AN ALEXANDRIA day centre is extending its services to locals looking for day care for young adults with disabilities, complex needs, learning difficulties and autism.

Shortly after Academy House Alexandria (AHA) opened, lockdown limits forced the temporary closure of the new facility.

However, the management team continued to work silently in the background, developing the service further in order to be ready to help once lockdown measures eased.

And the service reopened on June 1, with measures in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

AHA offers a new and dynamic service which offers a sensory area, fully accessible life skills/kitchen training area, touch enable IT and computing facilities, arts and craft studio, multi-purpose rooms for drama, exercise and music.

Company secretary Michelle Miller said: “We subsequently decided that we would reopen the centre on June 1.

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“Making our plan on what to do next, we contacted social services and health professionals to inform them of our decision to reopen, and have worked to develop a plan which keeps the people we will support safe - having robust infection control measures in place and social distancing measures to minimise any spread of infection within our centre.

“We will continue to work closely with the Care Inspectorate and Public Health Scotland, to take their advice in terms of minimising infection and keeping people safe.

“Part of our re-launch plan is to arrange an open day for people who have additional support needs in the west of Scotland, where service users, their families and multi-disciplinary teams will all be invited along.

“Our aim is to try to reassure them that through these extreme challenges there is a safe environment where people can access a service which is person-centred and which meets the needs of each individual.

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“We plan to have our re-launch on Monday, August 10, where we will provide information about the service and provide an opportunity for a question and answer session.”

“We hope people we initially met back in February will attend as well as others who were unable to attend our original opening day.”

For more info, visit academy housealexandria.com.