In all our years of serving massage and bodywork programs, we have never seen a bigger challenge than the one we face today. Bringing staff and students back to campus during the COVID-19 crisis is daunting on several fronts—schools must be watchful of the impacts they face as an employer and business entity, they must honor their educational promise to the student body, and they must protect the public’s interests as they visit your student clinics and put their trust in your students’ hands. There is a lot at stake in making sound, informed choices as we move forward. That’s why at www.abmp.com/back-to-school we are sharing the best advice ABMP can offer at this time regarding reopening your massage and bodywork program.
As states begin to allow for reopening in various stages, school owners will make different decisions. While some will dive back in as soon as state permissions are in hand, others likely will pause until certain medical milestones are in place in their community before bringing everyone back on campus. Your school will have to find its own comfort zone. Your staff and students will be making similar assessments.
The reality is that whenever stay-at-home orders are lifted in your area—earlier or later—many of you are still going to be faced with the question, “Should we go back to work?” That is not a question we can answer for you. With the possibility of asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19, every choice we make in the foreseeable future has a real level of risk attached. Even with stringent sanitation protocols and enhanced screening processes, there still exists a risk of infection in your school community.
For those schools planning to get back onsite, what follows is a hierarchy of ideas and precautions we strongly encourage you to consider for your school, your staff, and your students. We understand that not every idea at www.abmp.com/back-to-school may fit for you—we plan to continue to add to this information, as well as share ideas from our school community submitted to education@abmp.com.
For every school, we do emphasize the reality that while these may be ways to make your learning environments safer, there is no known way to fully eliminate the risk of COVID-19 transmission and infection. There simply is no risk-free environment in which to conduct business today.