New Hope Happenings from Our New Executive Director

March 11th, 2022

Dear Parent/Legal Guardian/ Treatment Ally:

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Matt Simon and as of 3/1/22, I now have the privilege of serving as the Executive Director at New Hope Carolinas. I am a licensed family therapist, and a father of two young daughters. I love what I do. I hope there will be opportunities for us to meet at some point. If not, please know that I consider my daily mission is to help us be the absolute best we can be for the youth in our care. That’s what drives me every day. When we fall short of it, we will learn and get better.

Thankfully, local and regional data regarding COVID-19 is trending in a positive direction. This letter will evolve into a general monthly newsletter called “New Hope’s Happenings” where I can provide a variety of updates about program improvements and updates. Today’s letter will be COVID-centric and in April we will begin a more general update that will include COVID as well as other happenings throughout the program.
Today we have ZERO positive Covid-19 cases with our residents and staff! We continue to require masks and other protocols, but things have been moving in a very positive direction.

The York County positivity rate is now below 5% and has been below 5% for a few days. Due to this and other data points, we will be restarting in-person, outdoor visitations at New Hope effective 3/14. If you are unsure how to schedule/facilitate a visit with your youth, please contact your therapist and they will assist. We will also be exploring re-opening our Cafeteria, outings and therapeutic home visits if the data continues to trend in this direction.

We continue to require testing of all residents and encourage the testing of all employees on a weekly basis. In addition to weekly testing, we are also requesting a negative test for any new admission and we continue to monitor all residents daily for symptoms. We are also continuing to test and quarantine any new admissions or unvaccinated residents who are away from our building for any reason, as a precaution. As always, any positive case will result in an immediate notification to the guardian and we will follow our internal protocols for mitigating spread.

Thank you for entrusting us with your loved one. Our goal is to help them heal, learn, grow, and be ready to return back to a lower level of care in the community as soon as possible. Take care!

Sincerely,
Matt Simon, LMFT

Matt Simon, Executive Director