Image Description: Caucasian male with grey eyes and brown hair. He is wearing a dark blue shirt in front of a black background.
Transcript: Hello everyone! I am Rowan O’Dougherty, the board president for Deaf & Hard of Hearing Services (D&HHS).
I am sure you are all already aware of our Governor’s (Gretchen Whitmer) mandate that we stay home. If our work is not critical to community safety or the survival of individuals, it is best we stay home. All of this is to make sure that COVID-19 does not continue its spread throughout our community.
This “Stay Home, Stay Safe” mandate will be in place for three weeks! This may seem like a long time, but the mandate is necessary since the virus is spreading rapidly at this time. We are at the point where we need to prevent further community spread.
We have decided that for the safety of our staff and for the safety of our community, we need to follow the mandate and close our office. We are not closing completely, just closing the physical office! We will not be allowing visitors to come to the office, and we will be asking staff to stay home. These staff will be working from home so that we may continue providing services. Staff will be utilizing apps, videos, computers, phones etc. to continue providing critical services to our community.
Our office will remain closed until April 14, depending on the situation. If the pandemic continues unabated, we may end up closed for longer. We will have to see how the situation develops.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can easily contact us if you want or if you need to.
For Interpreting Services, the phone number is 616-732-7358 ext. 201 (mistakenly signed 204 in video). Email is interpreterservices@deafhhs.org.
Advocacy has two phone numbers, one is voice and the other is video phone. The voice number is 616-732-7358 ext. 204. The Video Phone (VP) is 616-828-0186. The Email address is advocacy@deafhhs.org.
For general questions not related to either interpreting or advocacy, you can call 616-732-7358 ext. 206. Email is info@deafhhs.org.
If you are ambivalent about contacting the office, you can contact me for further information, to address concerns, for help, etc. My VP number is 616-828-0133 and email is board@deafhhs.org.
For current information about the office, the services we offer and the COVID-19 situation, you can follow us using facebook or twitter. To find us in these two social platforms, just put in ‘deafhhs’ in search, and we should show up for you to click on.
Please stay home and stay safe!