she had with Jessie’s mom and dad and how receptive they were to the developmental strategies designed to reach Jessie’s developmental outcomes. Jessie just celebrated her first birthday and in 6 short months she is walking and moving like typical babies her age!

Little does Kalyn know that the success of this story occurred because of Mobile Beacon. As a recent college graduate, Kalyn didn’t have internet access at her apartment. Abrazos was able to provide her with a Mobile Beacon internet hotspot device, which has allowed Kalyn to deliver the telehealth sessions without interruption.