In a new brief focusing on 5 exemplary NY-based organizations, Center for Health Care Strategies profiled our Home of Integrated Behavioral Health and its efforts promoting health equity and culturally competent care.
Pix 11 recently reported on diet culture, and how the holiday season often brings out mixed messages regarding food – which can be harmful to children and teenagers. Dr. Ruth Gerson, our Senior Vice President of Mental Health Services, made an appearance to provide insight on the impact this could have on developing minds – and what parents should do to promote a healthy relationship with food during this time of year.
Watch the video:
Dr. Ruth Gerson, our Senior Vice President for Mental Health Services, was recently featured in an article focusing on the heightened need for mental health support for young people. A new Columbia University study reports that in 2020, nearly one in five Americans between the ages of 12 and 25 were affected by depression.
“What we saw for a long time leading up to the pandemic and subsequently since is an increase in kids ending up in emergency rooms for mental health concerns because they don’t have anywhere else to go,” she says.
In an article in the latest edition of Social Work Today, Shannon Ghramm-Smith, our Senior Vice President of our Child Welfare & Behavioral Health Division, draws on her experience at The Foundling to discuss the benefits and challenges of integrated care. This is where medical and behavioral health providers collaborate to provide holistic, wrap-around services. “Having interrelated services easily accessible in one location or being able to do warm handoffs to a care team member from the same agency allows the client to focus more on what they need—and on building a relationship with the provider—instead of focusing on finding the services they need, referral forms, eligibility, and scheduling,” she says.
In this op-ed published in MedPage Today, Mel Schneiderman, PhD and Amy Baker, PhD – both of The Foundling’s Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection – discuss the mental health care crisis that is impacting young people nationwide, and how family stress (intensified by the pressures of COVID-19) is a major contributing factor. They argue that psychological maltreatment can be decreased by educating families and providing parenting support.
The American Psychiatric Association Foundation (APAF) announced the winners of its 2022 Awards for Advancing Minority Mental Health at its annual benefit held in conjunction with APA’s 2022 Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
The Foundling was one of the recipients of this award, given our commitment to providing mental health treatment and social services targeted to the needs, strengths, and cultures of its diverse community. The award honored our goal of removing disparities, particularly in the following communities – LGBTQIA+ youth and their families; the Deaf community; and Latinx and African American families in Harlem.
At The Foundling, we understand that many of the behavioral challenges exhibited by children and teenagers are often linked to past trauma, stress, and other environmental factors. In our Health and Behavioral Health programs, we couple personable and compassionate care with evidence-based therapeutic models to help children and families get on track for success.
Based on the insights he’s learned throughout his career, Dr. Akeem Marsh, the Assistant Medical Director of our Home for Integrated Behavioral Health, recently co-edited a book – Not Just Bad Kids: The Adversity and Disruptive Behavior Link – which hit bookstores earlier this year!
Dr. Marsh and co-editor Lara J. Cox began developing the book after conducting a series of presentations drawing on the patterns and behaviors they’d noticed within their psychiatry practices. Dr. Marsh’s passion for the topic is rooted in both his previous work within New York City’s juvenile justice system, as well as his current role working with children and families at The Foundling.
“Within the Home of Integrated Behavioral Health, the overwhelming majority of the people we serve have been traumatized – not only by whatever happened that landed them in foster care, but also often by the systems that they’ve been involved with,” Dr. Marsh says. “They get to us at some point on that journey. And on our psychiatry team, we work to not further that trauma, but to facilitate the process of healing. It’s really about meeting people where they’re at, and being sensitive to things they might have experienced.”
The book covers this topic in great detail, and aims to provide child welfare professionals with background that can be easily applied to their clinical work. Targeted chapters involve context and tools for working with young people that have been involved in the child welfare system, juvenile detention facilities, and more.
“Those chapters talk about the specific aspects of those systems, and how certain behaviors might manifest in youth that have had those experiences,” Dr. Marsh says. “We really tried to cover all the bases – providing context for how these kids behave in school, as younger kids, as teenagers. We give vignettes and stories that show what methods work and what should be avoided.”
Dr. Marsh hopes that the book will help professionals view ‘problem kids’ differently and encourage them to address root causes of behavior, rather than enacting harsh punishments and punitive measures that aren’t effective long-term.
“Anyone who works with kids should want to understand where they’re coming from,” he says. “Psychiatrists, pediatricians, social workers, teachers, police officers: they may notice behaviors, attitudes, or actions that don’t make sense on the surface. This book helps put those things into context and provides background – ultimately helping them be more empathetic, and better able to provide support to young people in our community.”
Dr. Marsh is excited to share these ideas, and hopes that the book will spark change. “I really hope we see a reimagining in the way this work is done,” he says. “Formal training often sets expectations that things are always done a certain way, which doesn’t always meet the needs of the children and families we serve. I’m interested in seeing how we can be creative in meeting the needs of our community.”
Dr. Marsh’s book – Not Just Bad Kids: The Adversity and Disruptive Behavior Link – is available for purchase through a variety of retailers. Additionally, those with institutional access may access the full book via ScienceDirect.
Interested in hearing more from Dr. Marsh and learning about our trauma-informed therapeutic models? Watch our Health & Behavioral Health overview video here:
Reïna Batrony, vice president of The New York Foundling’s services for community and school-based programs, spoke with AM New York on the importance of mental health care is for students and young children – especially with the ongoing pandemic.
“Whether it is preventative services at some of our school-based mental health services or some of our specialized evidence based models…with the pandemic we have had to shift pretty quickly and because of our technology and innovative approach, we were already ready and had the capacity to support with telehealth,” Batrony says. In the article, she discusses the wide range of services provided by The Foundling, and their impact on the community.
For Sitan, a 19-year-old in foster care, new motherhood – at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – seemed like an insurmountable challenge. But The Foundling was there to help.
Sitan knew how to cope with challenges – but after giving birth to her daughter in April 2020, the additional stress of managing life as a new parent seemed like too much to bear. Her foster care team at The Foundling realized she needed additional support, and so they connected Sitan with a trained therapist, Elisabeth, from our Mental Health Services department.
Through regular sessions and continual communication, Elisabeth became a trusted source of guidance. Sitan learned breathing exercises and coping mechanisms to better manage her stress levels and outlook.
Working together with her therapist, Sitan found the mental space to tackle her challenges one day at a time and make steps in her life toward independence. With the support of The Foundling, she secured daycare for her daughter, rented her own apartment, and found a full-time job.
Thanks to supporters like you, Sitan is optimistic for the future. She is happy, healthy, and feels equipped to care for her young child. “The Foundling’s helped me to become a better me – and a better mother to my daughter,” Sitan says.
Every day at The Foundling, we provide the resources for children, adults, and families to transform their own lives. However, this is only possible because of the generosity of our community. Your donation can help mothers like Sitan find the strength and stability to provide for their families, and allow the 30,000 children, adults, and families we serve each year to move forward in their lives.
Donate today – every dollar can help our neighbors move forward as they build stability and independence. If you make your gift before midnight on December 31, it will be matched by an anonymous member of the Foundling community – meaning your gift will go twice as far to support the 30,000 children, adults, and families we serve each year.
Following the release of internal data indicating that Instagram use can have a negative impact on adolescent users, Dr. Ruth Gerson, MD, The Foundling’s Senior Vice President for Mental Health Services, appeared on Pix 11 News to share her expert insight on the issue. In the news clip, she discusses how social media apps like Instagram promote unrealistic body image standards, undermine confidence, and can even trigger suicide – particularly in teenage girls. “Instagram and other image-based social media apps… trigger a mental state that’s been called ‘compare and despair,'” she says.
Watch the full video below:
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