by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 23, 2019 | In The Media
Board members and supporters of the Guidance Center’s lifesaving mission had a wonderful time at this year’s Spring Luncheon.
A sellout crowd of 245 people joined together on Wednesday, April 17 for North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Annual Spring Luncheon. This year’s event, which supports the Guidance Center’s mission to restore and strengthen the emotional well-being of children and their families, was a record-breaker, raising more than $87,000.
The luncheon, which took place at Glen Head Country Club, began with a morning round of mahjong, canasta and bridge, along with unique shopping boutiques from some of Long Island’s trendiest and most charitable small business owners, including Buy the Bag, Club & Country, Dash, I Thrive, Transitions and RFC Fine Jewelry, among others.
After a luncheon buffet, Vanessa McMullen, supervisor at the Guidance Center’s Marks Family Right From The Start 0-3+ Center in Manhasset and also head of the agency’s Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program, introduced the day’s speaker, former client Katherine. The audience was completely engrossed as Katherine shared her experience with postpartum depression and talked about the lifesaving treatment she received at the Guidance Center.
She told the crowd, “I was desperately seeking someone who could tell me that I could get through this and convince me that it would get better. When I was finally connected with North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, my life and my daughter’s life were changed forever… The Guidance Center has not only given me back my life, it has given my family a future.”
“Katherine’s story was incredibly moving,” said Nancy Lane, Guidance Center board president. “When she spoke about the dedication of the Guidance Center staff to both her and her family, I was incredibly proud. Our dedicated team of professionals gives their all to bring hope and healing to each and every client.”
The luncheon couldn’t have been so successful without the hard work of the co-chairs, Jan Ashley, Amy Cantor and Alexis Siegel.
“The enormous success of this year’s event is largely due to the incredible dedication of our three co-chairs,” said Andrew Malekoff, executive director of the Guidance Center. “They have put so much time and energy into the luncheon for several years, and we are truly grateful to them for continuing to make each year more special than the last.”
The Guidance Center is also grateful for the support of its sponsors. They are: Adelphi University, Baxter Smith & Shapiro PC, Amy Cantor, Ruth Fortunoff Cooper, Fara Copell, Linda Cronin, Julie Epstein, Fifth Avenue of LI Realty/Americana Manhasset, Joan & Jeffrey Grant, Janni and Associates/FNA, Deborah Klein, Rosemarie Klipper, Tracey Kupferberg/CBR, NYU Winthrop Women’s and Children’s Services, Raich Ende Malter & Co. LLP, Alexis Siegel, Signature Bank, Ruth & Michael Slade, South Oaks and Zucker Hillside Hospitals — Northwell Health and Carol Wolowitz.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 23, 2019 | Press Releases
Roslyn Heights, NY, April 22, 2019 — A sellout crowd of 245 people joined together on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, for North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Annual Spring Luncheon. This year’s event, which supports the Guidance Center’s mission to restore and strengthen the emotional well-being of children and their families, was a record-breaker, raising more than $87,000.
The luncheon, which took place at Glen Head Country Club, began with a morning round of Mahjong, Canasta and Bridge, along with unique shopping boutiques from some of Long Island’s trendiest and most charitable small business owners, including Buy the Bag, Club & Country, Dash, I Thrive, Transitions and RFC Fine Jewelry, among others.
After a delicious luncheon buffet, Vanessa McMullen, Supervisor at the Guidance Center’s Marks Family Right From The Start 0-3+ Center in Manhasset and also head of the agency’s Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program, introduced the day’s speaker, former client Katherine. The audience was completely engrossed as Katherine shared her experience with postpartum depression and talked about the lifesaving treatment she received at the Guidance Center.
She told the crowd, “I was desperately seeking someone who could tell me that I could get through this and convince me that it would get better. When I was finally connected with North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, my life and my daughter’s life were changed forever. … The Guidance Center has not only given me back my life, it has given my family a future.”
“Katherine’s story was incredibly moving,” said Nancy Lane, Guidance Center Board President. “When she spoke about the dedication of the Guidance Center staff to both her and her family, I was incredibly proud. Our dedicated team of professionals gives their all to bring hope and healing to each and every client.”
The luncheon couldn’t have been so successful without the hard work of the co-chairs, Jan Ashley, Amy Cantor and Alexis Siegel. “The enormous success of this year’s event is largely due to the incredible dedication of our three co-chairs,” said Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director of the Guidance Center. “They have put so much time and energy into the luncheon for several years, and we are truly grateful to them for continuing to make each year more special than the last.”
The Guidance Center is also grateful for the support of its sponsors. They are: Adelphi University, Baxter Smith & Shapiro PC, Amy Cantor, Ruth Fortunoff Cooper, Fara Copell, Linda Cronin, Julie Epstein, Fifth Avenue of LI Realty/Americana Manhasset, Joan & Jeffrey Grant, Janni and Associates/FNA, Deborah Klein, Rosemarie Klipper, Tracey Kupferberg/CBR, NYU Winthrop Women’s and Children’s Services, Raich Ende Malter & Co. LLP, Alexis Siegel, Signature Bank, Ruth & Michael Slade, South Oaks and Zucker Hillside Hospitals – Northwell Health and Carol Wolowitz.
About Us:
As the preeminent 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 65 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.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 22, 2019 | In The Media
In the modern world we live in, in the richest country in the world and in one of the wealthiest areas of that country, you’d think that Nassau County’s expectant and new mothers, along with their babies, would get the best care in the world.
You’d be wrong — especially when it comes to black women and their babies.
Dr. Martine Hackett, associate professor at Hofstra University’s School of Health Professions and Human Services, has compiled data from the New York State Department of Health that shows dramatically disparate outcomes for black mothers and babies compared with their white counterparts in Nassau County.
Hackett points to the startling differences between the infant mortality rates in contiguous communities in Nassau. (Infant mortality refers to the death of children before their first birthday.) For example, in Roosevelt there were 8.8 infant deaths per 1,000 births from 2014 to 2016, while neighboring Merrick had a rate of 1 death per 1,000 births. For all of Nassau County, regardless of economic status, the black infant mortality rate is more than four times that of the rate among whites — and even higher than the black infant mortality rate in New York City.
What needs to happen for change to occur in Nassau County, according to Hackett, is the following: 1) inform women after childbirth of warning signs for hemorrhage, embolism or infection; 2) enhance service integration for women and infants; and 3) treat women of color with dignity, respect and culturally relevant care.
Studies show that structural racism is a major factor in disparate infant mortality rates. There is unconscious bias among clinical staff, which negatively perceives black women’s pain before, during and after pregnancy. Even Serena Williams, hardly your average mom, experienced the denial of her concerns by medical professionals during and after the birth of her baby, and it almost led to her death.
Another factor is at work. On a recent NPR broadcast, Tasha Green Cruzat, president of Voices for Illinois Children, cited a study that concluded, “The accumulation of experiences of the African American woman, the racial discrimination that she experiences, produces chronic stress and brings on problems that constitute risk factors for pre-term delivery.”
In March 2018, Hackett and Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust, of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, announced the launch of Birth Justice Warriors, an initiative to train birth advocates to decrease birth inequities. Since the launch, 22 Warriors have been trained. The organizational partners — the Child & Family Guidance Center, Planned Parenthood Nassau County, the March of Dimes, Hofstra’s National Center for Suburban Studies and the Long Island Community Foundation — have provided support and guidance from the beginning, according to Hackett. “Over the past year I have met many strong advocates for black mothers and infants in Nassau County who acknowledge the challenges we face,” she said. “The positive response to Birth Justice Warriors from communities of color tells me that we have tapped into a growing movement for birth equity.”
As the initiative begins its second year, efforts will continue to make injustice visible and raise awareness of black maternal and infant mortality in Nassau by educating medical staff, holding “conversation cafes” with women, partnering with prenatal sites in the county, creating video stories that share the pregnancy and birthing experiences of black women in the county, and making legislative visits to advocate for policy changes to improve birth outcomes.
What can you do? Clearly, there is never a good reason to disrespect someone based on race, sexual orientation, religion — for any reason. But if you are an employer, colleague, physician or neighbor, it is important to understand that a pregnant woman who is disrespected in the workplace or community can develop chronic stress that can lead to miscarriage or the death of an infant. This is disproportionately the experience of pregnant women of color, and it is our moral obligation to remedy this injustice.
Joining up to be a Birth Justice Warrior project is one big way you can make a difference. But whatever you choose to do, awareness, respect and kindness are a great place to start.
Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children and their families, including support for pregnant and parenting teens and their babies. For more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 22, 2019 | In The Media
Last month, a federal court in the Northern District of California found that the giant health insurer United Behavioral Health had been using flawed criteria, contrary to generally accepted standards, to determine medical necessity for the care and treatment of patients with mental health and substance use disorders (MH/SUD).
D. Brian Hufford, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder, who heads the firm’s health care practice that represented more than 50,000 plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, commented that “This is a monumental win for mental health patients, who face widespread discrimination in attempting to get the coverage they were promised and that the law requires.”
Why did UBH discriminate? They did it for one reason: to reap the financial rewards that restricting or denying access to outpatient and residential care for individuals living with MH/SUD generates.
Although the finding did not specifically address federal parity law, it does speak directly to the need for far better enforcement of the law.
During the final year of George W. Bush’s administration in 2008, the U.S. Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), a federal law to prevent health insurers that provide MH/SUD benefits from carrying out less favorable benefit limits on those benefits than on medical and surgical benefits. In other words, parity law holds that it is illegal to treat diseases of the brain differently than those of any other part of the body.
Chief Magistrate Joseph C. Spero stated that UBH guidelines were aimed first at reducing costs through “an excessive emphasis on addressing acute symptoms and stabilizing crises while ignoring the effective treatment of members’ underlying conditions.”
This decision fires a powerful warning shot at all insurance carriers that cut corners in determining medical necessity without regard for quality of care and with the sole aim of enriching themselves at the expense of their beneficiaries living with MH/SUD.
As plaintiff’s attorney D. Brian Hufford concluded, “For the first time, an insurer was forced to stand trial for denying thousands of mental health and substance use disorder claims, and the court delivered a strong message: what you’re doing is harmful and illegal, and it must end.”
In his decision, Judge Spero found that UBH demonstrated “an abuse of discretion” that was “infected” by monetary incentives intended restrict access to care.
Patrick Kennedy, former US representative and leading mental health advocate, correctly frames the case as a matter of civil rights. He compared the ruling to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that found racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. He said that the UBH ruling is the Brown v. Board of Education for the mental health movement.
The insurance industry has consistently discriminated against individuals with MH/SUD and with impunity. Government officials, federal and state, have failed to adequately enforce parity law ever since its passage more than 10 years ago.
Now, according to Kennedy, “we have a federal court specifically and forensically breaking down how they get around the federal law. Judge Spero’s decision makes it clear that there will be consequences for disregarding established clinical practice in favor of a financial bottom line.”
Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 22, 2019 | In The Media
Regardless of where you stand in the political spectrum, we can pretty much all agree that these are highly divisive times in our culture.
It often seems that pundits, politicians and people on all sides of the various issues of our day have lost their ability to disagree respectfully. And kids of all ages aren’t immune to absorbing the notion that speaking loudly, aggressively and in a denigrating manner is somehow perfectly acceptable.
In such an environment, how do we teach our kids to approach disagreements without resorting to bullying words and behaviors?
One initiative designed to tackle this problem is First Lady Melania Trump’s “Be Best” campaign. As she states on her website, “It is our responsibility as adults to educate and reinforce to children that when they are using their voices — whether verbally or online they must choose their words wisely and speak with respect and compassion. It remains our generation’s moral imperative to take responsibility and help our children manage the many issues they are facing today, including encouraging positive social, emotional and physical habits.”
Can we really expect political figures to serve as models who live up to the First Lady’s “Be Best” ideal?
In our own backyard, there seems to be a never-ending parade of perp walks, criminal trials, convictions, fines, prison sentences and incarcerations of elected officials for taking bribes, bid-rigging, obstructing justice and more.
Brokering official favors for personal benefit seems to be part of the culture in many political clubhouses, executive offices and legislative chambers in Long Island and New York state. We even see the breakdown in the recent college admission scams, where parents sought preferential treatment for their children through what used to be called payola.
The ideals that Mrs. Trump wants to advance will be more likely to gain traction at home, in school houses, fields of play and or houses of worship. Yet, on occasion an inspiring political leader, super athlete or charismatic musician or actress will touch one’s heart by exuding compassion as they champion meaningful causes such as mental health or drug prevention. They deserve our respect and appreciation for living out the message that people should care about others, not just talking the talk but walking the walk.
Some might say that “Be Best” is an easy phrase to poke fun at, just as “just say no” was during Nancy Reagan’s tenure as first lady, when she launched an anti-drug campaign.
But, as deeply divided as we are becoming as a nation, “Be Best” is a good message. Just because it is a bit corny and not embodied in Washington, D.C., and statehouses across the nation, we should not let our cynicism dilute the message or allow our behavior to dilute the ideal.
To do so would be to turn our back on our kids. If these are times in which we just cannot be best, maybe we can at least strive to be better.
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, including support for pregnant and parenting teens and their babies. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org. For more on the Be Best Initiative go to www.whitehouse.gov/bebest.
