![Manhasset Community Fund Supports Children’s Mental Health Services]()
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Aug 15, 2016 | Press Releases
Roslyn Heights, NY, July 13, 2016 — North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center (NSC&FGC) has received a $4,000 grant from the Manhasset Community Fund (MCF) to further its core children’s mental health programming. MCF has a proud history of supporting local programs that are making a difference in the lives of Manhasset residents. NSC&FGC has been providing services to Manhasset, its surrounding communities, and all of Nassau County for more than 63 years, and has been a humble recipient of the Fund’s generosity for many years. The Guidance Center is a state-wide leader in children’s mental health service delivery – therapeutic, supportive, and educational services.
The agency will be allocating MCF’s funding to the ongoing expansion of its triage, emergency, and high-risk services. There has been a dramatic increase in psychiatric emergencies referred to The Guidance Center due to several factors: (1) inpatient hospitalization stays have shortened and are more difficult to access, (2) availability of inpatient and day treatment beds for children and youth have declined, (3) fewer agencies and private practitioners are readily available to respond, and (4) emergency room visits have become more time consuming and emotionally hazardous. “There is a clear and present need for a community-based service that rapidly responds to emergencies and works toward stabilization,” said Andrew Malekoff, LCSW, CASAC, Executive Director of NSG&FGC.
About Us:
As the pre-eminent not-for-profit children’s mental health agency on Long Island, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is dedicated to restoring and strengthening the emotional well-being of children (from birth – age 24) and their families. Our highly trained staff of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, vocational rehabilitation counselors and other mental health professionals lead the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, research and advocacy. The Guidance Center helps children and families address issues such as depression and anxiety; developmental delays; bullying; teen pregnancy; sexual abuse; teen drug and alcohol abuse; and family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma and divorce. For more than 60 years, the Guidance Center has been a place of hope and healing, providing innovative and compassionate treatment to all who enter our doors, regardless of their ability to pay. For more information about the Guidance Center, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call (516) 626-1971.
Andrew Malekoff, executive director and CEO of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center. Photo credit: Jason Green
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Jul 1, 2016 | Anton Media
July 2016
By Andrew Malekoff
Violence—random, sudden, illogical, and lethal—has become a fact of life. Shootings and acts of terror, homegrown and imported, with or without racial or religious overtones, have become gruesome signposts along a seemingly endless path of public and private horrors. They are taking a toll on our children.
No child should have to wake up each day as if he or she was on 24-hour-a-day guard duty. But in the United States this is the reality.
We can no longer think of these as isolated incidents, aberrations or confined to urban settings. Denial, an emotional trap door, is not a viable escape in a world where a sense of imminent threat is ever present.
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack, writer Jeph Loeb and artist J. Scott Campbell produced a nine-framed cartoon entitled “Please Stand By,” that featured a very young girl watching cartoons.
By the third and fourth frames, the image on the screen changed to a live feed of the Twin Towers ablaze. As the little girl stood transfixed, stuffed animal in hand, the commentator announced, “We interrupt this program to take you live…,” the little girl turned away and called, “Mommy…” The next three frames began with her mother dropping a basket of laundry. Then, with her face contorted in anguish, she embraced her daughter to shield her from the unrelenting images. The final frame is a close up of the little girl asking, “Mommy, when are the cartoons gonna come back on?”
Among those who are left in the wake of violent acts are the survivors – friends and family members of victims, who live with the emptiness, frustration, and rage of incomprehensible death by violence.
Earlier this month, as the mother of the oldest child of Alton Sterling, the black man fatally shot by Baton Rouge, Louisiana police, expressed sorrow and outrage at his death, Cameron Sterling, 15, the oldest of Sterling’s children wept inconsolably by her side, for the entire world to see and experience his heartbreak.
One day later a St. Paul, Minnesota Montessori school cafeteria supervisor Philando Castile met a similar fate. Just one day after his shooting, five police officers, protecting hundreds of people in Dallas, Texas, who were peacefully protesting the two shootings, were gunned down and murdered, ambush-style, by a lone shooter who was fueled by racial hatred and bent on misguided revenge.
Beyond those left in the direct wake of violence are growing numbers of young people who are fed a regular diet of horrific episodes of violence through graphic media accounts such as the live streaming of a bloodied and gasping Philando Castile, filmed by his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds who wanted the world to join her in bearing witness as he took his last breaths.
In the aftermath of trauma, children (and others) feel fearful, unprotected, hyper-vigilant, and hopeless and on their own; similar to orphans who feel they must take care themselves.
We are living in world gone mad, a place where the rich diversity of colors, shades, languages, orientations, beliefs and rituals should be shared and celebrated rather than drawn as battle lines. The answers do not lie in books of psychology or popular bromides, or in aspiring national leaders who have proven to be untrustworthy.
The answer lies in being mindful – paying attention on purpose, making connections with one another and building a sense of communality.
Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Jun 24, 2016 | Anton Media
By Andrew Malekoff
Once upon a time there was widespread belief that the human brain was fully developed by the time a child reached five or six years old. We know, for example, that the amygdala, the part of the brain that is responsible for instinctual reactions such as fear and aggressive behavior, does fully develop early. However, thanks to new technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), neuroscience researchers have discovered that, although 95 percent of the brain’s architecture is formed by the time a child is six-years-old, that there are significant changes that occur around the time of the onset of puberty, between 10 and 13 years of age.
Scientists have discovered that during adolescence there is a rapid increase in the connections between the brain cells and refinement of brain pathways and that these changes are critical for the development of coordinated thought and action. As my colleague Craig Haen put it, “In the teen years, young people are going through a software upgrade, neurologically, in which circuitry is being consolidated, networks are being reorganized, connections are being made stronger and more expedient and unused pathways are wearing away.”
Changes in the brain take place in the context of many other factors including early childhood experiences and environment. Scientists are continuing to look into the development of the brain and the relationship between the changes taking place, behavior, and health.
The stakes are great during the teenage years. There is a perplexing contradiction between adolescents reaching the peak of physical health, strength and mental capability and, at the same time, facing greater risks and hazards than ever before. Parents walk a fine line between supporting their children’s independence and protecting them from harm.
Child and adolescent brain studies affirm that the brain is hard-wired for social interaction and for attaching and bonding with caregivers. Despite all the scientific advances, according to leading brain researcher Jay Giedd, people might be disappointed to know that the “best advice we can give is things that our grandmother could have told us generations ago: to spend loving, quality time with our children.”
Teenagers hunger for significant relationships with adults who care about them. This belief has been validated by social scientist Ellen Galinsky, who interviewed more than a thousand children and found that teens longed for more time with their parents, even when they seemed to be pushing them away. Galinsky concluded , “Even though the public perception is about building bigger and better brains, what the research shows is that it’s the relationships, it’s the connections, it’s the people in children’s lives who make the biggest difference.”
If a child’s job is to explore and a parent’s job is to protect, understanding changes in adolescent brain development offers an opportunity to support and create environments that promote positive peer experiences, where teens can safely explore and experiment and avoid behavior that can harm themselves or others.
Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 27, 2016 | Anton Media
By Andrew Malekoff
May 27, 2016, Long Island Weekly, an Anton Media Publication
At North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, the vast majority of our clients are from Nassau County communities, but we recently had the opportunity to work with a young girl who came to Long Island from Haiti.
Thirteen-year old Anabelle traveled to the United States to receive life-saving surgery for an advanced stage of scoliosis at Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. Her condition was so serious that she would not have survived in Haiti. She was placed with a generous and loving host family that lived in Nassau County—far from home for a frightened and ailing teenager.
After about two weeks in the U.S., Anabelle became very withdrawn and refused to communicate with the family in any way. They weren’t sure how to help Anabelle, who didn’t speak English. The family was desperate to figure out a way to ease her fears and draw her out.
During this period the host family’s son, a recent college graduate, was working as a volunteer tutor at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Westbury office, known as the Leeds Place. He shared with his mom the broad scope of the work that we do with a very diverse population. She decided to call the director of the Leeds Place, Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust, to brainstorm about what could be done to help Anabelle.
The discussion led to a plan that included one of our Haitian Creole-speaking outreach workers, Marmeline Martin, who has extensive experience working with special needs children and in training foster parents. Nellie asked the host mom if Marmeline could make a home visit to meet her and Anabelle. She was so happy and said, “Absolutely!” Then she asked, with a look of surprise on her face, “You make home visits?”
She was assured that we do, and added that seeing Anabelle in the home environment would be better, at least to start, than bringing her to an unfamiliar setting.
Marmeline readily agreed and made her way to the home where she met Anabelle who was sitting in her wheelchair, head bowed, with a somber look on her face. Marmeline asked if she could speak with Anabelle alone, and the family agreed it was fine.
At first, Anabelle would not speak to Marmeline. But in a short period of time, she opened up and revealed feeling homesick and alone, sharing that she wished to see her mother and the rest of her family back in Haiti. As Marmeline continued to speak to Anabelle in Creole, Anabelle began to brighten up, feeling reassured because she could be understood and feel comfortable enough to express her feelings. Marmeline asked if it would make her feel better if she came back to visit with her and she nodded in agreement.
Marmeline then met with the host mom to reassure her that Anabelle wasn’t in need of psychotherapy but was feeling low due to the separation from her family. She promised that she would continue her visits and that Anabelle was going to be fine.
On the next visit Marmeline brought some Haitian music to listen to that reminded Anabelle of being home. As the weekly visits continued, Anabelle began to smile and became more engaged with the family.
We reassured the host mom that she was caring for Anabelle in a loving manner and that what she needed to understand was that Anabelle’s adjustment to a new culture, environment and language was naturally frightening to the teen.
Cultural competency and the flexibility of home visits are key components of providing community-based mental health care, whether preventive care as in the case of Anabelle, or more intensive treatment for children with serious emotional disturbances.
As Nellie said, reflecting back, “It’s the small things that often make a world of difference.”
Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center (www.northshorechildguidance.org), which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 22, 2016 | In The Media
“One person can ignite a fire that can light the entire forest”
On March 30, 2016 I had the pleasure of meeting a true hero – Dr. Bennet Omalu. He was the keynoter at the Head Injury Association’s Awareness Sports Forum at the Hyatt Regency Long Island.
In 2002 Dr. Omalu discovered the presence of degenerative disease in the brain of National Football League (NFL) player Mike Webster. He named the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE. His discovery has proven to be a powerful pebble that has generated waves throughout the troubled waters of youth, college and professional football, as well as other contact sports.
Dr. Omalu was portrayed by Will Smith in the 2015 film Concussion, based on his book of the same name. Prior to that, he was prominently featured in the public affairs television program Frontline and in the book, League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth.
Although the focus of the head injury forum was to raise awareness to protect school-aged athletes from concussions, Dr. Omalu transcended his role as a forensic scientist, inspiring an audience of several hundred people with his deep faith and fortitude.
He began his remarks by recalling that he was born in war-torn Nigeria and describing how he suffered as a child from malnutrition. He revealed that, “Because of the consequences of war, I became a weakling and introvert who was ridiculed.”
The turning point in his life came, he remembered, when he realized that “with knowledge you can do all things.” This realization ignited what became a lifetime thirst for learning and quest for truth. In fact, he has earned eight degrees and certifications.
Omalu explained that both science and faith seek truth. The role of faith, he said, “is the manifestation of things we do not see,” which was the case with Mike Webster and the rest of the world. Dr. Omalu said that it was his deep faith in humanity that led him to wonder about the cause of Webster’s destitution, deterioration and death, and, to “speak” to Webster’s spirit during the autopsy.
“Whatever happens to the least of us happens to all of us,” he told the rapt audience in Hauppauge; and, “what we do for the least of us, we do for all of us.” And, so began his spiritual relationship with the deceased Mike Webster.
Omalu has faced enormous obstacles as a scientist. He shared that he was smeared by National Institute of Health which said he was not a reputable doctor. And he was also defamed by the NFL that did all they could to stonewall his discovery and disassociate the notion that repeated blows to the head were the cause of a degenerative brain disease that led to the premature deaths, including suicides, of scores of former players and counting.
Dr. Omalu spoke to the challenge of working in a context of “conformational intelligence” which he explained as when one’s “mind conforms to the expectations of society” and not necessarily truth. “How does conformational intelligence hold down a society?” he asked.
Omalu—who portrayed himself as an “outlier,” someone who operates outside of the box—concluded his remarks by stating, “One person can ignite a fire that can light the entire forest.”
We owe Dr. Omalu a debt of gratitude for his discovery and for his quest for truth, against all odds.
We must demand that those in power in youth, interscholastic and intercollegiate sports protect our children; and we must help our children, from an early age, to think critically and to develop the good sense and courage, without shame, to speak the truth and break the silence.
Bio: Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
