Faced with the challenge of continuing to provide quality mental health care while protecting our community from the threat of COVID-19, Skyland Trail quickly adapted to meet the moment.

We began like many other organizations, following CDC guidelines to thoroughly clean our facilities throughout the day and limiting visitors to our campuses. When the scope and severity of the illness became clear, we committed to making significant changes to ensure we could meet the needs of our current clients and continue to admit people in need of immediate services.

Virtual Programming

Within two weeks, our adult clinical team developed a virtual day treatment program. Instead of coming to campus, our day treatment and intensive outpatient program (IOP) clients participate in group and individual therapeutic sessions from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM each weekday. We continue to offer two to three specialized groups each hour – from “accepting imperfections” to “coping with grief” – to ensure our clients engage in clinical curriculum matched to their individual diagnoses, challenges, and needs.

Similarly, both adult and adolescent clinical teams converted all of our family services to a virtual platform. Families continue to participate in family therapy and educational programming through online video conferencing.

Residential Screening

To ensure adult and adolescent clients could continue to admit safely to our residential programs, we employed a combination of screening, testing, and physical isolation protocols. Unlike many other programs, Skyland Trail offers private patient rooms and bathrooms, which has been helpful in allowing clients to isolate until they are medically cleared to join the larger residential community. Adolescent clients are required to isolate at home with a guardian until they are medically cleared to admit to residential services. All residential clients and staff wear masks and practice physical distancing at all times outside of private rooms and offices.