Organisations offering activities for young people with disabilities switched gears when COVID-19 forced the cancellation of their usual programmes. Real world experiences moved to a virtual world.
Recreate NZ General Manager Brent Jenkin says its activities have transferred to the digital platforms Zoom, You Tube, Facebook and Mailchimp while New Zealand moves through the alert levels. The organisation is now providing on-line meetups, sessions and workshops in Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Canterbury.
“This is helping our young people to keep in touch with their friends and keep their ‘out-of-home’ social connections, engage with their Recreate NZ community, and participate in meaningful activities while giving parents much needed time-out/respite.
“Recreate is offering 12–15, one-hour sessions a week to groups averaging 20–25 participants. Our weekly national Zoom get together gets 75-plus attendees,” he says. “Large groups meet and then break out into smaller groups in different zoom break-out rooms to engage in activities.”
The digital activities have included information sessions about the virus and hygiene, tuition on how to use Zoom along with sessions on all kinds of skills and subjects ranging from cooking, careers and exercise, to creating Star Wars characters for the ‘May the 4th’ celebration.
Recreate NZ’s programmes are cancelled until the end of Term 2, and this will be reviewed once New Zealand is down to Alert Level 1.
Skillwise, another organisation supported by the IHC Foundation, which provides services for 220 intellectually disabled adults, has maintained connections on Facebook.
“Social media has enabled us to connect and engage with the people we support in ways we haven’t done before, says Skillwise Fundraising Coordinator Fiona Dunkley. “We have set up a closed Facebook page which is working really well with a lot of activity from people sharing what they have been doing and generally keeping in touch, face-to-face via their screens.”
Aside from regular calls from staff, the organisation has created weekly visual timetables for online activities for the people they support, which include some live streaming and a range of fun and educational videos.
“Technology has been our friend during the last few weeks, Fiona says. “We moved our organisation to cloud-based systems over the last few years that have enabled all staff to work easily from home.”
Photo caption: Recreate NZ staff get ready for their first mass Zoom meeting, which attracted more than 80 people.