based mental health care. The Guidance Center is headquartered in Roslyn Heights, with branch offices in Manhasset and Westbury. Our catchment area is all of Nassau County.

At the Guidance Center, where we turn no one away for inability to pay, we are receiving increasing numbers of referrals of children and youth at unprecedented rates of risk and danger, many of whom are at risk for institutional placement, the most costly form of care.

To prevent this costly alternative, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center has developed an array of intensive outpatient services to keep children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances at home and in their communities. These include office-based, home-based, and school-based mental health services that are provided by teams of qualified health professional and family advocate/professional parents working in partnership to optimize care coordination. Following are highlights of just a few of these initiatives:

LATINA GIRLS PROJECT

In recent years, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center has been fielding a record number of calls through our triage, emergency and high risk team from the families of Hispanic teen girls in dire need of help. These first-generation Latinas were coming to the Guidance Center with severe depression, self-harming behaviors, school refusal and suicidal thoughts or attempts. Many had been victims of sexual and emotional abuse or witnesses to domestic violence.

It became clear that there was a consistent theme among these young Latinas-the overwhelming feeling that they could never merge the cultural expectations of their families with their desire to fit into life in contemporary American society. They yearned to be more like their peers, but feared that would cause tremendous pain to their parents, many of whom had immigrated to America after experiencing severe trauma in their war-torn and poverty-stricken native countries.

In response to the crisis, the Guidance Center began the Latina Girls Project, an innovative program designed to foster effective, open and healing communication among these young women and their parents.

Through a culturally sensitive and holistic approach, our staff of bilingual and bicultural counselors and social workers- many of whom are also first-generation Latinas-provides individual therapy, family therapy, and weekly group meetings for the girls and their parents.

The Latina Girls Project also includes supervised outings for the girls that are designed to help them develop self-esteem, learn responsibility, gain team-building skills, and realize that the larger world offers them many opportunities to lead successful, joyful lives.

The Latina Girls Project was profiled in an award-winning nationwide story published by the Journalism Center on Children & Families at the University of Maryland.

ORGANIC GARDENS

Young people are inundated with constant stimulation from their digital devices, with many glued in front of computer screens and video games as they struggle with feelings of loneliness and rejection. That lack of connection to the natural world negatively impacts them physically, emotionally and socially.

To address this problem, the Guidance Center has added an organic garden initiative to our weekend wilderness program. This offers a unique opportunity for at-risk adolescents and children to participate in nature activities that foster individual growth, leadership skills, self-esteem, mindfulness and improved group communication while also promoting environmental stewardship. Young people tend to our two organic garden programs located at the Guidance Center’s headquarters in Roslyn Heights and early childhood center in Manhasset, where they water, seed and weed, filling with delight as they see their hard work grow into a healthy harvest.

Through the dedication of these young people, we had a bountiful surplus that was donated to local food pantries, a fact that made the teens—and our staff who have the honor of nurturing them—extremely proud.

GOOD BEGINNINGS FOR BABIES

The statistics on teenage pregnancy paint an alarming picture: babies born to teen mothers are more likely to be premature and have low birthweights, resulting in potentially long-term cognitive and health problems. Without proper care, the teen moms are also at high risk for physical, emotional and economic woes.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our Good Beginnings for Babies program works with pregnant and parenting teens to promote healthier pregnancies, healthier babies, and happier relationships between parent and child.

In our weekly prenatal and parenting groups, teens receive education on crucial issues such as nutrition, labor and delivery, breastfeeding, newborn care and perinatal mood disorders. They also benefit from home visits by a parent educator who shares information and resources to help these young families.