COVID 19 UPDATE – March 2021

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It is hard to believe that we are only a few weeks away from having been in the pandemic for a year. It was however very promising to hear of the roadmap to recovery and following the most recent announcement from Boris with the details of the pathway, we have been carrying out lots of planning and risk assessing to establish the way forward for Umbrella.

  • The Trustees and Senior Management Team have decided that with effect from 29th March, we will increase group sizes and reintroduce longer days. We will still practice social distancing and follow our usual rigorous cleaning regime.  As this is the same day that groups of 6 will be allowed outside, it means that we will once again be able to get out into the community for walks and trips to the parks (in our own groups of 6).
  • Family support will also start their walking groups from March 29th within the rule of 6. This is something that they have been planning for some time and we know that families are keen to take up face to face support again.
  • Government guidance is that those who are formally shielding should continue to do so until the end of March and subject to this date staying in place, we will look forward to welcoming many service users back from April.
  • Our office staff will continue to work from home and staff in the office will be limited to only essential members. This is in line with the guidance.
  • Nearly all the front line staff including family support have received their first vaccine which is great news and all staff are now undertaking the weekly testing.

Our team will be in touch with you to discuss service needs so you don’t need to do anything at the moment. We hope you will agree that things are moving in the right direction and that by summer we hope to have some level of normality back within our services.

Take care and stay safe

From Umbrella