We’ve all heard the complaint that, because of government and state education policies, teachers are being forced more and more to “teach for the test.” That leaves them little time for engaging children in more creative forms of learning.
For their part, parents are often overwhelmed by the responsibilities of balancing work and family time, making it harder to put their energies into encouraging creative pursuits by their offspring. Plus, kids themselves are overbooked with after-school sports, clubs and homework, giving them little unscheduled time to let their imaginations take flight.
Of course, while there are technology-related tools that require lots of creativity (programs and apps for art, music and more), many kids are hooked on the more mindless types of video games or are addicted to texting in its many form—another way that they’re losing out on free time to pursue creative expression.
At North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, we incorporate many activities that encourage creativity, which is crucial to healing emotional trauma and also fostering happiness and self-esteem.
“In addition to talk therapy, we use many creative outlets to encourage kids to express their emotions,” says Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director of the Guidance Center. “We have two organic gardens that engage children’s senses, and we also have a Nature Nursery which is primarily designed for our early childhood population of children under 6 years of age. Itfeatures a variety of ‘tools,’ including a rock and water garden, herbs, shells, pine cones, wind chimes, pots and pans and more, all designed to help children explore the sights, sounds, smells and touch of nature. It’s a great way to foster creativity, and creativity promotes emotional, social, cognitive and physical development.”
Here are some tips on how to promote creativity:
Expose your child to the big wide world with trips both far and near—parks, museums, concerts, etc.
Use one of the best resources for any parent: your local library. Most have many free workshops for kids and teens, from learning to make bracelets to exploring the solar system.
Give your child some free time to play with friends or on his or her own. If they are booked back to back, they’re missing the time needed to use their imaginations.
Keep your radar up for what kinds of things excite your child, and encourage them to pursue their interests.
Let your kids be “bored” during the day. They need to be bored in order to stimulate their brains to come up with ways to amuse themselves. Boredom begets creativity!
Ask your kids to participate in your everyday tasks, like cooking, raking leaves or doing yoga. It’s not only creative, but a great bonding experience!
Guidance Center Executive Director Andrew Malekoff, Children’s Center volunteer Allison Cacace, event co-chair John Zenir, Leeds Place Director Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust and event co-chair Bob Mangi attended the Sept. 19 fundraiser. (Photo courtesy of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center)
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center hosted Sept. 19 a fundraiser for its Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court. The event at Tesoro’s Ristorante Cucini Italiana at 967 Old Country Road in Westbury featured entertainment by musician and soul crooner Paul Loren, along with cocktails and a delicious buffet.
The event raised over $12,000 for operating the Children’s Center, which provides care and early learning to almost 2,000 children annually, ages 6 weeks to 12 years, while their parents or guardians are conducting court business.
“The Children Center is not a babysitting service,” Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust, Director of The Leeds Place, explained. “It is an early learning center. Often this is a child’s first exposure to an early learning environment. Every aspect of the Center promotes learning by which the children can explore new things in a safe, structured and professionally supervised setting.”
Dr. Taylor-Walthrust also thanked all of the Children’s Center volunteers. “We have only two full-time staff members, and we are required to have two adults present at the Center for it to be open. We could never provide the level of service that we do without these dedicated volunteers.” She also acknowledged Laurie Joseph-Yehuda and Rene Joseph, the daughter and widow of the late Honorable Burton S. Joseph, founder of the Children’s Center, who were also in attendance. Laurie is a new member of the Children’s Center Advisory Council and Rene painted a beautiful mural on the wall of the Children’s Center many years ago.
Andrew Malekoff, executive director of the Guidance Center, thanked event co-chairs Bob Mangi, Esq. and John Zenir as well as Allison Cacace, a volunteer for the Children’s Center who was instrumental in coordinating the event for the second year in a row.
“This fundraiser is critical for the Children’s Center, as funds for it have been drastically cut over the years, though we have been able to keep it open full time,” Malekoff said.
The fundraiser was sponsored by an array of local law firms and other businesses, including Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman, Eisman, Formato, Ferrara, Wolf & Carone, LLP, DiMascio & Associates, LLP, Gassman Baiamonte Gruner, P.C., Mangi & Graham, LLP, the Pessala Family, and In Memory of Hon. Burton S. Joseph.
North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center’s Under the Stars gala is 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at Garden City Hotel. (Photo courtesy of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center)
Marilyn Albanese stumbled upon the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center when she needed it most.
After taking in a child from Haiti named Caila, Albanese learned the girl needed surgery but she was unable to communicate with Caila in Creole or French. Her son Anthony was volunteering with the Guidance Center and suggested she call for help.
There, she met Executive Director Andrew Malekoff and quickly became a volunteer with the center, working with its young mothers program, then a board member, and now the annual Under the Stars gala honoree along with her husband, Russell.
“It makes me feel really proud and honored because we so believe in the organization, having seen both sides of the experience, benefiting from their services as well as having volunteered myself and my sons,” Albanese said. “It makes us feel very proud to be associated with the organization.”
Gala co-chair Carol Marcell said the annual gala will have a different format this year, moving away from the past Dancing with Our Stars theme to Under the Stars with a new entertainment format with Dueling Pianos. The gala will also be moved to a Thursday night, held at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Garden City Hotel, instead of a typical Saturday night affair.
Tickets for the event as well as journal advertisements are still available.
“It will be more appropriate for the Thursday evening instead of the big ballroom dance format,” Marcell said. “We felt like this year, it was time to mix it up. We’re excited.”
Malekoff said the gala is the Guidance Center’s largest fundraiser of the year and helps provide a number of mental health and chemical abuse services to the community, including the daily child care program available for those attending Nassau County Family Court so parents who can’t afford sitters for children from six weeks to 12 years old don’t have to bring children into the courtroom.
Malekoff said while the center gets some funding from the government, that funding has been at a standstill for the past 30 years and the center relies on fundraisers to keep services running.
“In order for us to continue to provide services at the level of quality that we do and turn no one away for the inability to pay, we have to raise a significant amount of funding each year in order to make up the difference between, say, what we might be reimbursed from a commercial insurance company and what it costs us to provide the service,” Malekoff said.
Founded in 1953, the Guidance Center was the product of a grassroots movement of mothers who saw a gap and decided to fill it, Malekoff said.
Since then, the stigma of mental health issues still plagues the country, and many people, Malekoff said, don’t seek treatment for years, if they do at all.
“The stigma is still a major issue, so asking for help when you have a child with a physical health problem like asthma or diabetes or cancer, they won’t hesitate for a moment to call a provider to get help,” Malekoff said. “With mental health, because of the stigma and shame it generates for some, they will wait hours, days, weeks, months, sometimes years to call.”
Albanese said in her time on the center’s Board of Directors, she said she has seen accountability and support across the organization, from Malekoff trickling down to his support staff and volunteers.
“He has a gift of being both very educated and very aware of what needs to be done, but also being able to educate the people getting involved and facilitate the things that need to get done,” Albanese said of Malekoff. “He seems to have a real heart for young people and all people with mental health issues.”
The center has three offices, a headquarters in Roslyn Heights and two branches in Manhasset and Westbury, but they serve a greater population than anyone would guess, Marcell said.
“People from Nassau County, without knowing they know, know many people that have been helped by the center,” Marcell said. “It is a center that is understated, but it’s helped our community serve families, and because it’s mental health, it’s not as publicized. We can’t showcase our clients. We can’t say, speak to this family, their daughter was suicidal.
“We can’t showcase a lot of these specific issues and names, but they’re so prevalent and we serve so many. They are probably friends with people we’ve supported. They’ve done a lot to improve our community without always being the face of that.”
Daniel Gale’s Gail Holman, Guidance Center Board Member Tracey Kupferberg and Guidance Center Board President Nancy Lane
Roslyn Heights, NY, September 22, 2017 — On Tuesday evening September 19th, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center hosted a fundraiser for its Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court.The event, which was held at Tesoro’s Ristorante Cucini Italiana at 967 Old Country Road in Westbury, featured wonderful entertainment by musician and soul crooner Paul Loren, along with cocktails and a delicious buffet.
The event raised over $12,000 for operating the Children’s Center, which provides care and early learning to almost 2,000 children annually, ages 6 weeks – 12 years, while their parents or guardians are conducting court business.
“The Children Center is not a babysitting service,” explains Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust, Director of The Leeds Place (under which the Children’s Center operates). “It is an early learning center. Often this is a child’s first exposure to an early learning environment. Every aspect of the Center promotes learning by which the children can explore new things in a safe, structured and professionally supervised setting.”
Guidance Center Executive Director Andrew Malekoff, Children’s Center volunteer Allison Cacace, event co-chair John Zenir, Leeds Place Director Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust and event co-chair Bob Mangi.
Dr. Taylor-Walthrust also thanked all of the Children’s Center volunteers. “We have only two full-time staff members, and we are required to have two adults present at the Center for it to be open. We could never provide the level of service that we do without these dedicated volunteers.” She also acknowledged Laurie Joseph-Yehuda and Rene Joseph, the daughter and widow of the late Honorable Burton S. Joseph, founder of the Children’s Center, who were also in attendance. Laurie is a new member of the Children’s Center Advisory Council and Rene painted a beautiful mural on the wall of the Children’s Center many years ago.
Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director of the Guidance Center, thanked event co-chairs Bob Mangi, Esq. and John Zenir, Esq., P.C., as well as Allison Cacace, a volunteer for the Children’s Center who was instrumental in coordinating the event for the second year in a row. “This fundraiser is critical for the Children’s Center, as funds for it have been drastically cut over the years, though we have been able to keep it open full time,” says Malekoff.
The fundraiser was sponsored by an array of local law firms and other businesses, including Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman, Eisman, Formato, Ferrara, Wolf & Carone, LLP, DiMascio & Associates, LLP, Gassman Baiamonte Gruner, P.C., Mangi & Graham, LLP, the Pessala Family, and In Memory of Hon. Burton S. Joseph.
By Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center and Long Beach resident
My family lives in a high ranch in a section of Long Beach known as “the canals.” The houses sit close together, sometimes just yards apart. One warm August afternoon many years ago, one of my neighbors lit his fireplace. Our windows were wide open and in no time our house filled with smoke. We appealed to our neighbors to wait until the weather was a little cooler. Later that evening, we were again invaded by smoke.
After one more attempt to address the problem civilly, it became clear to me that our neighbors did not appreciate that their pleasure was our pain. Drawing on my knowledge of nonviolent tactics to resolve conflict, I went door to door on the street to enlist support and called local officials. Some neighbors spoke up about the problem. The fireplace problem was soon resolved.
Years later, I was out for an early morning bike ride on East Park Avenue in Long Beach when I was run down by a driver who subscribed to the now-popular practice of turning right on red without coming to a full stop. The irate driver exited his car, pointed up and hollered, “I had green!” He backed off when I corrected him, loudly, from my prone position underneath my mangled bicycle. I survived with a few bumps and bruises. When he saw the shape of my bike, he threw a $50 bill at me and said, “This is for your bike.”
Most people I talk to agree that civility is on the decline. Everyone seems to have his or her own horror stories, whether it is inconsiderate neighbors or co-workers, aggressive driving or just plain rudeness. There are books on the subject. Titles include “The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct” and “A Short History of Rudeness.” Another is “The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour.” Ah, yes, those were the days.
We have become all too familiar with the epidemic of F-bombs that pepper civic discourse, pervasive public cellphone calls and drunkenness at sporting events. We live in a time when every movie theater begins with a public service announcement stating ground rules for being considerate.
Highways have become the Wild West. Hardly anyone comes to a complete stop for a stop sign. The yellow traffic signal has evolved from its original meaning, slow down, to speed up. And, of course, there are tailgating, middle-finger salutes and rampant road rage.
Today, there is so much talk about putting an end to bullying in schools. Yet, we live in a world of adults who don’t think twice about trampling personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.
It never fails to surprise me, when I travel somewhere, to see drivers stop for pedestrians, and people of all ages wave and say, “Good morning.”
If we cannot reverse the trend, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a pause between impulse and action. Perhaps it is somewhere inside of that sacred space that we can find our way back to a civil society.
