The relationships with our families remain a critical part of our students’ success and are a cherished component of our treatment philosophy. A heartfelt thank you to all of our committed families who have shown bravery, strength and persistence through these last several months.

I would like to highlight our Family Services Division, who continue to work on supporting students and families both online and in the home. The creativity this team has shown in providing services and opportunities for connections between school and home is truly remarkable. Virtual family visits have been held in a variety of settings to best suit the needs and schedules of our busy families. They have joined hospital meetings, connected families with community supports, provided guidance in securing basic necessities, helped with technology troubles, welcomed new families to the team and provided a space for caregivers to be heard and supported.

“Whatever it takes, whatever they need” seems to be their motto, as their commitment to all of you remains strong.

On behalf of our entire Lighthouse team we would like to say that we are grateful to have such amazing families to partner with as we share the common goal of optimal life success for the students.

We recognize that the work our students do every day to learn more about themselves and others, while fulfilling their academic requirements, is not easy. We utilize positive reinforcement to help encourage students as they take on new challenges, persevere, and strive to be the best they can be. Motivation plays a large role in student engagement and our token economy is an integral part of helping students achieve and sustain the motivation to do the hard work asked of them. Since we've been providing remote services, we’ve adapted our token economy to better fit our students’ needs and to ensure that we do not lose valuable opportunities to support and motivate them. Although currently, students are not earning physical tokens, they are still earning virtual tokens for working on their social, emotional, behavioral, and academic goals.

In order for tokens to be reinforcing, we need to provide our students with motivating options to spend them. As with other aspects of our program, our school store, APEX Motivation Place (also known as AMP) has stepped into 2021 with an online version called “AMPazon”. AMPazon is an online catalog of items with pictures and token costs. Students can shop by visiting AMPazon with a staff member to identify items they may be interested in either purchasing with tokens or earning by saving their tokens. Examples of items offered in AMPazon include clothing, toys, arts & crafts, books and electronics. Once the students purchases the item, it is ordered and delivered to their home. Although this has been a change for students, many have been able to practice patience while waiting for their earned item to arrive.

In addition to items for purchase, students can also sign up for clubs via AMPazon. We create new clubs frequently to match the interests of our students and some examples of clubs that have been offered this year include: Lego Club, Pokemon Club, Anime Club, Story Time. In addition, students have the option to use tokens to pay for a special lunch, which allows them to spend their lunchtime with a group of staff and students. Students can participate in the continued development of AMPazon by submitting suggestions for items, activities, and clubs they may be of interest to them. We are excited by this adaptation to our reinforcement options and it has been a successful way to motivate our students and increase their engagement in their learning and treatment at Lighthouse!