by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 30, 2014 | Press Releases
The Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court, operated by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, is a safe haven for children and a respite for parents who must appear in court. The Children’s Center offers short-term childcare in a safe, supervised, secure and nurturing environment for children from infancy to 12 years of age. Approximately 1,800 children participate yearly.
The Guidance Center is pleased to announce that the WE CARE Fund of the Nassau Bar Association, Inc. has made a grant of $2,500 to support the Children’s Center.
Additionally, Guidance Center’s Community Action Committee and Business Advisory Council just completed a book drive and more than 1,000 children’s books have been collected for the Children’s Center. Reading is an integral part of the day’s activities at the Children’s Center and every child is sent home with a book every day. More than 27,000 books have been distributed.
The WE CARE Fund is the nationally-recognized charitable arm of the Nassau County Bar Association. Founded in 1988, WE CARE funds are raised by the legal profession and the community at large. The money is distributed through charitable grants to improve the quality of life for children, the elderly and others in need throughout Nassau County.
Nurtured by the tireless efforts of lawyers and judges, the WE CARE program has matured into a nationally recognized model for similar programs instituted by other bar groups. With the financial support and personal effort of so many, WE CARE has been able to serve the community in myriad ways.
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
For more information about the Guidance Center, please visit www.northshorechildguidance.org, or email: development@northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 20, 2014 | Press Releases
The Dammann Fund, Inc. has awarded North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center with a grant of $10,000 to support its Good Beginnings for Babies (GBB) program, a service that operates out of the Guidance Center’s Leeds Place in Westbury and offers support for pregnant and parenting teens.
According to Guidance Center CEO Andrew Malekoff, “GBB promotes the healthy development of children by ensuring access to prenatal care and promoting preventive care for parents and their children. We aim to help the moms reach full-term pregnancies, deliver healthy birth weight babies and build strong attachments with their newborns. Good attachments are the cornerstone of healthy emotional development.”
GBB Program Director, Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust added, “In GBB we work with families to develop and promote a community of support. The goal is to reduce isolation of young parents in the early years of their child’s development and increase the community’s sense of responsibility for young families, by building a community of young parents who support one other.” Dr. Taylor-Walthrust added, “We also carefully screen for maternal depression and other perinatal mood disorders and provide treatment or referrals for mental health care, as indicated.”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified multi-cultural and bi-lingual staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
To learn more about the Guidance Center, visit our website: www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516 626 1971.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 10, 2014 | In The Media
Albany Times Union
Now we learn that Adam Lanza did not get the help that was needed and that might have prevented his murderous rampage (“Chances to help were lost as killer evolved,” Nov. 23).
Think about it: After the Sandy Hook shootings, there was not one parent who was able to escape the tyranny of imagining his or her child being murdered in the neighborhood school. How many more children will be taken from us before lawmakers devote the same energy and resources it takes to launch their re-election campaigns to safeguarding our children?
New York state has ensured easy access to mental health care for Medicaid recipients and neglected the needs of underinsured middle-class families.
The gun lobby is formidable and well-heeled. Children, on the other hand, don’t have a voice until they are in the ground. Children are killed, grieving parents become tireless advocates and laws are passed in their children’s names. Timothy’s Law (mental health parity), Megan’s Law (making information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders) and Katie’s Law (making aggravated vehicular homicide a crime) come to mind.
We need our lawmakers, elected and appointed officials, to wake up. Our children are suffering and dying; families are struggling and desperate. Our leaders can support the constitutional right to bear arms while taking steps to prevent gun violence and providing adequate funding for community-based mental health centers to support the emotional well-being of all of our children.
Andrew Malekoff
Long Beach
Executive Director, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, Roslyn Heights
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 10, 2014 | Press Releases
The Nassau County Department of Human Services, Office of Mental Health, Chemical Dependency and Developmental Disabilities Services, has selected Andrew Malekoff, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center CEO, as their 2014 Outstanding Provider of the Year in Delivering Integrated Care to Families. He will receive the award at the 5th Annual Conference on Co-Occurring Disorders on December 12, 2014 at Hofstra University, Uniondale, NY during the opening remarks beginning at 9:00 A.M.
Regarding the honor Malekoff stated, “I am grateful to the Nassau County Department of Human Services for honoring me. It is particularly meaningful to be recognized just days before the second anniversary of the December 14th tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. After the Newtown shootings there was not one parent in the United States who was able to escape the tyranny of imagining their child being murdered in their neighborhood school. Being honored reminds me about how much more needs to be done. How many more children will be taken from us before lawmakers devote the same energy and resources it takes to launch their re-election campaigns, to safeguarding our children, by taking steps to prevent gun violence andprovide adequate funding for community-based mental health centers to support the emotional well-being of all of our children?”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified multi-cultural and bi-lingual staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
To learn more about the Guidance Center, visit our website: www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516 626 1971.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 4, 2014 | In The Media
Immediately after the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings in Newtown, Conn., mental health experts offered tips to speechless parents about how to soothe their children [“Report: Sandy Hook killer enabled,” News, Nov. 22]. The advice sounded like this: Be available emotionally, be compassionate, limit media exposure, reassure safety, offer distractions to prevent obsessive worry, monitor for angry outbursts and depression and, if symptoms persist, seek professional help.
I imagine many parents were thinking, instead, “It’s a cruel world, evil is everywhere, watch your back, and don’t trust anyone.”
After the Sandy Hook shootings there was probably not one parent in the United States able to escape the tyranny of imagining his or her child being killed in a neighborhood school. How many more children will be taken before lawmakers devote energy and resources to safeguarding our children?
Take steps to prevent gun violence — within the constitutional right to bear arms — and provide adequate funding for community-based mental health centers for the emotional well-being of all of our children.
Andrew Malekoff
Editor’s note: The writer is the executive director for the nonprofit North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.
Link to Newsday letter
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 2, 2014 | In The Media
In Remembrance of Gerry Leeds (1922-2014), a champion for vulnerable children and youth and a great friend to North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center.
Slide Show
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Nov 30, 2014 | Press Releases
North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center has received a two-year grant award of $170,000 from the van Ameringen Foundation to support the organization’s outpatient mental health program. According to Andrew Malekoff, CEO of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, “We are gratified to receive this generous grant at such a critical time when increasing numbers of community-based mental health clinics are restricting access to care. This grant will enable us to continue our policy of offering universal access to care and turning no one away for inability to pay.” Malekoff added that the “van Ameringen Foundation has been staunch supporters of children’s mental health and was instrumental in helping the Guidance Center to launch and sustain our successful school-based mental health program and triage and emergency service.”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified multi-cultural and bi-lingual staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
To learn more about the Guidance Center, visit our website: www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516 626 1971.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Nov 25, 2014 | In The Media
New York Nonprofit Press
By Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director
Recently, I participated in a New York State Office of Mental Health Clinic Vital Access Provider (VAP) webinar. The webinar is a first step towards Article 31 mental health clinics applying for funding to preserve long term critical access to community-based mental health services. A total of $60 million in funding, over a three year period, is available.
The intention of the VAP funding opportunity is for community-based mental health clinics that are “fiscally challenged” to develop plans that will demonstrate fiscal viability after three years. The funds can be used for such things as incremental costs for staffing and billing software, for example.
Each clinic that receives a VAP award will be assigned a “strategic planner,” who would be a financial specialist, to help them to complete their final application, to include measurable outcomes. The ongoing achievement of measurable metrics will be tied to continued payments to agencies that have been awarded funding.
The ultimate goal of the project, whether through mergers, improved efficiencies such as centralized scheduling, or agency sharing of back office functions, will be to ensure long term fiscal viability. I thought that the webinar was very informative.
Webinar participants were given an opportunity to ask questions by typing them into a chat box function during the presentation. At the end of the almost two hour webinar, the moderator thanked the participants and concluded the session by stating that all questions had been addressed. Not so!
Here are three questions that I typed in that the moderator did not acknowledge or respond to:
- Is the VAP funding initiative biased against middle class and working poor non-Medicaid children and their families who have no other viable access to labor-intensive community-based mental health care?
- Our specialty children’s mental health agency [North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center] works with approximately 68% non-Medicaid and 32% Medicaid and Medicaid Managed Care families? Would a viable VAP proposal look to severely restrict access to care for children in Nassau County who need our outpatient care?
- It appears that you are supporting mergers. Is there any concern about what has come of the New York City-based PSCH takeovers in Nassau and Suffolk Counties?
I felt that I had to ask these questions since, in my attending one webinar after another sponsored by OMH’s Children’s Technical Assistance Center (CTAC), the issue of universal access to children’s outpatient mental health care is routinely skirted. The sole focus of OMH webinars, regarding children in need of mental health care, are Medicaid-eligible children. North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center is a proponent of universal access for children and their families. New York State is not.
On the issue of access to care, earlier in the year I asked Governor Cuomo about this and he directed my letter to OMH Commissioner Dr. Ann Marie T. Sullivan, who responded by stating that there is a work group looking into the issue of the non-Medicaid population. One outcome would be to get commercial insurers to increase their rates which, on average, are significantly lower than Medicaid rates. However, the State Department of Financial Services, within which the State Insurance Department is subsumed, does not have the authority to regulate commercial rates. Statute change, which is unlikely, would be required for this to happen.
Presently, commercial insurance network adequacy, including for behavioral health care, is monitored every three years by the Department of Financial Services. However, I think it is unlikely that this will lead to significant penalties that would bring about change for entities that do not provide adequate networks of care. After all, the health insurance lobby is well-healed and well-connected in Albany.
On the issue of mergers, a few years ago New York City-based PSCH took over Pederson Krag in Suffolk County and Peninsula Counseling Center in Nassau County, both well-established and well-respected community-based mental health agencies on Long Island. When a larger entity takes over a smaller one, the smaller one’s board of directors is dissolved and, at best, becomes an advisory committee, with a few select board members joining the larger entity’s board of directors. This is a step toward diluting the local community’s investment in the organization and its mission.
It appears that PSCH has given up on Pederson Krag and its clinics are being dispersed and made available to other interested parties. Will this also be the fate of Peninsula Counseling Center? What are the consequences of decades of dedicated professional and lay leaders building a community-based culture, and then having it demolished by a takeover by a $100 million dollar organization that did not take. And, so, I thought it was a reasonable question to ask the VAP moderator whose agenda would appear to promote mergers and takeovers.
What do you think?
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Nov 20, 2014 | Press Releases
On November 1, the Guidance Center hosted its annual gala, Dancing With Our Stars 2014, at the Garden City Hotel. With 240 in attendance, the event raised more than $320,000.
The honoree for the night was Andy Malekoff, Executive Director/CEO, who began working at the Guidance Center in 1977. Guests were entertained by five “dancing stars” and their professional partners from the dance studio, Ballroom Legacy. The Dancing Stars were:
Ernesto Altamirano, Fitness Trainer/Founder, pickyourowntrainer.com; Kim Kaiman, Executive Director, North Hempstead Business & Tourism Development Corp.; Steve Malito, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP; Dr. Steven Schoenbart, Schoenbart Vision Care; Daphne Zhou-Chan, Harvest International.
Len Berman, well-known Sportscaster/Author was the evening’s emcee and the live auctioneer was Greg Buttle, former All Pro Linebacker, NJ Jets/Color Analyst, Jets Radio Network. The event co-chairs are Josephine and Floyd Ewing, Jr. and Nancy and Lew Lane.
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
For more information about the Gala or the Guidance Center, please visit www.northshorechildguidance.org, call our development office at 516 626-1971, ext. 320 or email: development@northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Nov 14, 2014 | In The Media
Friday, November 14, 2014
“Five years ago, a 12-year-old Latina girl committed suicide in her family’s garage in the town of Westbury, NY, a diverse suburb on Long Island that has pockets of poverty and has seen an influx of immigration from Central and South American countries in the last few decades. The town – adjacent to Old Westbury, which was cited by Forbes magazine as the 10th most expensive zip code in the United States – is rife with overcrowded, rundown multi-family housing, and a large percentage of the population is struggling to make ends meet . . . It is an unsafe and stressful environment for anyone, but especially perilous for teenage girls. . . “
So begins a moving story published by the national publication LIFELINES: Stories from the Human Safety Net. Journalist Jenna Kern-Rugile goes on to tell the story of the development of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center’s Latina Girls Project. The moving story details the work of a team of bilingual, bicultural social workers and mental health counselors who are helping at-risk girls.
Click the following link to read the full story by Jenna Kern-Rugile:
http://www.humansafetynet.com/latina-teens/
North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center offers universal access to community-based mental health care for children and their families, and turns no one away for inability to pay. Thank you for your support!
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Oct 30, 2014 | Press Releases
On October 28, 2014, The Leeds Place of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center hosted a dynamic forum entitled: “Newly-Arrived Central American Children: A Presentation on the Role of U.S. Policy on Immigration.” Guest speaker Érika Patricia Guerra Escalante who is on tour from El Progresso, Honduras, spoke to an audience of social workers, psychiatrists, educators, advocates, attorneys and business people about the hardship and challenges faced by children who migrate from Honduras. For example, she testified that gang involvement is not a choice for youths in Honduras, rather it is a demand that is met by either their acquiescence or death.
Andrew Malekoff, CEO of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center opened the forum by saying, “What an honor it is to have this delegation join us this morning to raise consciousness about the plight of these children; and, to motivate joint action to ensure that the newly-arriving children, many of whom have histories of trauma and loss, receive our full support to help them to lead fulfilling lives in the United States.”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified multi-cultural and bi-lingual staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
To learn more about the Guidance Center, visit our website: www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516 626 1971.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Oct 20, 2014 | Press Releases
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center hosted a reception on October 8 to celebrate the Campaign for the Next Generation and the rededication of the Lucille S. and Martin E. Kantor Bereavement & Trauma Center.
The Guidance Center completed the first stage of the Campaign by reaching the goal of $2.5 million. A second stage of the Campaign will begin immediately. The Campaign was led by board members, Jo-Ellen Hazan and Andrea Leeds.
Seven of the Past Presidents of the organization were on hand to celebrate the rededication of the Bereavement & Trauma Center named in honor of Lucille S. and Martin E. Kantor:
Joan Saltzman (president in 1965), Dorothy Greene (president in 1973), Jane Schwartz (president in 1979), Lucille Kantor (president in 1983), Sandy Garfunkel (president in 1997), and Jo-Ellen Hazan (president in 2005).
The occasion was celebrated with several local government leaders: Nassau County Legislator Judith Jacobs, New York State Assemblymen Chuck Lavine and Michael Montesano, and Town of North Hempstead Council Members Anna Kaplan and Peter Zuckerman.
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
To learn more about the Guidance Center, visit our website: www.northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Aug 21, 2014 | In The Media
Reading Ruben Navarrette Jr.’s essay, “The boundaries of immigrant identity” [Opinion, Aug. 17], brings to mind the emotional impact, on young people, of the never-ending stream of events with racial and ethnic overtones — for example, war, terrorism, bias crimes and racially charged jury trials.
One can only hope, as a new school year approaches, that along with a focus on standardized testing, educators find time to encourage discussion about ethnic identity, prejudice and intergroup relations. Opportunities for healthy exchanges of ideas and opinions about controversial subjects in a safe environment enables young people to test their beliefs and attitudes, to practice listening to others’ views, to respectfully express differences, and to find common ground.
National research affirms that feeling connected to school is a critical variable for students’ success. Teens who feel connected are less likely to engage in such behaviors as self-harming, violence, early sexual activity, eating disorders and suicide. Recognizing and building on the strengths and assets of children and youths and promoting social and emotional learning are essential to optimizing connectedness.
Andrew Malekoff, Long Beach
Editor’s note: The writer is the executive director of the nonprofit North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Aug 18, 2014 | In The Media
Guidelines is the bi-annual newsletter of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center.
Click here for Guidelines
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Aug 13, 2014 | In The Media
Robin Williams’ suicide has become a prelude to a brief and intense opening in our collective consciousness about the torment of depression and addiction. As this moment in time dissipates, and it will, please know that these are the issues that North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center addresses each and every day, year-round. The number of emergency calls to the Guidance Center, many involving depression, addiction and suicidal intent of young people, have reached 40% of all those who seek our services. Through our triage and emergency services we respond rapidly to these calls, embrace families through their most excruciating of times and hold their hands as we seek the way to the other side of their torment.
What better way to put Williams’ death into some perspective than to share an excerpt from a brilliant essay written by fellow comedian Russell Brand. He said of Williams:
“. . . Robin Williams could have tapped anyone in the western world on the shoulder and told them he felt down and they would have told him not to worry, that he was great, that they loved him. He must have known that. He must have known his wife and kids loved him, that his mates all thought he was great, that millions of strangers the world over held him in their hearts, a hilarious stranger that we could rely on to anarchically interrupt, the all-encompassing sadness of the world. Today Robin Williams is part of the sad narrative that we used to turn to him to disrupt. What platitudes then can we fling along with the listless, insufficient wreaths at the stillness that was once so animated and wired, the silence where the laughter was? That fame and accolades are no defense against mental illness and addiction? That we live in a world that has become so negligent of human values that our brightest lights are extinguishing themselves? That we must be more vigilant, more aware, more grateful, more mindful? That we can’t tarnish this tiny slice of awareness that we share on this sphere amidst the infinite blackness with conflict and hate? That we must reach inward and outward to the light that is inside all of us? That all around us people are suffering behind masks less interesting than the one Robin Williams wore? Do you have time to tune in to Fox News, to cement your angry views to calcify the certain misery? What I might do is watch Mrs. Doubtfire or Dead Poets Society or Good Will Hunting and I might be nice to people, mindful today how fragile we all are, how delicate we are, even when fizzing with divine madness that seems like it will never expire.”
If you or your neighbors need our help, please know that North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is just a phone call away – 516-626-1971.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Jul 21, 2014 | In The Media
NEWSDAY – July 21, 2014 by ANDREW MALEKOFF
New York State has launched a three-year plan it says will transform the public mental health system. It intends to shift emphasis from costly long-term inpatient treatment to a community-based network of “regional centers of excellence.” The fact is that only children from families with Medicaid insurance fit into the plan, which hardly suggests excellence.
Here are the facts: 75 percent of serious mental illness occurs before age 24, and 50 percent before age 14. Yet, only 1 out of 5 children with emotional disturbances receives treatment from a mental health specialist.
In the past 25 years, the mental health system has undergone many changes. In New York, it consisted primarily of outpatient clinics, community hospitals, state hospitals and residential treatment facilities. It now includes additional services originally funded with dollars saved from the 1990s reduction in state hospital beds. The largest of these programs are Medicaid-driven.
Middle-class parents find that there are major gaps in our system. For example, at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center government funding has not increased in more than 30 years. Yet, almost 65 percent of the children it serves do not have Medicaid. Increasing referrals are coming from clinics that no longer accept private insurance due to substandard rates of reimbursement. It is only through fundraising that community-based agencies can meet the demand.
The onset of managed care resulted in hospitals discharging kids earlier, often before they were sufficiently stabilized. Outpatient mental health clinics then have to provide adequate care to these often high-risk children and youths, but with highly inadequate rates of financial support from insurance companies and government.
Despite a growing demand for community-based mental health care, some outpatient clinics in Nassau County have closed, or have been taken over by corporate entities with no community roots, or have been transformed into fee-for-service operations with little or no capacity for dealing with crisis situations.
Further, some insurance companies expected to demonstrate “network adequacy” and “parity” are not delivering. Network adequacy refers to a health plan’s ability to deliver the benefits for health care services. Parity refers to acknowledging and treating mental health conditions and substance-use disorders the same as all physical pathologies. For example, the state has settled cases against Emblem Health and Cigna for wrongly denying behavioral health care coverage.
Nevertheless, more and more families find insurers do not have adequate behavioral health care networks. When it comes to seeking mental health care, finding help is difficult.
We continue to treat illnesses above the neck differently from those below the neck. Children with mental health problems, and their families, often suffer in silence, while those with physical problems evoke the sympathy, support and comfort of others.
Community mental health organizations that provide care for children are diminishing. Long Island Consultation Center in West Hempstead and Roosevelt Counseling and Resource Center, which operated since 1958, closed in 2012. Also, community acute-care hospitals, due to insurance limitations, are often unable to keep kids long enough to stabilize them. If the state is to truly create regional centers of excellence, it must not ignore the need for community-based care for the children of middle-class families on Long Island.
Malekoff is executive director of the nonprofit North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.
Additional Information: View Website Link
![May 21st Declared a Special Day of Recognition for the Guidance Center]()
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 21, 2014 | In The Media
May 21, 2014 was declared a Day of Special Recognition through the Town of North Hempstead for North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center.
Regina Barros, Victoria Domingo, Nellie Taylor-Walthrust, Bruce Kaufstein, Town of North Hempstead Councilman Peter Zuckerman, Andrew Malekoff
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Apr 26, 2014 | In The Media
For three decades New York State has been systematically marginalizing middle class and working poor families who have children with serious mental health problems. This is a truth that the public is unaware of unless you have a child who is refusing to go to school, cutting herself, paralyzed by anxiety, deeply depressed or suicidal. Because mental illness is stigmatized, the reality of the State’s neglect has been obscured from view.
Additional Information: View Website Link
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Mar 20, 2014 | Anton Media
Anton News, Long Island; Opinion – Andrew Malekoff
March 26 – April 1, 2014
The American reality today is 1 out of 10 children has a serious emotional disturbance and more children suffer from psychiatric illness than from autism, leukemia, diabetes and AIDS combined. Yet, we continue to treat illnesses above the neck differently than those below the neck. People with mental health problems, and their families, often feel a sense of shame and suffer in silence; while people with physical health problems evoke the sympathy, support and comfort of others.
In the past 25 years, the mental health system has seen many changes. From a system in New York State that consisted primarily of outpatient clinics, community hospitals, state hospitals, and residential treatment facilities, a continuum has evolved which now also includes a variety of additional services, originally funded with the reinvestment dollars saved from the 1990’s reduction in state hospital beds. The largest of these programs are Medicaid-driven.
Nevertheless, parents still find that there are major gaps in our service system. Even with the available community support services, children with mental illness and their families continue to need good, often intensive, outpatient clinical services. The onset of managed care resulted in hospitals discharging children earlier, often before they are sufficiently stabilized to return home. Mental health outpatient clinics are then left with the task of trying to provide adequate clinical care to these needy and often high-risk youths, but with highly inadequate rates of financial support from insurance companies and government.
Despite a growing demand for community-based children’s mental health care, right here in Nassau County there are outpatient mental health clinics that have closed their doors, have been taken over by larger corporate entities with no community roots, have transformed their operations into fee-for-service factories with little or no capacity for dealing with inevitable crisis situations, or have decided to turn away anyone who does not have Medicaid.
Commercial insurance companies are expected to demonstrate what is called “network adequacy.” Network adequacy refers to a health plan’s ability to deliver the benefits promised by providing reasonable access to a sufficient number of in-network primary care and specialty physicians, as well as all health care services included under the terms of the contract. Nevertheless, many insurers do not have adequate mental health care networks despite the many names on their rosters. When it comes to seeking mental health care, for many families, the process of finding help is a shell game.
Only quality community-based children’s mental health organizations are capable of providing the labor-intensive quality of care necessary to address the mental health needs of children with serious emotional disturbances. Yet, these vital organizations are being squeezed out of Nassau County because of substandard insurance reimbursement and government neglect. Furthermore, community-acute care hospitals, because of insurance limitations, are not able to keep kids long enough to stabilize them in many cases. And, so, kids are being discharged to a community with inadequate supports.
The NYS Office of Mental Health has established a multi-year vision for the future of New York State’s mental health care system that they refer to as Regional Centers of Excellence. The vision does not include community-based care for middle class and working poor families with commercial health insurance.
Sounds more like Regional Centers of Mediocrity to me.
Andrew Malekoff, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, 480 Old Westbury Road, Roslyn Heights, New York, 11577; E-mail:amalekoff@northshorechildguidance.org
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Mar 18, 2014 | In The Media
Newsday Article Link
Since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, society has been discussing mental health, specifically eradicating stigma and ensuring ready access to quality community-based care [“Newtown’s mental health needs,” News, March 17].
Seventy-five percent of serious mental illness occurs before the age of 24, and half before the age of 14. Yet, only one out of five children who has an emotional disturbance receives treatment from a mental-health specialist.
In New York, continued access to care is assured only to children and families with Medicaid coverage, because reimbursement from commercial insurance is far lower and many providers will simply not accept it. The state Office of Mental Health has established a multi-year vision for the mental health system called Regional Centers of Excellence, which does not change the reimbursement formula. This will continue to marginalize community-based care for middle-class or working-poor families that have commercial health insurance.
Community clinics are the last bastion in addressing the needs of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances. Private psychotherapists and child psychiatrists, with some exceptions, will not accept commercial health insurance or will not provide the costly, labor-intensive work necessary to properly serve children and families struggling with serious emotional disturbances.
Andrew Malekoff, Long Beach
Editor’s note: The writer is the executive director of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.
Additional Information: View Website Link
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 27, 2013 | In The Media
Newsday Article Link
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made a grave error by vetoing Assembly Bill 7667-B, which would have directed state officials to develop a maternal-depression screening and referral plan, and to provide maternal-depression education.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that postpartum depression affects up to 20 percent of mothers within the first year after giving birth. The rate of depression for mothers living in poverty is close to a staggering 50 percent.
Mental health experts agree that constancy of relationship from early childhood is the single best predictor of positive outcomes in later life. Promoting safe and warm relationships with parents and other caregivers is critical to young children’s healthy development and later success in school and beyond.
Leaving screening, education and referral to the discretion of practitioners, as a result of Cuomo’s veto, is a roll of the dice and a step toward destabilizing families, compromising the well-being of newborns, marginalizing mothers with maternal depression and putting their lives at risk. The bill would have widened the safety net.
Andrew Malekoff
Long Beach
Editor’s note: The writer is the director of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, which operates the Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program in Manhasset.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Jul 20, 2013 | Anton Media
July 2013
Domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) – the commercial sexual exploitation of children within U.S. borders – is a growing problem. Once involved in commercial sexual exploitation, according to group counselors Kristine Hickle and Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, “individuals are at increased risk for economic instability and poverty, as adolescents who begin selling or trading sex prior to any legitimate employment experience may lack skills necessary to obtain employment and achieve economic stability after escaping their trafficking situation.” In addition, they state, “adolescents who run away from home are at increased risk for being exploited and coerced by pimps-traffickers, and may engage in and become victim to violence, including sexual or physical assault.”
It is important to note that DMST is not prostitution. Legally, minors cannot consent to sex with an adult, so, as Forbes Magazine reporter Brooke Axtell observed, “the use of the term ‘child prostitution’ in the media is misleading. In any other context, this would be considered statutory rape. Force, fraud and coercion are used to control the victim’s behavior.”
There is a myth that sex-trafficking is only prevalent in poorer countries. It is widespread in developed nations as well. Because DSMT is hidden, statistics are hard to calculate; however, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), more than 250,000 American youths are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Human-trafficking, according to the DOJ, is the second leading criminal industry behind drug-trafficking, and half of all the victims are minors.
There is an alarming disconnect between the treatment of domestic-trafficked minors and their status as victims. Many do not receive shelter and treatment in a safe residential setting; rather, they are re-victimized in juvenile-detention facilities. Due to its covert nature, DMST is under the radar in suburbia, yet, a 2011 study by researchers from Hofstra University reported more than 11,000 victims of sex-trafficking on Long Island.
Hofstra Sociology Professor Dr. Gregory Maney, the lead investigator, reported that those victims who sought private help were only the tip of the iceberg. And that the number did not include victims that went to public-service providers, moved out of the area, have not been able to escape their captors or died in the process of being trafficked.
It probably seems unlikely that anyone close to you could be at risk of being sex trafficked. However, traffickers are proficient at seducing and disarming their marks, usually vulnerable young women. Two warning signs for spotting a sex-trafficker include premature promises of undying love that are aimed at cementing a quick emotional connection and a promise of employment.
Hopefully, greater public awareness of DMST will help bring about more humane treatment, better policies and improved access to resources, such as long-term housing and quality mental health care for victims. As Axtell wrote of taking steps to help children break free from sexual exploitation, “we [must] face the disturbing truth that the demand for girls’ bodies is happening in our own communities.”
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Mar 20, 2013 | Anton Media
March 2013
This year marks the 60th anniversary of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center. I wonder if its founders, a small group of parents, could have imagined in 1953 that six decades later the Guidance Center would be taking more than 100 calls a week from parents concerned about their children’s emotional well-being. The callers tell stories about children and teens who are troubled, in trouble or causing trouble. Handling their first call sensitively is a hallmark of the Guidance Center. That first person-to-person contact makes all the difference in whether a parent chooses to take the next step forward towards hope or retreats into a sense of despair…
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by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Jan 20, 2013 | Anton Media
North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center has played a leading role in the hurricane relief effort, reaching over 5000 survivors, since Sandy hit Long Island on October 29, 2012. And, this is in spite of the fact that many of our service-providers were also victims of the hurricane. Being survivors and providers gives us an edge. As a Long Beach resident, I know this first-hand…
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by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | Dec 20, 2012 | Anton Media
December 2012
The Nassau County legislature made a misguided decision, born of partisan politics, on July 5, 2012, to cut $7.3 million from youth, chemical dependency and mental health services for tens of thousands of people. The decision to de-fund human services in July led to months of protests by humanservices providers, parents and youths. In an attempt to draw wider attention to the impact of the budget cuts, one of the affected agencies, STRONG Youth, Inc., a gangprevention and intervention program that lost all of its funding, staged a symbolic funeral for youth services at the Hempstead Pentecostal Church, in Hempstead, on August 2, 2012. The funeral was followed, a few weeks later, by street theater. Adults and young people from STRONG attended a legislative meeting in Mineola, dressed symbolically as hostages – bound, gagged and blindfolded. One of the legislators said, at the meeting which was attended by hundreds of people, that “child protective services” should be called. A few weeks later, STRONG held a prayer and candle lighting vigil. The vigil drew 150 people. All of the demonstrations by STRONG were peaceful and planned with adults and youths working together. How do I know this? I proudly stood alongside them in each one of the events. Some critics accused STRONG of being too extreme. Others called the symbolic funeral “disrespectful of the dead” and the “parading of hostages” as a disgrace. Nothing could be further from the truth. These events were thoughtfully organized by STRONG social workers and volunteers, young and old, who galvanized a complex network of teenagers and parents (including parents of murdered children) crime victims, clergy, community leaders and local businesses. The skills used to organize this event were the same ones that were used to develop and implement exemplary gang prevention and intervention services that aim to help young people to become successful students and active participants in community affairs. Nassau County should not eliminate STRONG, or programs like it. Rather it should be celebrating and promoting them as national best practices in youth development. One of the speakers at the funeral was a young woman, Amory Sepúlveda. She testified from her wheelchair. “When I was 19-years-old,” she said, “I was the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting that resulted in never being able to walk again. I was hurt physically and emotionally and thought my life was over. With the help of county youth services, I am now a college graduate in pursuit of a master’s degree. I’ve shared my story, changing the lives of thousands of youth in Nassau County.” Today, in her role as crisis 2 counselor for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, Sepúlveda is providing aid to hundreds of victims of hurricane Sandy. STRONG Youth Inc.’s approach to protesting Nassau County’s cuts to human services funding were not radical, they were rational. Its tactics were well-planned, intergenerational events that captured the imagination of the public and media. STRONG took effective steps to motivate change. The public should embrace the group for its peaceful protests, which represent the best of our democracy. These events helped many young people to move from apathy to activism. In fact, many of the protesters that were derided by members of the Nassau County Legislature have become volunteers in the hurricane disaster relief efforts, demonstrating their empathy, civic involvement and activism, all for the public good. They have learned their lessons well and now fight not only for themselves, but for the next generation.
