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At The Foundling, we see education as the pathway to independence. Our programs lay the groundwork for healthy development, wellbeing, and self-determination by teaching critical life and learning skills. We know that education is much more than what happens in a classroom, and includes families learning to communicate effectively, children navigating life challenges without strong family support systems, and young adults relearning habits to change the trajectory of their lives. This is especially true today, nearly eight months since the coronavirus pandemic began.

The 2020-2021 school year will undoubtedly present unique challenges for students and their families and caregivers—but for those involved in the child welfare system, they will have to overcome even larger hurdles and obstacles. That’s why The Foundling is doubling down on efforts to provide educational programming and support services to hundreds of students across our community.

Read our roundtable conversation with Foundling staff and expert leaders from our organization who work closely with students, families, tutors, mentors, and teachers—and you’ll hear firsthand how the school year is going so far.

PARTICIPANTS
Clarisse Miller

The Foundling’s Fostering College Success Initiative

 

Jessica Nauiokas

Head of School, Mott Haven Academy Charter School

 

Joni Rivera

Road to Success, Road to Success Citywide, and Afterschool Allies at The Foundling

Elizabeth Tremblay

School Based Mental Health at The Foundling

 

Michelle Watsula

School Based Mental Health at The Foundling

 


How are students faring with their return to school?

Jessica: Our students love coming to school, so we are cognizant of how learning remotely impacts them emotionally and mentally. Creating a structured routine and predictable schedule has really helped. School is in session using Google Classrooms from 8:00am-2:00pm and students interact with their classroom community virtually and complete pre-recorded activities throughout the day. They have blocks of time where they are encouraged to take breaks and get their bodies moving!

Michelle: Students are happy to be back at school and to have the ability to see their teachers and friends. Some students are disappointed with the low turnout of other students returning for in-person instruction—they miss the “normal times” from last year. And the student who are fully remote are sad that they aren’t blended, but their parents opted for remote learning due to having other people in their home who are immunocompromised.

How do you keep teachers, staff, students, and parents motivated each day?

Jessica: We plan virtual classes, assignments, events, gatherings, and meetings with a single question in mind: How do we uplift everyone and bring joy to the learning experience? We also hold monthly student celebration community meetings, weekly staff circles, and weekly “Coffee Hours” for families. Our team also makes surprise ‘cookie and treat’ deliveries to families!

How are students staying connected and maintaining friendships this semester?

Clarisse: We’ve increased the number of workshops we do so that students are interacting more with us and each other. Students are staying in touch with their friends through phone calls, video chats, social media, and interactive video games. Some make time to hang out or form study groups—which is really nice to see take shape. Kids need these social touch points to stay connected and to maintain friendships, and they’re doing a great job so far!

Michelle and Elizabeth: Some students are able to spend time with peers who live in their direct neighborhood, but many are feeling isolated and frustrated with the lack of social interaction. In some of our high schools where we provide therapy to students, we’ve seen freshmen feeling socially disconnected and struggling to make new friends because they’re not physically in school. We’re making the most of tech tools like Google Classroom to run interactive events and workshops that help new students meet classmates. We want to give them every opportunity possible to make new friends and feel connected. In recent weeks, we’ve seen some great participation and success.

How are your teams adjusting to working remotely?

Michelle: They have been creative in engaging students, families, and faculty through virtual workshops. In October we began re-entering NYC schools, and are now using a hybrid of in-person and telehealth services—whatever each individual school needs is what we deliver.

Joni: Our tutors have been extremely innovative! They’re using a multitude of technological tools and platforms to match the different learning styles of our students, like giving styli to students who learn best when they can write and draw on their tablet screens. We’ve created remote learning tip sheets, supplied links to additional online learning resources, and developed a training program on remote learning best practices.

What challenges are you facing—and what do solutions look like?

Joni: Given the changing academic landscape, some of our goals related to college access have shifted. Standardized tests like the New York State Regents exams and SAT/ACTs are largely cancelled, so we have been working with students to instead boost their math and English language grades in order to demonstrate college readiness without standardized tests. At the same time, we’ve been adapting to support 9th grade students entering high school. Research has demonstrated that this time of transition is of particular importance in predicting graduation rates, so we’re prioritizing support for these students to ensure they don’t fall off track with remote learning.

Elizabeth: It’s hard to get know new students when our team has not been able to meet them in person. We’re trying to balance addressing each student’s learning needs and their social emotional needs. We can’t ignore the stressors caused by the pandemic, but we also don’t want students to fall behind in their classes. Collectively, students have shown to be incredibly resilient and strong, and eager to make their new routines work in the most successful ways possible!

Desiree and Nancy

The Bronx Times highlighted two participants in our Developmental Disabilities program, and their experiences throughout the pandemic:

“The New York Foundling, one of the city’s oldest social services organizations, provides health care, social-emotional support, entertainment and friendship for hundreds of adults, most of whom live in their group homes full time.

Desiree and Nancy, 37, two residents of The Foundling’s Laconia residence in the Bronx, have been friends for 25 years. They leaned on each other to get through the newly enforced safety measures and had to learn to remain patient as both became unemployed.:

Read more at Bronx Times

Jardy Santana

The New York Times recently profiled one of our teachers at Haven Academy:

“Jardy Santana, 34, teaches English at Mott Haven Academy Charter School, a school predominantly serving families involved in the child welfare system in the Bronx, which is run in partnership with the New York Foundling. She has been teaching for 12 years, including 10 at Mott Haven, and this year has been her hardest.

For her, the onset of remote learning last spring brought a weighty realization: Each student has very different needs in the virtual classroom.”

Read more at The New York Times


This article was also featured in three additional media outlets:

The most recent installment of The New York Times’ Neediest Cases profiles Denisha, a participant in our Supportive Housing program. She had a turbulent home life growing up, and spent much of her adolescence in the foster care system. Her love of school, however, was always a constant. With The Foundling’s support, Denisha has been able to continue her academic journey and now, as a teacher, is inspiring others.

Read more at The New York Times.

Deaf Services

Each September, cities and states across the country recognize and pay tribute to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Awareness Month. It’s a time when there’s greater attention and focus on members of this community, a celebration of their cultural norms and traditions, and a deeper understanding of how they communicate with one another.

For nearly 40 years, The New York Foundling has been one of the only specialized providers of family support and prevention programs for New York City’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. Members of our staff who work with Deaf or Hard of Hearing children and adults are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL), and in many cases, are also Deaf or Hard of Hearing themselves. The services we provide at The Foundling improve family relationships and dynamics, empower each person to be more independent and expressive in what they need to grow stronger, and help families and individuals advocate for services and support.

There’s a strong sense of community and belonging among those who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. A unique aspect of their culture is the tradition of giving someone a personal “name sign” instead of fingerspelling out the person’s name.

“A name sign can only be given by a Deaf person, or member of the Deaf community, and typically is meant to be representative of something specific about the individual,” says Anna Poiarkoff, Clinical Model Accessibility Coordinator for Deaf Services at The Foundling. In the video below, Anna shares the poignant story of how she received her name sign. We hope you’ll watch and be inspired to learn more about Deaf culture.


For more information on The Foundling’s Deaf Services, check out our program page and our recent blog post: Our Work Continues: Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Families with Communication and Advocacy.

CAPP Program

Our award-winning Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP) has reached nearly 600,000 elementary school students in New York City since 1986. The program teaches up to 20,000 children every year to recognize, resist, and report abuse and neglect using life-sized puppets during in-school workshops. Over the last 34 years, the program has shown its effectiveness in helping children escape abuse.

This school year will be very different in many ways, but one thing that won’t change is The Foundling’s work to protect some of our City’s most at-risk children. The CAPP program operates on the understanding that school staff are often the first to notice signs of neglect or abuse and report it. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in children being out of school for months, and The Foundling and CAPP want to ensure that children are still safe, despite these challenging times.

Before the effects of COVID-19 came to New York City, the CAPP team performed their Child Safety Workshops all school year long in school libraries or gymnasiums for large groups of third and fourth graders. With the limitations on in-person gatherings and the drastic change to school operations, our team has pivoted to a virtual format for this coming school year, aiming to reach thousands of students even if our Workshops can’t be performed in person. As part of their annual curriculum, students whose parents have opted for in-person learning in New York City will watch a pre-recorded video of the CAPP workshop with their teacher and a school counselor. Staff from The Foundling will be “with” the students virtually on camera– watching alongside them. The team is also developing plans to work with students are attending school completely virtually.

“Stephen,” is one of the CAPP puppets who speaks with students about physical and sexual abuse, and provides children with the tools they need to decipher between safe and unsafe touch. Although he can’t meet with students this year, he did have this message to share as kids begin their remote learning:

“Before each virtual workshop, all participating schools will receive training on how to speak with children who disclose abuse and neglect,” said Marion White, Program Director of CAPP. “The workshop is incredibly important, especially today with many children not attending school in-person—not only does the work give children a prevention education—it also gives children who may have already experienced abuse the chance to get help.”


Click here to learn more about The Foundling’s Child Abuse Prevention Program.

Hypebae reports on the proliferation of accessible PPE that allows the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community to better communicate. “We jointly designed a clear face covering to ‘unmask’ masked communication with the deaf and hard of hearing community,” Goldstein said. Sprayground, another brand expanding into the clear face mask category, makes an entirely transparent version featuring two valves, one on each side of the face, that single-use filters can be inserted into. Founder David Ben David shared that the brand has partnered with The New York Foundling’s Family Services for Deaf Children program and will donate masks for distribution in the New York City area.

Read more at Hypebae.

The Foundling’s President and CEO, Bill Baccaglini, spoke at City and State’s Virtual Healthy New York Summit. The virtual conference, which focused on COVID-19’s impact on New York healthcare policies, brought together decisionmakers and experts from all sectors to identify challenges posed by the pandemic and propose solutions to improve health outcomes for New Yorkers.

Appearing on the event’s “Addressing Health and New York’s Most Vulnerable Populations” panel, Bill Baccaglini addressed the impacts of COVID-19 on the communities we serve. “We can’t go back to business as usual… we learned that tech can be our friend here if we use it wisely. This is not an either or, this is an integration. The mental health issues emanating from this pandemic in disinvested communities will be with us for years to come.” He also advocated for the continued use of tele-health, which has seen positive results in the past few months. “I think if we stick to the traditional clinic-based approach, we’re going to miss something big,” he stated.

Watch the full video below (the panel featuring Bill Baccaglini starts at 1:58:45):

Learn more about the Virtual Healthy New York Summit at City & State here.

The Fontana Center Exhibit

The New York Foundling and the National Initiative to End Corporal Punishment proudly presents:

Preventing Abuse and Neglect in Our Lifetime: A Virtual Conference

Thursday, October 15, 2020 and Friday, October 16, 2020

Co-sponsored by:

American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children
US Alliance to End the Hitting of Children
Academy on Violence and Abuse
Prevent Child Abuse America
Stop Spanking


Keynote Speakers

Joan Durrant, Ph.D.
Child-Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba
“The Global Movement to End Corporal Punishment of Children”

David Finkelhor, Ph.D.
Director, Crimes against Children Research Center; Co-Director, Family Research
Laboratory; Professor of Sociology, University of New Hampshire
“The End of Spanking in Historical and Sociological Context”

David Hansell, JD.
Commissioner, NYC Administration for Children’s Services
“Supporting Children and Families Now and in the Future: Lessons from COVID-19”

Melissa Merrick, Ph.D.
CEO, Prevent Child Abuse America
“The Power of Prevention”

 


Pricing and Registration

Pricing

General Admission:
Day One (October 15, 2020): $25.00 | Day Two (October 16, 2020): $25.00
Both Days: $50.00

American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children members: You will receive your discount automatically when registering.
Day One (October 15, 2020): $15.00 | Day Two (October 16, 2020): $15.00
Both Days: $30.00

US Alliance to End the Hitting of Children, and Academy on Violence and Abuse members: Please email FontanaCenter@nyfoundling.org to request your discount code.
Day One (October 15, 2020): $15.00 | Day Two (October 16, 2020): $15.00
Both Days: $30.00

New York Foundling Staff: The event is free for Foundling staff. Please email FontanaCenter@nyfoundling.org to request your entry code.

Registration:

Please click on the links provided to register:
Day 1 Only | Day 2 Only | Day 1 and 2

Once you have registered, you will receive an email with a link to your event portal which contains all the appropriate zoom links.

For questions, please email FontanaCenter@nyfoundling.org

 


Event Program 

Day One: October 15, 2020

 

All times are in Eastern Standard Time

10:00am – 10:10am
Welcome: Viola Vaughan-Eden, Ph.D., MJ.; Professor and Ph.D. Director, The Ethelyn R. Strong School of Social Work, Norfolk State University

10:10am – 11:00am
Keynote Speakers:
Joan Durrant, Ph.D.; Child-Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba
“The Global Movement to End Corporal Punishment of Children”
David Finkelhor, Ph.D.; Director, Crimes against Children Research Center; Co-Director, Family Research Laboratory; Professor of Sociology, University of New Hampshire
“The End of Spanking in Historical and Sociological Context”

11:00am – 12:00pm
Workshop: “Recent Research Trends and Topics”
Presenters: George Holden, Ph.D.; Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department at Southern Methodist University
Elizabeth Gershoff, Ph.D.; Amy Johnson McLaughlin Centennial Professor, University of Texas at Austin

12:00pm – 1:00pm: Lunch

1:00pm – 2:00pm
Workshop: “Spare the Rod: The Intersectionality of Race, Religion, and the Raising of America’s Children”
Presenters: Victor Vieth, JD, MA.; Director of Education and Research, Zero Abuse Project
Darrell Armstrong, DDiv, MDiv, EdS-MFT.; Pastor, Shiloh Baptist Church

2:00pm – 3:00pm
Workshop: “Let’s Talk about Race, Culture, Corporal Punishment and Child Abuse Prevention”
Presenter: Stacey Patton, Ph.D.; Research Associate Professor, Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University

3:00pm – 3:15pm: Break

3:15pm – 4:15pm
Workshop: “No Hit Zones: A Promising Solution to Ending Corporal Punishment”
Presenter: Stacie LeBlanc, MEd, JD.; CEO, The UP Institute; President, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children No Hit Zone National Committee

4:15pm – 4:30pm:
Closing Remarks: George W. Holden, Ph.D.; Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department, Southern Methodist University

 

Day Two: October 16, 2020

 

All times are in Eastern Standard Time

9:00am – 9:15am
Welcome: Bill Baccaglini, CEO and President, The New York Foundling

9:15am – 10:15am
Keynote Speaker:
Melissa Merrick, Ph.D.; CEO, Prevent Child Abuse America
“The Power of Prevention”

10:15am – 10:30am: Break

10:30am – 11:30pm
Workshops: Separate links will be given for the individual workshops once you have registered. Each workshop has limited capacity. You can enter another workshop if your first choice is full.

A. What’s New in Child Sexual Abuse Prevention and How to Make it Work for You
From Erin’s Law to Sex-Wise Parenting, innovations in child sexual abuse prevention policy and practice are available to help keep children safer. This workshop will review current innovations in policy and practice, and end with a focus on how professionals in child welfare and protection can support parents to promote sexual health and safety in their homes and community.
Presenter: Janet Rosenzweig, Ph.D.; Author, The Sex-Wise Parent; Executive Director, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children

B. Preventing Child Maltreatment in New York State
This session will provide an examination of prevention efforts in New York State. The workshop will focus on the primary prevention of child sexual abuse, corporal punishment and neglect. The role of ACES and resilience in preventing child maltreatment and toxic stress will be discussed. Presenter: Timothy Hathaway; Executive Director, Prevent Child Abuse New York

C. Prevention of Psychological Maltreatment
Psychological maltreatment/emotional abuse is the least understood and most pervasive form of child maltreatment. This workshop will enable participants to define the term and will describe the FAIR system, an approach to assessment allegations and substantiation determinations that is now in use across the U.S. armed services. Our research has found that this approach to assessment and substantiation results in significant declines in subsequent maltreatment as compared with typical approaches. The implications for child welfare systems and families will be explored. Presenter: Amy Slep, Ph.D.; Professor, New York University

11:30pm – 12:30pm: Lunch

12:30pm – 1:30pm
Keynote Speaker:
“Supporting Children & Families Now and in the Future: Lessons from COVID-19”
David A. Hansell, JD.; Commissioner, NYC Administration for Children’s Services

1:30pm – 1:45pm: Break

1:45pm – 2:45pm
Workshops: Separate links will be given for the individual workshops once you have registered. Each workshop has limited capacity. You can enter another workshop if your first choice is full.

A. Effective Program Models for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment
This workshop will highlight effective program models for the prevention of child maltreatment. There are quite a few prevention methods useful to effectively address and mitigate various types of child maltreatment. We will review the risk factors, the absence of which could be considered protective factors. Examples of highlighted models are home visiting interventions, parent education programs, school and child-care based interventions, and community level interventions. Finally, there will be a discussion regarding barriers to child maltreatment prevention programming in the context of historically oppressive systems.
Presenter: Darcey Merritt, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor, New York University

B. Work in The Education and Child Welfare Intersection
Jessica Nauiokas is the co-founder and head of school at Mott Haven Academy Charter School. She will be discussing lessons learned from the first-of-its-kind charter school for child welfare-involved children and youth in grades Pre-K – 8. Haven Academy is a public charter school that utilizes a specialized trauma-sensitive curriculum to help close the achievement gap for children in foster care and the child welfare system, some of whom have been victims of trauma, abuse, or neglect. The revolutionary school will be discussed in depth during this workshop.
Presenter: Jessica Nauiokas, B.S.W., M.Ed.; Principal, Mott Haven Academy Charter School

C. Professionalizing Roles to Prevent Abuse & Neglect for People with Developmental Disabilities
This workshop will examine important career pathways and stepping stones in professionalizing the role of Direct Support Professionals (DSP), to prevent abuse and neglect. We will explore Core Competencies and access to educational opportunities, which will also increase retention. By offering access to information and education in an enjoyable and engaging way for DSPs and other professionals supporting people with developmental disabilities, DSPs can obtain the necessary prerequisite skills to provide support to people in the way they choose to be supported.
Presenters: Renee Pili; Assistant Vice President, DD Division, The New York Foundling MaryBeth Witkop; Assistant Vice President, DD Division, The New York Foundling

3:00pm-3:30pm
Closing Session: Haven Kids Rock Video and Q&A
Haven Kids Rock is a music program that was created for at-risk kids in the New York City child welfare and foster care systems. Rock guitarist Jimi K. Bones and musician and casting director Nefertiti Jones founded Haven Kids Rock in 2008 to provide children with a creative/enriching/therapeutic outlet. The weekly music program resides within Mott Haven Academy Charter School in the South Bronx and shares a close partnership with The New York Foundling.

School Mental Health

The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs reports on the lack of mental health resources available to New York City students this school year, including insight from our CEO, Bill Baccaglini.

“As kids finally resume classes – remotely this week and in classrooms next – they will find that many social workers and other mental health care providers have disappeared from school budgets.

“We’re turning off the spigot to kids with serious needs,” says Bill Baccaglini, the executive director of the nonprofit New York Foundling, which runs mental health programs in 22 public elementary, middle, and high schools, mostly in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.”

Read more at Center for New York City Affairs

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