Staying Connected…Apart

We know a lot of you are working on the front-lines and we cannot thank you enough for your dedication. We can recognize and appreciate the sacrifices front-line staff are making by continuing to respect the social distancing recommendations and staying home when we can.

While some of us are staying home, we may find ourselves wanting to connect with others, especially family members who may be vulnerable to this outbreak. There are a wide variety of virtual options, both with our smartphones and on computers. There are also options that require less technology and may serve a purpose as well.

Here are a few we’d like to highlight today:

An example using a phone and a window-  how one personal care home in Nova Scotia is keeping families connected safely during the pandemic.

Another version might be walking over to a friend or family members house and chatting on the phone, while looking at each other through the window

Facetime

IPhones are equipped with this voice or video call technology. If you’ve never done it before, here’s a short step by step guide

1. Open FaceTime on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap the + button.
3. Type the name, email address or number that you want to call.
4. Enter more names, email addresses or numbers if you want to create a group call.
5. Tap Audio or Video to start your call.

Facebook video chat

Many of us have a Facebook account, which also gives us the capability to video chat with any of our Facebook friends. Here’s a short 3 step guide on how to do that:

To video chat on Facebook:

1. Click on the messenger icon at the top right of your screen or on the application.
2. Open a conversation with the person or people you want to video chat with.
3. Click on the video camera icon  in the top right corner of the chat window.

House party

An application that provides video chats for up to eight people while also providing a platform to play games together, virtually.

This app works on smartphones, some tablets and some computers

https://houseparty.com/  or search House Party in the app store on your phone.

These are just a few ways we can stay connected while staying healthy and safe. Again, we are very grateful to all the staff who are working on the front-lines and all the staff behind the scenes helping to coordinate the quick and continuous changes.