One Year Later, A Message of Gratitude

     In late August, my family and I took what became a working vacation at a lake house in Maine. One of the work-related tasks I had to tackle that week was reviewing the Academy MetroWest budget for the upcoming year. I hung out with my family during the daytime but dutifully got to work at night. The budget calculations I made were dismal. I was convinced there was no way my practice was going to make it and it kept me up all night. I’ve been a director here since 1994 and this marked the darkest, most pessimistic outlook I’ve had that whole time. My wife and my daughter were sound asleep, and I just paced around the house for hours, convinced that I was going to have to start figuring out the next chapter in my life.

     Fortunately, the next evening I went back to the drawing board and checked my numbers. It turns out I had missed some information in my calculations and, on second look, it appeared as though we might be able to squeak by. But things were still extremely uncertain and the year ahead was shaping up to be a long slog.

Five months prior to that sleepless night, the world shut down for what we all assumed would be a couple of weeks. Two weeks quickly became two months, and, in pretty short order, it became obvious that everyone’s standard operating procedures would be anything but standard for quite some time. By the time June came around, our continuing viability as a program was in serious doubt. Things became so precarious for us that I sent an email to everyone on our mailing list detailing our plight and asking for help and support. By the time the summer came to an end, we could have been likened to a hospital patient in the ICU in critical condition. That night in Maine, I was ready to summon a clergy member to administer our last rites. But, as the school year began, our condition stabilized and slowly improved. Today, we’ve been discharged from the hospital and can probably be listed as being in fair but stable condition. At this point, fair is the new awesome.

     To give thanks to everyone who has helped us this year would be impractical. However, there are a number of people, groups, and, for lack of a better word, entities, whose help was essential to our survival. Had any of these been absent, the fears I had that night at the lake house would undoubtedly have been realized. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks here. In no particular order, they are:

1. Zoom. I’ve spent at least as much time muttering curses at it as I’ve spent appreciating just how essential it is. Last March, I had never used Zoom at all and today, for better or worse, I have a hard time imagining life without it. Without it or some other comparable platform, I don’t see how we would have found a way to remain in operation. Our groups have always been about bringing kids together and establishing safe, supportive communities. Without video conferencing, would we have been able to pull that off by using, say, weekly conference calls with our kids? I don’t think so. Zoom enabled us to help kids cut through some of the isolation, anxiety, and depression that have been so rampant this year. Does running group therapy sessions with kids on Zoom involve some imposing problems? Good lord, yes! By now, everyone reading this has probably had some experience with the challenges and frustrations involved using Zoom or other platforms. More than once, I’ve signed off from a session that was marred by some logistical or technical issue, looked at my computer, and said “Well. That was unsatisfying.” But since last Spring, we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work online and those unsatisfying sessions are becoming fewer and further between. Still, I’m looking forward to the day that we run remote sessions because we want to – not because we need to.

2. St. Benedict Classical Academy. As the quarantine continued into the summer of 2020, we all became more knowledgeable about the conditions necessary for the virus to spread. We learned that it’s much harder to spread infection when people are outside than it is when they’re inside. When this became clear to us, we started searching for an outdoor space we could use that would enable us to run groups in-person. Stew Pruslin, a longtime member of our staff, works part-time at St. Benedict Classical Academy, a small Catholic school in Natick. He mentioned to me that they had outdoor field space that would be perfect for our purposes. He connected me with their headmaster, Jay Boren, and we quickly came to an agreement that allowed us to use their facility for our in-person groups. Everyone at St. Benedict's was extremely accommodating in every way. We continued running groups there through the summer and then into the school year until late October. Particularly for our younger group members, participating in-person was the only way they could really engage with their groups. Not only was St. Benedict’s essential for keeping the program up and running, it provided a much-needed shot in the arm for our clients and staff.

3. PPP. Over the year, we applied for and received both rounds of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from the government. The first round enabled us to retain staff, pay rent and utilities, and keep the doors open. By the time the second round of funding arrived, we were on somewhat firmer ground. Our long suffering Academy MetroWest patient was still hospitalized but our condition had been upgraded from critical to serious but stable. That second round of funding allowed us to be upgraded again to our current, enviable fair condition. Say what you will about the PPP program in general. It saved us and it’s hard for me to look beyond that.

4. The Academy MetroWest staff. Without a doubt, I have been blessed to work with some of the most caring, compassionate, flexible, creative people around. My staff - our full-time counselors, part-time counselors, interns, volunteers, and bookkeeper, have risen to the occasion over and over again. They have taken pay cuts, dealt with persistent uncertainty and inconvenience, repeatedly re-invented the wheel, and have done so while conducting their groups with the same caring, support, insight, commitment, and creativity they always have. All our efforts have been collaborative. Whenever we’ve come upon new, seemingly insurmountable problems, we get together (usually online) and develop new ways of solving them. Thank you so much everyone!

5. Our Clients. From the beginning of the pandemic, our clients have blown me away with the trust and confidence they’ve placed in our work. Before we were able to see clients in-person again, we had no idea how many people would want to stay around. As has become increasingly clear over the past 12 months, remote learning ain’t for everyone and we knew that our client list was going to take a hit. What we found was that a majority of our clients did stay around. Many of the clients who left were incredibly apologetic and some declined the refunds we offered them. More than one offered to set up Go Fund Me campaigns for us. When the grandmother of a former client passed away, his mom asked that memorial contributions be sent to us. What a blessing all this support and affirmation has been! Most importantly, the children and adolescents who attend our program – in-person and remotely – have kept us energized and, at times, in awe of their resiliency and spirit. They’ve shown tremendous appreciation for the opportunity to get together with their peers and I hope we’ve been able to show ours for the opportunities we’ve had to continue welcoming them to our groups.

     Many other people have provided vital assistance to us during the past year. Very honorable mention goes to my friend Rob Simcoe for being my main source of information and a patient sounding board on COVID transmission and safety protocols. We may have been able to survive without him but I’d be a basket case. And my family – my wife Sarah and my daughter Lucy (and our dog Sadie) gave me a reason to keep fighting the good fight and encouragement to get back up when the fight took it to me. To everyone who lent a hand or a kind word this year, you have my eternal gratitude. If the light at the end of the tunnel isn't visible yet, I'm at least getting a sneaking feeling that it's out there somewhere.  A year into the pandemic, I’m happy to report that we’re not going away anytime soon. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.