There were many reflections about the 2001 terrorist attack on America leading up to the 15th anniversary just a few weeks ago. Following is my reflection on the memorial service at the World Trade Center on October 28, 2001. I attended the service with a group of mental health workers who offered their support for the bereaved.
As I recall, at the end of the service there was a chill in the air as the sun disappeared behind the ruins of the World Trade Center. Renee Fleming, accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, sang God Bless America.
Moments earlier I said goodbye to the family I stood beside during the memorial service. They sat in the back row of our section, one of scores of sections filled with thousands of folding chairs, each chair occupied by a grieving family member. I stood with my back against an iron gate so I would not block anyone’s view. The family had lost its father and husband, a decorated firefighter. The widow was a slight woman of Italian descent, probably in her late sixties.
Photos of her husband were pinned to her wool coat, and to the coats of her three children. He was handsome. He had a white moustache and a full head of silvery hair, combed straight back. When the memorial service started an hour earlier one of her sons, an off-duty police officer, asked if I would make sure that no one obstructed his mother’s view. He said, “You can see how short she is.”
The service began with a processional that included His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York. Then, police officer Daniel Rodriguez of the NYPD sang The Star Spangled Banner. He had become a national presence by appearing in his dress blues and singing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium before the 97th World Series that pitted the Yankees against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Everyone was on his or her feet. A massive wall of mourners rose around the tiny figure to my right. When I saw her struggling to climb, I took her arm and helped her up onto a folding chair. I told her that she could grab on to me. “Hold on to my shoulders,” I said. She hesitated. I told her, “Don’t worry you won’t knock me over.”
I could feel her trembling as she removed her right hand from my shoulder and fumbled for a tissue inside her coat pocket. I reached into my pocket and handed her a handkerchief.
When I was picking out my clothes earlier in the morning I had come across several unopened packets of white handkerchiefs. They belonged to my father who died seven years earlier. As I got dressed, I thought that today my father would want somebody who needed it to have one of his handkerchiefs. At first she refused my offer, not wanting to impose. I urged her, “Please, take it. It’s okay.”
Ten years later, my father’s handkerchiefs remain tucked into my dresser drawer – a daily reminder of when I joined a parade of broken hearts. Sometimes I close my eyes, think back and try to recall what things felt like before that sunny fall morning at ground zero.
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.
In August, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a coordinated effort by several state agencies and institutions to prevent underage drinking on college campuses and in college towns.
Then on Sept. 7, he signed the “brunch bill,” an amendment to allow restaurants and bars to serve alcohol at 10 a.m. on Sundays, two hours earlier than was previously legal [“Approval for booze at brunch,” News, Sept. 8].
In addition, restaurants will be eligible for permits to sell alcohol beginning at 8 a.m. up to 12 times a year in areas outside of New York City.
Young people take risks and test limits. Cuomo aims to deter them from boozing it up, but they will be emboldened by the more flexible hours in which they can now get access to alcohol. Not good, Guv.
Andrew Malekoff, Long Beach
Editor’s note: The writer is the executive director of the nonprofit children’s mental health agency North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.
Patrick J. Kennedy is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who has struggled with mental illness and addiction for most of his life. He has become a leading force in the passage of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, a U.S. law that states that it is illegal to treat diseases of the brain differently than those of any other part of the body. The battle ahead is for the law to be enforced in the face of health insurers who stand to profit by denying the full range of coverage for people suffering with mental illness and addictions.
In his 2015 book, A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey Through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction, Kennedy offers personal reflections on the impact of trauma, addiction and mental illness on the extended Kennedy clan. He talks about the rocky relationship he had with his dad, the late U.S. Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy and about his mom Joan’s battle with alcoholism.
At the heart of the memoir are Kennedy’s own revelations about his co-occurring mental illness and prescription drug and alcohol addiction, his path to recovery, and his ascendance to becoming, arguably, the nation’s leading advocate for parity and equity in mental health and addiction care. Kennedy has fought hard to lift the veil of ignorance about mental illness and addiction and to expose the health insurance industry’s tradition of denying and restricting access to care for individuals with brain illness.
Kennedy radiates a fire for eradicating stigma and ending discrimination against people with brain illness. According to One Mind, a nonprofit organization he co-founded, that is dedicated to benefiting all affected by brain illness and injury, “One of the harmful effects of stigma is that it can lead to discrimination. It could be as obvious as someone making a negative remark about your mental illness or as subtle as someone avoiding you because they think you could be unstable, violent or dangerous.”
On their website, One Mind lists some of the ways that these attitudes can be damaging and even dangerous. For example:
Reluctance to seek help or treatment due to the labeling
Lack of understanding by family, friends, co-workers or others you know
Fewer opportunities for work, school or social activities or trouble finding housing
Bullying, physical violence or harassment
Health insurance that doesn’t adequately cover your mental illness treatment
The belief that you’ll never be able to succeed at certain challenges or that you can’t improve your situation
Kennedy rightly frames the inequities that people with mental illness and addictions face as a matter of civil rights.
What he has accomplished, which he freely acknowledges is the result of a collective effort, has already gone a long way to wiping out stigma and increasing people’s access to mental health and addictions care. His goal, he states, is to launch “a new civil rights movement, to finally force medical equality for diseases of the brain.”
Tens of millions of Americans owe Patrick Kennedy a debt of gratitude for leading the way. Now all of us must carry the ball forward by treating children and adults with brain illnesses with dignity; and demanding that government enforce parity and equity for all and put an end to discrimination.
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.
Roslyn Heights, NY, August 1, 2016 — North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center (NSC&FGC) held its 3rd Annual Ladies Night Out event Thursday evening. For the past three summers, NSC&FGC’s Business Advisory Council has partnered with Equinox, located at 90 Northern Blvd, Greenvale, to deliver a variety of spa and beauty services and raffle opportunities to the women of our local communities to raise awareness of the programs and services of the Guidance Center.
More than 40 women attended the event, which raised in excess of $2000 to support children’s mental health and eradicate stigma. Attendees were treated to hand and chair massages. Long Island makeup artists Rebelle with a Gloss provided makeovers, while Huntington salon Salone di Bianca provided blow-outs and hair styling. Guests savored delicious small bites from Wat Chu Wan Wonton and sipped wine while they mingled. “The Guidance Center is so grateful to the staff at Equinox for their ongoing partnership and to the women in the community for their support of our mental health services for children and families,” said Board member Jo-Ellen Hazan, in her welcoming remarks.
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.
NSC&FGC Board Member, Matilde Broder, receiving a makeover from Rebelle with a Gloss makeup artist, Jenn Reardon.
Event participants trying their luck for exciting raffle prizes.
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
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.
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.
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.
“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.
These are words that ring true for thousands of families across Long Island who have been unsuccessful in accessing timely and affordable mental health and addictions care through their health insurer.
How do I know this? From the stories that people tell us at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, a 63-year-old children’s mental health agency in Nassau County.
Health insurers are mandated by government to offer panels of providers so that families can find easily accessible, quality care for their loved ones; and not only for physical illnesses. This requirement is known as network adequacy, referring to adequate networks of care.
The problem of access for mental health care, however, is more complex and may begin with a family’s hesitance to ask for help and to reveal that they are living with someone who is suffering from a mental illness. Families coping with mental illness or addiction do not as readily seek help as they might for heart disease, cancer or diabetes. Why? Because of stigma and the shame it generates. When there is a mass shooting for example, and the perpetrator is labeled mentally ill, it casts a shadow on all people with mental illness, despite the fact that mentally ill persons are disproportionately the victims of violence.
In the United States we have chronically failed to treat illnesses above the neck the same as illnesses below the neck. For example, a parent who would not hesitate to reach out for help if their child was in an accident and appeared to have broken an arm, might wait weeks and months, if not longer, to ask for help if it was a mental health or substance abuse problem.
What makes all this so insidious is that once a parent picks up the phone to ask for help, and they are told repeatedly by providers, “I’m sorry I don’t accept that insurance any longer, I only accept cash,” there is a chance they will give up.
When a parent gives up, they risk their child deteriorating further. This is also true for adults with mental illness and increases the odds that they will ultimately need more costly care or confinement; hospitalization or incarceration.
What to do? Gov. Cuomo created the Department of Financial Services, charged with the responsibility to monitor private health insurers to ensure that they have adequate networks of care as a condition of their license. This means they must demonstrate the consistent ability to provide timely access to care for individuals and their families.
Just this week parents who came to the Guidance Center after taking their child to the emergency room, told us that they called no less than 20 different therapists or agencies and were turned down by all of them. Finally they called another hospital that made the referral to us. We turn no one away for inability to pay.
This is an all too familiar story that we hear frequently and that my colleagues from sister agencies tell me as well. You might wonder why this happening.
Private health insurers pay substandard rates of reimbursement for mental health and addictions care, as compared to Medicaid; sometimes 50 percent or less the than the Medicaid rate. Consequently, participating providers bail out because they cannot afford to accept such low rates. The insurers fail to carefully monitor their lists and the state fails to monitor and regulate the insurers.
In the case of delayed care for a child, this represents corporate and state child abuse.
I have reached out repeatedly to the governor, attorney general and numerous state legislators to issue a call to action to demand that DFS do their job. There is sympathy, but no action.
Malekoff is executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.
If you subscribe to Long Island Business News: http://libn.com/2016/03/04/malekoff-li-families-cant-afford-to-wait-for-mental-health-services/
This story was originally published in Long Island Business News.
The poisoning of an American city: Where is the outrage about the incomprehensible crime against the children and families of Flint?
I have worked for the welfare of children for 45 years, starting as a big brother in New Brunswick, New Jersey when I was an undergraduate at Rutgers College and, after graduating, as a VISTA volunteer in Grand Island, Nebraska. Then I went on to get my masters in social work at Adelphi, and I’ve worked in the children’s mental health field on Long Island ever since.
I’ve marched, testified before government bodies for social causes including war, police brutality, school shootings, mental health, addictions and funding for human services. I participated in relief efforts after a number of large-scale disasters such as 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy.
In each case, no matter how urgent the need, how disorienting the circumstances or how depressing the situation I’ve always tried to make some sense out of what happened, even in the most incomprehensible of situations such as the Newtown shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Early on in my work life, someone suggested that if you are passionate about something and wish to be an advocate you must ask yourself these two questions: Why am I awake? And how do I relate to those who are asleep? In an attempt to wake people up, I’ve written a number of opinion pieces for publications like Newsday to better synthesize my own thoughts and feelings and convey messages that might educate and awaken others. In most cases I found colleagues and neighbors who shared my outrage and stood with and by me on issues that concerned me.
But, as I reach my 65th year in a few months, I must say that although I never ranked the private and public horrors that have unfolded in my lifetime, I believe the poisoning of Flint, Michigan to be the most incomprehensible of all. And although there is outrage and protest, I find it subdued in contrast to other tragedies I have witnessed.
The poisoning of an American city and all of its children, mostly racial minorities, is an act born of government bureaucrats’ wish to cut costs and what filmmaker Michael Moore said would have been considered ethnic cleansing by our government leaders if it happened in any other country but our own.
There is news coverage and there is finally some action being taken, but it feels muted to me as compared to Sandy Hook, for example. The residents of an entire American city were poisoned for 19 months. There were warning signs, yet government officials told the citizenry that the water was fine. It wasn’t until researchers pointed to elevated levels of lead in children under five after the switch to a cheaper water supply that any changes were made. After 19 months of poisoning.
We are all too familiar in New York with government corruption. We’ve been treated to a parade of legislators and public officials charged with and convicted of bribery, fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, money laundering, tax evasion and such. But poisoning children?
If it were my children who were poisoned I can only imagine what I might do. Yet none of the Flint parents are acting on the murderous rage that I think I would feel and expect they may also feel. I guess it is because acting on such impulses would do nothing to help their children.
Yet, how do you go on knowing that your unborn child, infant, toddler or school-age child with a still-developing brain will be damaged for life with cognitive impairments? How do you go on knowing that their intellectual potential will be significantly limited because government bureaucrats were looking for a shortcut to balance the budget? What can you say to a parent that might offer them some solace?
I can’t think of a thing. Can you?
Malekoff is executive director of the nonprofit children’s mental health agency North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, NY.
Andrew Malekoff, executive director of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center
Andrew Malekoff, executive director of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center.
What happens when something that affects children’s lives is widespread but hidden in plain sight? What if it is something that creates untold heartache in lives that are already unnecessarily damaged? It should be addressed and corrected. Yet, because it is hidden from our collective consciousness it remains unaddressed, it persists, and this has consequences.
I am referring to the plight of countless middle-class families with children who have mental health and substance abuse problems and who have health insurance but cannot gain access to timely care.
Under a government mandate called network adequacy, commercial health insurers, used by many working, middle-class families, are required by license to offer adequate networks of providers (child psychiatrists, psychotherapists) for families confronting mental health and substance abuse problems. In other words, they are expected, as per their insurance plan, to provide ready access to a provider near where policyholders live. The reality, though, is that too often they do not.
Why? Because commercial health insurers that pay substandard reimbursement rates have too few in-network providers. Their low rates of reimbursement serve as a disincentive for providers, including community-based mental health agencies that should be providing universal access to care, to enroll in their networks. Consequently, many community-based agencies, along with those in private practice, will accept only higher paying Medicaid insurance.
The gap between reimbursement rates for commercial health insurance and Medicaid is vast. In some cases, for example, the rate paid to providers by commercial insurers is half the rate paid by Medicaid. Although a health insurer is expected to help families find an in-network provider, most often they do not. They simply give them a list of names, and few if any of those providers accept the insurance because the rates of reimbursement don’t come close to covering the cost of services. This then frustrates already anxious parents who have had to work up the courage to ask for help.
It is very difficult for a parent to pick up the phone and seek help when their child is suffering from mental illness or addiction. When they are repeatedly turned away by their supposedly in-network providers, who tell them “I no longer accept that insurance,” it is devastating. When a child is denied access to timely care for mental illness or addiction the results can be life-threatening.
A few weeks ago a mother seeking mental health care for her teenager came to us at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center and told a familiar story.
“It’s very hard. Decent psychiatrists don’t take new patients and the rest don’t take our insurance. Most of them don’t take your insurance,” she said. The intake worker asked her how many turned her down before she called us. She said 20.
What needs to be done? The New York State Department of Financial Services, a relatively new state agency formed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has regulatory jurisdiction over insurance companies. However, in my experience, their inaction on this issue indicates that they do little, if anything, to monitor network adequacy.
Substandard rates of reimbursement (e.g. the gap between Medicaid and commercial insurance rates) may be considered a violation of the Affordable Care Act’s parity protections, which require health insurance companies to treat annual or lifetime dollar limits for mental health and substance abuse the same as they do medical benefits. If that is the case, the attorney general also has the power to address this matter if DFS will not. But what remedy is there if they do not take action?
The New York State Comptroller’s Office has the primary responsibility to ensure that state agencies such as DFS are using taxpayer money efficiently and effectively. If DFS does not investigate the issue of network adequacy, then they are open to the scrutiny of a state audit as it relates to their effectiveness in the use of taxpayer dollars to properly monitor insurance companies under their jurisdiction.
Although mental health legislation, The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, has been introduced in Congress, it will do little good if families cannot find a provider. The act will only work when the issue of access to care is monitored and enforced. It’s time for DFS to do its job and launch an investigation of any commercial insurance company suspected of not having an adequate network of providers. It could truly save lives.
Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, a nonprofit that provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through age 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
Jordan and mom Patty in Soho, New York Fashion District.
Jordan and mom Patty in Soho, New York Fashion District.Although I’ve written before about bullying in this column, none of my experiences or research prepared me for my friend Patty Underwood’s reflections about walking the streets of New York with her teenage daughter Jordan, an incredibly talented theater student from the Boston area. I had the pleasure to meet Jordan on a trip to Boston a few months before she departed for New York City to begin her freshman year at NYU. But this story is about more than bullying. It is about a mother’s love and a child’s resiliency.
Patty’s story, painstakingly recalled and beautifully reported, will surely touch many a raw nerve. Her story requires no editorial comment from me, which would only dilute an intimate experience that speaks for itself. Patty granted me permission to share her story with you, my readers. Patty told me, “Walking with Jordan allowed me to be in her shoes. I heard her talk about this experience before, but it was the first time I really experienced it.” She added, “Jordan is all for letting people hear her story.”
Patty Underwood: “As we walked to the MOMA, I glared at the middle-aged woman who was looking at my 19-year old daughter like she was the circus fat woman. The woman appeared to be with her own thin teenagers; as she glanced at them, her face seemed to be mixed with wonder and disgust. I could feel the judgment exuding from her eyeballs, and the anger in me surged back with fire in my eyes. On the next block a group of construction workers smirked and cat-called. Then the teenagers wearing tiny belly-revealing tank tops gawked at her tummy that also peaked out.
“Every New York City block we walked brought eyes that bore holes in my daughter’s body and I was feeling a mix of distress, rage, worry and pure exhaustion. How the hell does someone survive the unrelenting visual persecution and surging negative energy? By the end of the day, I wanted to crawl under a rock and it wasn’t even me that was at the receiving end of this attack. My daughter kept saying, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you not want to be here?’ ‘You seem distant.’ I told her I was just tired from the long day in the city.
“Truthfully, I was trying to swallow the impact of her walking out the door every day. How does she do it? Who is there to protect her? What is this doing to her brain? I felt paralyzed by witnessing humanity try to crush my daughter’s spirit. At one point I suggested that maybe she not show so much cleavage, and she railed back, ‘Oh, just because I have big boobs it’s okay to comment about them? As a social worker, mom, you should know better. What, are you now going to say that women who get raped asked for it!?’
“We continued to walk, her with her head high and mine stuck down, avoidant of the imminent look. My daughter, it seems, has come to terms with the battle she faces when she walks out the door. ‘Mom, if you weren’t here, I would respond, tell them to f*** off.’ I am reminded of the practice she has had at facing the bullying since middle school. And the barrier it created; and the friends who love her unconditionally. And the dance teachers who see the beauty in how her body moves. And the 10,000 likes she got on Tumbler after posting a video of her dancing.
“Plus-size models are walking the runways and appearing in fashion magazines and Ashley Tipton won Project Runway. [Tipton is a 24-year-old clothing designer.] Tipton is an amazing woman who is advocating for the underprivileged and the eradication of all types of discrimination. Yes, she’s a fighter, fiercely protective of those whose human rights are under attack, passionate, creative, funny, singer, actor, dancer, black belt carrying, plus-sized and beautiful. Jordan is all this and more.”
Thank you Patty and Jordan.
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. The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the publisher or Anton Media Group.
This column original appeared in Anton Media Group. Click here for Anton’s website.
Peer pressure can play a major role in the sending of texts, with parties being a major contributing factor.
A few years ago, in an effort to better understand where sex and social media intersect with respect to attitudes and behavior, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy conducted a survey of teens and young adults. The study measured the proportion of them who are posting sexually suggestive text and images. There were a total of 1,280 respondents—653 teens (ages 13 to 19) and 627 young adults (ages 20 to 26).
The survey found that a significant number of the 13 to 19 year olds have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves. Sexually suggestive messages via text, email or IM (instant message) were even more prevalent according to the survey. Seventy-five-percent of the teen respondents and 71 percent of young adults said sending sexually suggestive content “can have serious negative consequences,” yet they continue this behavior despite substantial personal safety and legal risks.
In the past few months on Long Island, sexting has been all over the news, including arrests and school suspensions of teens charged with sexting and viewing these messages. Parents, caregivers and other relevant people in kids’ lives need to be attuned to this behavior and be prepared to address it.
Despite the influence of peers, which is not all negative, this is only one part of a four-part community that includes family, larger community and media influences, all of which have demonstrable effects on adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behavior and all of which interact in a complex way. For example, beyond the peer group are information and images transmitted by the media that may typify values that are detrimental to young people’s self-image and health.
In families in which sexuality is not a taboo subject and related discussions occur quite naturally throughout childhood, pathways are forged for ongoing dialogue about all aspects of sexuality. If parental influence is strong enough—that is, if their relationships with their children are warm and close and their parenting style is authoritative—it can be a powerful protector against negative peer influence.
The American Academy of Pediatrics offers some good tips for talking to you kids about texting (go to www.aap.org and search for “sexting”):
• Talk to your kids, even if the issue hasn’t directly impacted your community. “Have you heard of sexting?” “Tell me what you think it is.” For the initial part of the conversation, it is important to first learn what your child’s understanding is of the issue and then add to it an age-appropriate explanation (see next bullet).
• Use examples suited to your child’s age. For younger children with cell phones who do not yet know about sex, alert them that text messages should never contain pictures of people—kids, teens or adults—without their clothes on, kissing or touching each other in ways that they’ve never seen before. For older children, use the term “sexting” and give more specifics about sex acts they may know about. For teens, be very specific that “sexting” often involves pictures of a sexual nature and is considered pornography.
• Make sure kids of all ages understand that sexting is serious and considered a crime in many jurisdictions. If they “sext,” there will be serious consequences, quite possibly involving the police, suspension from school, and notes on the texter’s permanent record that could hurt their chances of getting into college or getting a job.
• Experts have noted that peer pressure can play a major role in the sending of texts, with parties being a major contributing factor. Collecting cell phones at gatherings of tweens and teens is one way to reduce this temptation.
• Monitor headlines and the news for stories about sexting that illustrate the very real consequences for both senders and receivers of these images. “Have you seen this story?” “What did you think about it?” “What would you do if you were this child?” Rehearse ways they can respond if asked to participate in inappropriate texting.
• Encourage school and town assemblies to educate parents, teachers and students.
An important and related problem is that with social networking there is no respite. Social media has a 24-7 quality that leaves many teens feeling that there is nowhere to turn and no escape—not at home, not on vacation, no place.
Social media has opened the door to new avenues of sexual expression and new challenges for families, health educators and human services professionals. Don’t miss this opportunity to educate your youngster about its dangers.
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, visitwww.northshorechildguidance.org.
This column original appeared in Anton Media Group. Click here for Anton’s website.
Guidance Center’s Dancing With Our Stars Gala a Huge Success
Roslyn Heights, NY—North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is proud to announce that our Annual Gala, Dancing With Our Stars, raised $420,000 to support the Guidance Center’s work to restore and strengthen the emotional health and well-being of children and families on Long Island.
“I’m so proud to play a role in supporting the amazing work of the Guidance Center,” said Sunny Hostin, CNN’s Legal Analyst and the honoree at the event, which was held at the Garden City Hotel and attended by 311 people. “Because of their dedicated staff and innovative programs, children and families in crisis are getting the help they need, regardless of their ability to pay. It’s no exaggeration to say the Guidance Center is saving lives.”
This year’s dancers wowed the crowd with their deft footwork, clearly the result of many hours of training. Our Dancing Stars were six of Long Island’s finest business leaders and Guidance Center supporters: Frank Castagna, Castagna Realty; Charles Chan, Harvest International; Wayne Grossé, Bethpage Federal Credit Union; Jo-Ellen Hazan, Past President, the Guidance Center; Tracey Kupferberg, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty; and Sandra Schoenbart, Sandra K., Inc. Sales/Marketing.
The Guidance Center’s newest board member, Charles Chan, delighted the audience with his lively performance to the classic “Singin’ In the Rain. “I want to thank all the participating dancers for the grueling hard work and enduring sacrifice of their leisure time to put together a show we all would be proud of for a great cause—an experience and unforgettable moments that will last a lifetime!” he said.
The Guidance Center would also like to thank our Emcee, Sports Announcer/Author Len Berman, and Live Auctioneer Bernadette Castro. The evening’s co-chairs were Chris and Jack Bransfield and Andrea and Michael Leeds.
“Our annual benefit for children’s mental health was a terrific night,” said Andrew Malekoff, Guidance Center Executive Director/CEO. “The evening was filled with good spirits, great fun and strong support for our mission to serve those in need of care for mental health and substance abuse challenges.”
Captions: All our Dancing Stars: (second from left): Frank Castagna, Jo-Ellen Hazen, Charles Chan, Tracey Kupferberg and her dance partner, Sandra Schoenbart, Wayne Grossé and his dancing partner.
Frank Castagna and Guidance Center board member Jo-Ellen Hazen
Regina Barros-Rivera, co-chairs Michael and Andrea Leeds, honoree Sunny Hostin, Len Berman, Bernadette Castro, co-chairs Chris and Jack Bransfield, and Andrew Malekoff
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, ext. 320.
The reprehensible act that wound up getting Deputy-School Resource Officer Ben Fields fired from the police department.Several weeks ago I read three letters to the editor in another newspaper that focused on the importance of classroom discipline and respect for authority, and I have not been able to get the incident out of my mind. The letters were written with regard to the high school girl in Spring Valley, SC who was thrown around like a rag doll and body-slammed by power-lifting Deputy-School Resource Officer Ben Fields. Her crime? Refusing to turn over her cell phone. The incident was captured on two cell phone videos.
Here’s how the violent arrest was described by CNN:
“The videos show the officer standing over a student, seated at her desk. He puts his arm near her neck, then yanks her backward. The desk tips over and the student crashes onto the floor. The uniformed officer doesn’t let go, sharply tugging the student toward the front of the classroom. She flies out of her desk and slides several feet across the floor.”
Although the letter writers were critical of the deputy’s actions, there was not a scintilla of sympathy for the victim expressed in their reflections or, seemingly, any wish to know or even wonder about her back story.
Maybe they didn’t know that her grandmother had become her caregiver for years because her own mother had lost custody of her due to criminal activity. Perhaps they were not aware that her grandmother died a week before the classroom incident. Or, that her cell phone was her only personal property, a comforting transitional object.
This information is sourced but isn’t “reportable” in the news because of her age and status in foster care. If the media “outs” her mother and grandmother she becomes identifiable. But surely the school must have known. And if they didn’t, they are negligent.
Did they do anything to comfort the grieving girl or just call the school resource officer to discipline her and bend to their authority? Why didn’t they call the guidance counselor or school social worker instead of a law enforcement officer? Did he know she was grieving? Did school authorities tell him? Would it have made any difference?
CNN also reported the following: “Curtis Lavarello, one of more than 46,000 people employed full time as school resource officers [across the country], has seen this kind of scenario ‘played out hundreds of times, … and it’s one that can be handled so simply.’ But he can’t explain why this one was handled as it was. ‘We saw a pretty routine discipline issue become a criminal issue in just a matter of minutes,’ said Lavarello, head of the School Safety Advocacy Council. ‘It escalated needlessly’.”
Discipline and respect for authority are completely beside the point in this case. Those issues are for another discussion. What this teenage girl who was grieving needed was some empathy and TLC and not physical abuse by school personnel and condemnation by judgmental outsiders. 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. The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the publisher or Anton Media Group.
Even though the chill of autumn is well upon us, it’s always a great time to enjoy the outdoors—and it’s also important for a youth’s development to keep their connection to our natural world.
With teens so immersed in texting and video games and other tech-focusedpursuits, they often lose both the connection to each other and to the world around them. That’s why North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center designed our Wilderness Respite Program, which provides a unique opportunity for at-risk adolescents to participate in nature activities that foster individual growth, leadership skills, self-esteem and friendships while also promoting environmental stewardship.
Following is a “slice of life” from the program:
During one of the planning meetings for an upcoming hike, a few of the boys tried to take control of the situation by dominating the other group members through physical posturingand verbal banter. That all changed once the teens drove to the state park and departed from the van. We found ourselves immersed in the forest, with no pavement, stores, traffic lights or any of the usual trappings of the home neighborhood—the kind of pure, natural environment many of the teens had rarely if ever experienced.
To our surprise, the boys did not volunteer to lead the way. Instead, they followed the girls, who became models of leadership. Little by little, all of the teens learned to work together, decoding the trail markers located on trees and rocks. Relying on their growing awareness of themselves and the direction of the staff, the teens gradually learned to hike at a controlled, measured pace, rather than starting out in a sprint and tiring as the day wore on. Although this was emphasized during preparation meetings, it was in the “doing” that this learning was integrated by the hikers, who soon learned how easy it was to get worn out.
The hike was a challenging one, lengthy and with rough terrain. It was an experience most of the teens felt was beyond their capabilities, but once they realized they could overcome these perceived limitations, they felt exhilarated. They also developed a noticeable respect, admiration and affection for each other. Tired and done-in, the group gathered around some rocks, leaning on one another for support, warmth and belonging.
Self-discovery took another turn on a canoeing trip by the same group. The teens were faced with strong winds and an unfriendly current as they attempted to learn basic canoeing skills on Long Island Sound. All of the teens experienced a great deal of frustration, disappointment and anger as they struggled in teams to control the direction and progress of their canoes. They learned that the elements and obstacles proved too formidable on that day for us to reach our destination, when after three hours of tiresome paddling, we needed to turn around and paddle back to our starting point, rather than continue to our original destination six miles away.
But the trip wasn’t by any means a failure, because learning how to handle disappointment is just as valuable as experiencing success. The group learned that when the challenges of the wilderness became tiring and weather conditions on the water became burdensome and oppressive, they had to reach inside themselves to summon up additional strength to overcome frustration, anger and fear. So, even though the trip had more than its share of disappointments, the teens were able to carry over the feeling that they could handle it when things don’t go smoothly.
These wilderness outings to excursions on both land and sea were successful because they all serve to prepare the teens for unknown challenges ahead.
For more information about the Wilderness Respite Program, contact Director Bruce Kaufstein at 516-626-1971, ext. 316.
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.
It wasn’t necessary for the slaughter of innocents at Sandy Hook to validate that there is evil in the world. But it did affirm that if the massacre of six-year-olds isn’t off limits, then nothing is. Sadly, we are reminded of this again after the senseless killings at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR on Oct. 1.
As after Sandy Hook, mental health experts offered tips to speechless parents about how to soothe their children. Their advice: reassure safety, limit media exposure, offer distractions to prevent obsessive worry, watch for angry outbursts and depression and if symptoms persist, seek professional help.
I imagine if parents speak to their children from their guts instead of their heads and hearts, they’d say, “It’s a cruel world, evil is everywhere, watch your back and don’t trust anyone.”
Since Sandy Hook, there have been 142 school shootings. After some time passes, Umpqua Community College will become another tombstone in our collective psyche, alongside Columbine, Virginia Tech and many more.
The two major talking points will continue to be preventing gun violence and promoting mental health. On gun violence, the discussion is about maintaining the right to bear arms and taking steps to keep certain guns out of uncertain hands.
The gun lobby is formidable. On the other hand, it seems that children don’t have a voice until they are in the ground. Children die, grieving parents become tireless advocates and laws are passed named after their deceased children.
Yet, although the Sandy Hook tragedy ignited a national discussion on mental health, not much has changed. People with mental health problems often feel shame and suffer in silence, while major metropolitan newspapers exploit and discredit people suffering with mental illnesses with malicious name-calling that reinforces fear, mistrust and stigma.
Many people might be surprised by the fact that most violent acts are not committed by persons with mental illness. In fact, people with mental illness are disproportionately the victims of violence. New gun laws require that the names of individuals with severe mental illness who are designated as dangerous be recorded in a national database. Whether this will improve public safety or generate a witch hunt that further stigmatizes the mentally ill remains to be seen. In any case, what it doesn’t do is address the problem of better access to quality mental healthcare that takes into account an individual’s needs and social circumstances in a holistic manner.
Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA)
According to a subcommittee on mental health chaired by U.S. Representative Tim Murphy, 75 percent of all serious mental illness occurs before the age of 24 and 50 percent before the age of 14. Yet, only one out of five children who have emotional disturbances receives treatment from a mental health specialist.
Early screening by schools and pediatricians is a promising development. But beyond screening, many states only assure continued access to mental healthcare to children and families with Medicaid coverage, which leaves a significant number of children and adults in the lurch. The government throws the underinsured middle class and working poor overboard with no life preserver.
And the health insurance industry is no better. Most private health insurers pay substandard rates that community-based agencies can no longer afford to accept. To add insult to injury, profit-driven insurance authorization denials kill people. For example, in 2001 Timmy O’Clair, a 12-year-old from upstate New York, committed suicide after his parents were unable to obtain mental health treatment for him due to health-insurance coverage limits.
Timmy’s death was the impetus for the passage of Timothy’s Law, which extended insurance coverage for mental health treatment in New York. Although the Affordable Care Act extends federal parity protections, profit-driven insurance companies have a very long way to go to meet their mandate for adequate networks of care. When they don’t meet the mandate, we must expose them and fight to have their licenses revoked.
Although this is a story about a school in rural Roseburg, OR, as it was in Sandy Hook a blink of an eye ago, it’s really a story about the thousands of children that community-based mental health agencies guide safely to shore every year, offering them the chance to see a brighter day. To do this we need to overcome stigma and fight for funding that allows for ready access to quality mental healthcare.
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, visitwww.northshorechildguidance.org.
In one week in September, soon after we commemorated the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on our country, there were three widely publicized stories that revealed the ugliness of post-9/11 America.
At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, Republican campaign front-runner Donald Trump was questioned by a man who said, “We’ve got a problem in this country; it’s called Muslims. You know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American.” Obviously, the questioner felt comfortable asking this question of Mr. Trump, whose rhetoric about immigrants has been, to put it mildly, less than kind.
Mr. Trump tried to laugh it off. But instead of correcting the audience member’s false assertion about President Obama or challenging his bigoted smear of Muslims, he just let it stand.
Dr. Ben Carson
Shortly thereafter, Dr. Ben Carson, running close behind Mr. Trump in the campaign, asserted onMeet the Press that he would not be comfortable with a Muslim as President of the United States.
Just prior to these ugly interchanges, Ahmed Mohamed, a Muslim boy living in Irving, TX, was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. A teacher who thought it was a bomb reported Ahmed, a ninth grader, to the police, who then arrested him.
President Obama invited Ahmed to the White House, telling him, “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
Although these stories were well-publicized, they represent only the tip of the iceberg in post-9/11 America. In recent years I had an encounter that is probably more typical than you’d expect.
During a roundtable group forum on immigration and youth held at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Roslyn Heights headquarters, a 12-year-old boy named Muhammad, who was listening intently to others tell personal stories about leaving their homelands and struggling to fit in after arriving in the U.S., decided to speak up.
With a trembling voice, Muhammad revealed that there were kids in school who taunted him. “They’ve been calling me ‘terrorist’ for years because of my name.” Muhammad is an Arabic name that means praiseworthy. But, instead of feeling proud, Muhammad felt like an outcast.
Muhammad sat slumped in his chair and spoke softly and guardedly, but clearly and eloquently, and he was heard. By the end of the day he had received so much support from the group for having the courage to speak out that he was beaming.
During the lunch break I approached him to ask him how he was doing. He said, “Everybody is telling me that I talk good. I didn’t know that I could talk so good. Nobody ever told me that before.” Muhammad left the meeting feeling praiseworthy, a feeling befitting his name—a name he was given at birth that he should feel proud to have.
Sadly, stories of racism and hatred against Muslims are not rare—not surprising given the recent example of Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest for his innocent work on a school project. I recall that shortly after 9/11 one Muslim mother who came to us for help revealed that she dyed her children’s hair to a lighter color so that they wouldn’t be viewed as “kin of terrorists.” Those are the lengths that one mother felt were necessary to protect her children and they display a sad commentary on our culture.
As we remember the thousands who were lost on 9/11, along with other acts of terrorism, we should not lose sight of the fact that profiling people of Middle Eastern descent as terrorists or as sympathetic to terrorists must be confronted. Such widespread profiling is detrimental and devastating to thousands of innocent children and their families, many of whom were not even born until after Sept. 11, 2001. It’s time to let our voices be heard and, unlike Mr. Trump, take a stand against bias when we hear it.
When the staff at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center noticed a trend of first–generation Latina teens coming to the center with depression, anxiety and even suicidal thoughts, they came up with a program that has been an enormous success: The Latina Girls Project, which uses not only individual, group and family therapy, but also organizes monthly outings, supported by a generous grant from the John and Janet Kornreich Charitable Foundation, to show the girls the world outside of their communities and provide them with hope for their future.
Many of the outings are designed to expose the girls to their heritage and to celebrate Hispanic culture. On one recent trip, the girls attended a performance by Segunda Quimbamba, a Jersey City-based percussion and dance ensemble that performs authentic bomba and plena, the drum music of Puerto Rico. The music was uplifting and joyful, and the girls were instantly drawn to the rhythmic expressions of the group, which features drums, wind instruments, guitarists, vocalists and dancers performing Latino songs. The musicians provided the girls with some interesting and important historical information—but the most important and impactful part of the experience was when the performers invited the teens to dance and drum. To watch as some of the most shy and withdrawn girls bravely and excitedly joined the group onstage was inspiring beyond words. The trip revealed how music and dance are terrific therapeutic tools which help teens heal by encouraging self-expression and self-awareness, and it also exposed the teens to positive messages about Hispanic culture, making them feel the richness of their heritage.
For another cultural event, the guidance center staff took 18 teens to see a play called La Gringa at the Repertorio Español in Manhattan. For most of the girls, it was their first exposure to a Manhattan theater. The play was an excellent choice for this age group due to their ability to identify with the protagonist. La Gringa depicts the struggles of a young Latina woman whose parents are Puerto Rican but who is born and raised in New York City. She visits her parents’ homeland as a young adult who is seeking out her cultural identity. She immediately falls in love with her country of origin, but is met with the reality that she is neither a “native” Puerto Rican nor a North “Americana,” as family members label her. The play uses humor and sensitivity to deal with the cultural conflicts related to the different values and their impact on relationships within their families. The girls especially enjoyed how the protagonist is able to assert herself and seek out her individualism.
A group from the Latina Girls Project at the Statue of Liberty in summer 2014.
Another trip this year was a spectacular evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate Women’s History Month. The teens, who were invited by the Met’s Multicultural Audience Development Initiative’s Advisory Committee, had never experienced such an elegant affair and the guidance center staff members who chaperoned the trip were so proud of the girls’ ability to conduct themselves with grace and maturity as they interacted with accomplished women of diverse social, racial and educational backgrounds. The teens confidently introduced themselves as young women from Long Island looking to expand their opportunities in their future careers. It impressed the girls so much that a few of them are saying that they’re now looking into college, their next milestone in life.
On Aug. 18, Rosie O’Donnell took to social media to ask her followers to help her find her 17-year-old daughter Chelsea, who had run away from home the week before. O’Donnell posted an alert on her website and Twitter account stating that Chelsea hadn’t been seen since Aug. 11.
O’Donnell also posted that her daughter had stopped taking her medication and “was in need of medical attention.” Her spokesperson added that “Chelsea, like millions of people, lives with mental illness. It has been a difficult road for Chelsea and her family and they just want her back safe.”
Thankfully, Chelsea was found unharmed. Apparently, alerts from her peers and the pinging on her cell phone led police to her location. O’Donnell tweeted her thanks, telling her followers, “Chelsea has been found and is safe in police custody—thank u all for the help and light #missingchildren.”
While no one outside of O’Donnell’s family knows the circumstances that led Chelsea to run away, one possible cause is clear. A quick search on social media revealed that there is no shortage of gossip about Chelsea’s family life, sarcasm about O’Donnell’s fitness as a mother, black humor suggesting she was kidnapped by Donald Trump and speculation about the missing girl’s mental status. There were also shaming commentaries as to how her mother’s impending divorce may have contributed to her daughter’s distress.
It’s more than likely that Chelsea O’Donnell had easy access to all of this. One can only imagine how a young person in turmoil was able to make sense out of it, and how much of the onslaught of cyberbullying against her family contributed to her demoralization before she made the dangerous choice to head to the home of a stranger, a 25-year-old who had a history of criminal offenses whom Chelsea met on an online dating app called Tinder.
All media—conventional and social—can be invaluable in helping to track down a missing child; that is a blessing. Almost anything in the way of messaging that might lead to the recovery of a runaway child is welcome.
But where’s the dividing line between offering assistance and adding to the emotional damage? What is the benefit in publicly revealing, among a population (that’s us, folks) that remains primitive in their understanding and acceptance of mental illness, that the runaway child has a history of mental health problems? While there should be no shame in having a mental illness, any more than with any other illness like diabetes, we still live in a culture that stigmatizes those who face these challenges. This story, and the subsequent cyberattacks joking about the condition, make that more clear than ever before.
Traditional media in recent decades has skewed more and more in the direction of sensationalism. It’s not unheard of for certain media outlets to use expressions such as “crazy” or “loony” to refer to those with mental illness; and social media, a 24-7 town meeting with minimal monitoring, is a runaway train that assumes more of the characteristics of chaos than order. The very tools we now have at our disposal that can be instrumental in the recovery of a missing child can also administer damage that the public ignores in the celebratory aftermath of the child’s recovery.
In the O’Donnell case, it seems likely that the family made a decision to discuss Chelsea’s mental health issues to help find their child, and one cannot imagine a more compelling reason to “go public” with her condition. But it’s also likely that, given the ignorance that is so widespread regarding mental illness, it wasn’t an easy decision for them to make.
If this incident sheds some light and sparks some intelligent discussions about media sensationalism, the role of social media both for good and ill, and the stigma surrounding mental illness, then that will at least result in some positive outcomes from what has been a sad, personal family story made public.
Helping others is always in fashion, and that’s why Entrée Boutique in Port Washington is hosting a special shopping weekend to benefit The Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court, a program of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center.
The kick-off event will be on Thursday, October 8 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. with wine and light refreshments at Entrée Boutique, located at 11 Main Street in Port Washington, one of Long Island’s most charming Gold Coast villages. Weekend shopping hours are Friday and Saturday, October 9 and 10 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, October 11 from noon to 5 p.m.
The Children’s Center provides a safe and enriching environment for children ages 6 months to 12 years on-site at the Nassau County Family Court while parents are involved in court business.
About Entrée Boutique:
Entrée Boutique is a go-to shopping destination filled with the most current young designers and must-have accessories, all thoughtfully curated with the chic, modern woman in mind. Noted in Long Island Newsday as having the best customer service, Entrée’s owners are committed to staying ahead of the fashion curve and providing an individualized shopping experience.
Regina Barros-Rivera, co-chairs Michael and Andrea Leeds, honoree Sunny Hostin, Len Berman, Bernadette Castro, co-chairs Chris and Jack Bransfield, and Andrew Malekoff
The reprehensible act that wound up getting Deputy-School Resource Officer Ben Fields fired from the police department.Several weeks ago I read three letters to the editor in another newspaper that focused on the importance of classroom discipline and respect for authority, and I have not been able to get the incident out of my mind. The letters were written with regard to the high school girl in Spring Valley, SC who was thrown around like a rag doll and body-slammed by power-lifting Deputy-School Resource Officer Ben Fields. Her crime? Refusing to turn over her cell phone. The incident was captured on two cell phone videos.
With teens so immersed in texting and video games and other tech-focused
During one of the planning meetings for an upcoming hike, a few of the boys tried to take control of the situation by dominating the other group members through physical posturingand verbal banter. That all changed once the teens drove to the state park and departed from the van. We found ourselves immersed in the forest, with no pavement, stores, traffic lights or any of the usual trappings of the home neighborhood—the kind of pure, natural environment many of the teens had rarely if ever experienced.
The hike was a challenging one, lengthy and with rough terrain. It was an experience most of the teens felt was beyond their capabilities, but once they realized they could overcome these perceived limitations, they felt exhilarated. They also developed a noticeable respect, admiration and affection for each other. Tired and done-in, the group gathered around some rocks, leaning on one another for support, warmth and belonging.
But the trip wasn’t by any means a failure, because learning how to handle disappointment is just as valuable as experiencing success. The group learned that when the challenges of the wilderness became tiring and weather conditions on the water became burdensome and oppressive, they had to reach inside themselves to summon up additional strength to overcome frustration, anger and fear. So, even though the trip had more than its share of disappointments, the teens were able to carry over the feeling that they could handle it when things don’t go smoothly.
