North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is thrilled to announce that its Celestial Soirée raised more than $485,000 to support the Guidance Center’s mission to bring hope and healing to children and their families who are experiencing mental health and substance use challenges.
The Oct. 24 gala, which honored Louis P. Iglesias, president and Chief Executive Officer at Allied World Assurance Company Holdings Ltd., is the Guidance Center’s biggest fundraising event of the year.
“The Guidance Center provides an essential service to our community,” said Iglesias. “The importance of providing a safe environment to address children’s mental health issues cannot be overestimated. I am proud to be part of such a great cause.”
A dedicated group of Guidance Center supporters made the evening a huge success. They include event co-chairs John Bender and Wesley Dupont both from Allied World; journal co-chairs Nancy and Lew Lane; and emcee Stacey Sager of WABC TV’s Eyewitness News, whose grace and generous spirit made for a fantastic evening.
“We are so grateful to Lou Iglesias and co-chairs John Bender and Wes Dupont for helping us raise the funds that support our mission to bring emotional healing to children and families who are struggling with mental health issues,” said Paul Vitale, Board president at the Guidance Center. “Each year, we are blessed to have so many dedicated supporters who understand the importance of our work, and who enable us to serve 10,000 individuals each year.”
Sager, who emceed the event for the first time this year, said,“I can’t think of anything more critical than the mental health and well-being of our children. Working with a group as dedicated as the Guidance Center assures me that children and their families will always have a place to turn for the lifesaving help they may desperately need.”
A former client named John, now 17, spoke about his journey with ADHD, and how the Guidance Center’s unique Wilderness Program—which takes at-risk youth on hikes to nature settings—made all the difference in his success. “The reason the Wilderness Program is so important and helpful to people like me is because it’s a safe space for people to be able to be themselves and learn and improve at their own pace,” John told the audience. “The program made me feel like I could accomplish anything I put my mind to.” Guidance Center Executive Director Andrew Malekoff expressed his gratitude to the honoree, speaker, emcee, donors, sponsors and all who worked so hard on the gala committee.
“For more than 65 years, we have been dedicated to providing mental health services to all children and families, regardless of their ability to pay,” said Malekoff. “And because of the generosity of everyone involved, we will be able to continue to provide the best in care to the community.”
All proceeds will benefit the Guidance Center. To learn more about the organization’s services, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516-626-1971.
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center promises to work with children and their families from birth to age 24. Does that mean babies get therapy?
Well, not in the traditional model of sitting on a couch and talking about their “issues,” of course. But the Guidance Center does, indeed, provide help for the very youngest clients at our Marks Family Right from the Start 0-3+ Center (RFTS) in Manhasset.
All of the programs at RFTS, which include therapeutic and support services, are led by Dr. Sue Cohen, Director of Early Childhood and Psychological Services, who has been with the Guidance Center since 1991.
“This was my first job,” says Cohen, who received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from St. John’s University. “My passion has always been working with young children, infants and their parents.”
The Guidance Center’s Early Childhood Services are very unique, Cohen says. “Most agencies don’t work with very young children. We have a family-centered approach that helps parents and children manage difficult situations.”
So, what are the types of issues that would make a parent bring in a baby or young child for treatment? Cohen explains: “We help children with a range of problems, from oppositional defiance to attention deficit disorders to learning problems and developmental delays.” Other common concerns revolve around separation issues, trauma, divorce and bereavement.
“We always bring parents and caregivers in to find out what’s going on and to be an active participant in the treatment, as they are active participants in their children’s lives,” she says. “We wouldn’t work alone with a baby; we need to see the parent-child and family interactions. We gather information from multiple sources to help determine if the child is meeting milestones and to see if he or she might need intervention like speech or physical therapy.”
Cohen and other Guidance Center professionals such as the medical director work as a team, conducting assessments and then conferring to determine the best course of treatment. “It’s a whole-team approach,” she says. They also conduct diagnostic testing for children on the autism spectrum, and children with learning disabilities and/or attention problems.
Very often, the mode of treatment involves play therapy. “Play is the child’s main way of learning and communicating,” says Cohen. “We think outside the box and use lots of creative means of relating to the child.”
Back to the Garden
One of those methods involves the use of the organic garden at RFTS (the Guidance Center also has an organic garden at its headquarters in Roslyn Heights). “We use the garden as a metaphor for growth and nurturance,” says Cohen. The staff often teaches the youngsters this poem: “Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, you can plant flowers, or you can plant weeds.”
Says Cohen, “Working in the garden helps kids learn lessons about responsibility, collaboration and self-esteem. We tell them they can ‘weed out’ unnecessary behaviors and do things to help support good behaviors. It empowers them. Plus, many children have also used this as an opportunity to step out of their comfort zone and try a new vegetable or two.”
Cohen and her staff also utilize the Nature Nursery, which is primarily designed for our early childhood population of children under six years old. The Nature Nursery features a variety of “tools,” including a rock and water garden, shells, pine cones, wind chimes and more, all designed to help children explore the sights, sounds, smells and touch of nature.
“Six year olds, or sometimes even younger kids, are getting iPads or other tech devices,” she says. “They are losing touch with how to communicate and socialize face to face. When you see two and three year olds having tantrums because their parents don’t want to give them the phone, it’s a problem. They’re being set up to have social and communication problems.”
While learning to navigate technology is important, parental limits for moderation are also important, she adds. “We encourage children and their parents to also play with creative, hands-on activities and age-appropriate games.”
Autism Support
Cohen also runs a group called GASAK, for Grandparent Advocates Supporting Autistic Kids. “We sometimes bring in a speaker from a local support program or an educational advocate or lawyer who can provide information to the grandparents,” she explains. The grandparents often struggle when learning of a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and find comfort in knowing that others share their experiences.
“They are sometimes in an awkward position of not knowing how to help if, for example, they are taking their grandchild on outings and they have a tantrum or behave inappropriately. Our goal is to give them the knowledge, tools and support to handle these situations.”
What makes the Guidance Center such a great place isn’t only its services; it’s the people who work here, says Cohen. “We have a dedicated and passionate staff that is always looking for creative ways to help our children and their families.”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is thrilled to announce that its Celestial Soirée raised over $485,000 to support the Guidance Center’s mission to bring hope and healing to children and their families who are experiencing mental health and substance use challenges.
The Oct. 24 gala, which honored Louis P. Iglesias, president and chief executive officer at Allied World Assurance Company Holdings Ltd., is the Guidance Center’s biggest fundraising event of the year.
“The Guidance Center provides an essential service to our community,” said Iglesias. “The importance of providing a safe environment to address children’s mental health issues cannot be overestimated. I am proud to be part of such a great cause.”
A dedicated group of Guidance Center supporters made the evening a huge success. They include event co-chairs John Bender and Wesley Dupont both from Allied World; journal co-chairs Nancy and Lew Lane; and emcee Stacey Sager of WABC TV’s Eyewitness News, whose grace and generous spirit made for a fantastic evening. “We are so grateful to Lou Iglesias and co-chairs John Bender and Wes Dupont for helping us raise the funds that support our mission to bring emotional healing to children and families who are struggling with mental health issues,” said Paul Vitale, board president at the Guidance Center. “Each year, we are blessed to have so many dedicated supporters who understand the importance of our work, and who enable us to serve 10,000 individuals each year.” Sager, who emceed the event for the first time this year, said,“I can’t think of anything more critical than the mental health and well-being of our children. Working with a group as dedicated as the Guidance Center assures me that children and their families will always have a place to turn for the lifesaving help they may desperately need.” A former client named John, now 17, spoke about his journey with ADHD, and how the Guidance Center’s unique Wilderness Program — which takes at-risk youth on hikes to nature settings— made all the difference in his success. “The reason the Wilderness Program is so important and helpful to people like me is because it’s a safe space for people to be able to be themselves and learn and improve at their own pace,” John told the audience. “The program made me feel like I could accomplish anything I put my mind to!”
Guidance Center Executive Director Andrew Malekoff expressed his gratitude to the honoree, speaker, emcee, donors, sponsors and all who worked so hard on the gala committee. “For more than 65 years, we have been dedicated to providing mental health services to all children and families, regardless of their ability to pay,” said Malekoff. “And because of the generosity of everyone involved, we will be able to continue to provide the best in care to the community.”
All proceeds will benefit the Guidance Center. To learn more about the organization’s services, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call (516) 626-1971.
October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month! Although the month is almost at an end, adopting a dog—or cat or other pet, for that matter—is a great thing to do any time of year. You’re not only saving the life of that one pet, but you’re opening up room in the shelter so another pet who is homeless or at risk of being euthanized can be saved.
Just some of the benefits of having a dog for your family, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:Developing positive feelings about pets can contribute to a child’s self-esteem and self-confidence. Positive relationships with pets can aid in the development of trusting relationships with others. And a good relationship with a pet can also help in developing non-verbal communication, compassion and empathy.
Pets can serve different purposes for children:
They can be safe recipients of secrets and private thoughts; children often talk to their pets, like they do to their stuffed animals.
They provide lessons about life, including reproduction, birth, adoption, illnesses, accidents, death and bereavement.
They can help develop responsible behavior in the children who care for them.
They provide a connection to nature.
They can teach respect for other living things.
Once you’ve decided to add a pet to your family, there are many reasons that adoption is the way to go. Shelter pets will love and appreciate you for saving them. While all animals, whether adopted or purchased, give love to their families, shelter pets seem to have an extra-special feeling of gratitude, and you’ll be the beneficiary of all that lovin’!
In addition, many shelter dogs are already house-trained. While most shelters do have puppies (and is there anything better than puppy dog breath?), adopting a somewhat older dog has real advantages. Along with being house-trained, they are past the chewing stage, and since their personality is already in evidence, the shelter worker can help you match the pet’s personality to your family’s needs.
Shelters and rescue groups often have purebred dogs, so if you want a particular breed, you can likely find it. But remember, mixed breeds are often healthier animals, having bypassed the genetic disorders that can be passed down in purebreds.
Want to learn more about pet adoption? Click here for a great source of information.
If your child needed a life-saving chemotherapy drug and you were told that because of a shortage you were out of luck, how would you feel? What would you do about it?
Sadly, this is no fantasy scenario. It is a 21st-century reality for treating childhood cancer. According to a recent New York Times report, “Doctors are warning that they may soon be forced to consider rationing doses” of the drug in question: vincristine. Rationing means making decisions about who gets the drug and who doesn’t.
In other words, although vincristine is an essential part of the best practices treatment regimen for pediatric cancer, some kids would not receive it; some would get it less frequently than called for, and others would be prescribed a poor substitute with more intense side effects.
As a cancer survivor, vincristine was a part of the cocktail of drugs that I received intravenously during my chemotherapy treatments for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
My understanding, though, is that this chemotherapy drug is not used as widely for adults with cancer as for kids. In fact, the American Cancer Society reports that children represent less than 1 percent of all cancer diagnoses.
The bottom line: Apparently there is little profit incentive to produce a greater volume of vincristine, despite the fact that most kids with cancer take it and it helps save their lives, according to a recent Newsday story.
Although chemotherapy is not easy to tolerate as an adult, I cannot imagine being a young child and going through it. What is even harder to fathom is not having access to the most effective drug to treat my disease and then having to settle for a less effective and less tolerable substitute.
At present, only one pharmaceutical company – Pfizer – supplies vincristine, which is an older and more inexpensive drug. Only one other company – Teva – produced the drug but, according to the FDA, Teva “made a business decision to discontinue the product.”
In a May 9, 2018 story, the Financial Times of London explained, “When prices of older, off-patent drugs decline, manufacturers may leave the market, leaving a limited number of suppliers for certain medicines.”
According to New York Times reporter Roni Rabin, 19,000 children and teens develop cancer each year and the cure rate is 85 percent. She added that shortages create disruptions in treatment, citing the New England Journal of Medicine which noted that “in 2013, 83 percent of oncologists said that they were unable to prescribe the chemotherapy agent they wanted to use because of a shortage and that they had to substitute a different drug or delay treatment.”
Dr. Peter Adamson, chair of the Children’s Oncology Group, stated in the New York Times story: “It’s hard enough for any family having a kid with cancer, and having a child with cancer likely to be cured except we can’t give the drug is beyond the imagination. How can we do that to families?”
Perhaps Erin Fox, Director of the Drug Information Service at the University of Utah Health Care in Salt Lake City, has the answer: “We see the most shortages with generics, specifically generic injectable products because they have low-profit margins and are difficult to make.”
To sum up, we’ve come to a place where an FDA-approved chemotherapy drug has been proven to help save children’s lives, but the drug is in short supply because it is not profitable to manufacture; therefore, some children will have to suffer from a taking a substitute drug that causes more severe side effects.
This is not a new story; just a variation on an old one. For example, we know about insulin’s high cost in keeping diabetes patients from taking their medicine. It is available but unaffordable. Vincristine is affordable but is fast becoming unavailable.
I’ve written before in this space about access to mental health care and the role of the health insurance industry in denying and delaying access to care. The story of vincristine adds further evidence of the corporate reality in which profits trump people every time.
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.
