Appointments Policies & Procedures

•  Attending scheduled appointments as well as notifying the Centre if you are unable to keep an appointment ensures that the Centre is using its resources effectively. Frequent cancellations for reasons other than child or family illness may reduce the effectiveness of the services your child may be receiving.
• You are required to contact your clinician in advance to cancel all in-person appointments. This is applicable to all sites, including schools or community locations as well as virtual appointments. A minimum of 24 hours notice is appreciated when possible.
• It is not the responsibility of your child’s school to notify their Niagara Children’s Centre clinician of your child’s absence from school.
• Failure to cancel in advance of an appointment is considered a “no-show”. No-show appointments will not be made up and are more likely to result in discharge from Centre services vs. appointments cancelled with notice.
• We recognize that our families’ personal circumstances can change unexpectedly and are committed to working with your family to provide services in a model that works for you.
• If you are having difficulty maintaining your child’s schedule of appointments, a dialogue will take place between yourself and your clinician(s) about what accommodations / alternative service delivery models can be provided.
• If multiple requests to reschedule appointments continue to occur after accommodations have been made/an alternative service delivery model has begun, your child may be discharged from Centre services.
• Please note: A maximum of 3 cancelled (with notice) visits will be made up within a defined service plan. A clinician will not make up any “no-show” appointments.
• Consideration will be made for a child or family illness as we encourage individuals to stay home if they are feeling ill to limit the spread of infection.
• All appointments cancelled by one of our clinicians or by the Centre (e.g. due to clinician illness/absence, Centre closure, etc.) will be made up.

Team Meetings and Appointments – To cancel a team meeting or appointment, call or leave a message with the social worker assigned to your team.

Individual Sessions – To cancel an individual session, contact the treating therapist.

Assessment and Recheck Appointments – When cancelling an assessment or recheck appointment, remember to notify other professionals scheduled to attend, such as your infant and child development services worker or your resource teacher.

Too Many Missed or Cancelled Appointments – Clients who do not show up for two appointments without notifying therapists in advance will be discharged from services at the Centre. Frequent cancellations may also be cause for discharge at the discretion of the therapist(s).

Inclement weather can pose a threat to the safety of Niagara Children’s Centre staff and clientele. In the event of inclement weather, Niagara Children’s Centre may, at its own discretion, decide to close its facilities and/or cancel programming and treatment services until we deem the weather to no longer be a safety issue.

In the event that the weather is severe enough that management decides to close the facility, we will notify the public in the following ways:

• We will post a notification on the home page of the Centre’s website
• We will post a message on the Centre’s main switchboard voicemail, providing details of the closure – the main switchboard can be reached at (905) 688-3550
• We will notify local radio stations and they will provide updates where possible

Keeping yourself, your child, or anyone attending the appointment home when ill helps prevent the spread of germs/infection. Many children who receive Centre services are particularly vulnerable to becoming ill. Your child is not likely to benefit from sessions held while they are ill.

We ask that you stay home if anyone attending the appointment has:

• vomiting or diarrhea in the past 24 hours
• fever (temperature above 37.0C or 98.6F)
• earache or any drainage from the ear
• continuous cough or unusual night coughs
• runny nose with thick colored mucous, or accompanied by other symptoms
• head lice
• unusual rashes
• stomach aches or headaches
• sore throat
• eye irritations, particularly with yellow discharge or redness

Please refer to our website on Infection Control Procedures for up-to-date information about our current practices.