Works in Progress

"TODAY'S WORK AT YESTERDAY'S PRICES"

2012-02-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

“Today’s work at yesterday’s prices”

by Andrew Malekoff © 2012

One of the oldest, largest and most well-respected community-based human service agencies closed on January 27, 2012. Some 300 employees at Chicago’s Jane Addams Hull House Association were handed layoff notices and final paychecks and were notified of the immediate discontinuation of their health care benefits. This is a tragedy and an ominous sign.

Hull House was founded in 1889 by social worker and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams and her lifetime friend and community-activist Ellen Gates Starr. Hull House began as a home for disenfranchised citizens. The organization’s mission was “neighbors helping neighbors.” In its early years Hull House was organized to help immigrants to learn English and the principles of democratic citizenship and to improve the lives and working conditions of many of those living on the west side of Chicago. In recent years Hull House’s focus was on foster care, child care, domestic violence counseling and job training.

Hull House was a beacon for social justice. It was guided by three basic principles: (1) active and side-by-side participation with community residents in addressing local issues, (2) respect for the dignity of all individuals regardless of ethnic background, socioeconomic status, gender or age and (3) belief that poverty and lack of opportunity breed ignorance, crime and disease that are the result of financial desperation and not due to a flaw in moral character.

Hull House’s demise was the result of its over-reliance on government financing. Margaret Berglind, president of Child Care Association of Illinois, commented that “The government is asking you to do today's work at yesterday's prices." I agree.

At North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center we have not seen an increase in our government contracts for a quarter-of-a-century. We are not alone. As with Jane Addams over 100 years ago, we depend on private citizens to invest in our mission - to restore and strengthen the emotional well-being of children and families. Our donors understand what is at stake. They are more than do-gooders, despite the good that they do. They understand that what we do is cost effective, saving tens of millions of taxpayer dollars by keeping troubled young people at home and out of emergency rooms and costly institutional settings.

I have reported extensively on what I believed would be the devastating outcome of New York State’s plan to restructure the financing of outpatient community-based mental health centers. Although I agreed that the over-reliance on Medicaid financing had to change, I strongly disagreed with the planners’ neglecting to provide reasonable local assistance for underinsured middle class and working poor children. State officials told me that that these families could seek help privately. My argument, based on first-hand experience, was that private practitioners would turn away troubled children that only a community-based agency had the culture, resources and wherewithal to serve effectively.

We are beginning to see the consequences of clinic reform on Long Island. In recent years several major community-based mental health clinics have either closed their doors, been taken over by New York City-based conglomerates with no community roots or transformed their outpatient operations into per-diem factories with no salaried employees. Much of this has happened under the radar.

Was it the intention of the New York State Office of Mental Health to shrink the system of care? Although it is not their job to keep providers in business, it is their responsibility to ensure ample access and consumer choice and to make sure our most vulnerable citizens - our children - get care, regardless of their family's economic status.

I am certain that Jane Addams would have agreed.

To be published in the Anton chain of 18 Long Island, NY newspapers in February 2012.

OCCUPY THE BOYS' ROOM

2012-02-01T04:57:00.000-08:00

OCCUPY THE BOYS’ ROOM
By Andrew Malekoff © 2012

The “Occupy Movement” has been greeted with mixed sentiment ranging from admiration to revulsion. On the plus side, the movement shows young people that folks of any age can come together around their own vision of the world they want. However, one does not have to attain revolutionary goals to work toward social change, as I learned some years ago when I was working with a group of troubled boys.

At the time, I was involved in developing an innovative school-based mental health program. I was filling in at the school, for a few weeks, for one of the social workers who had taken a leave. I agreed to work with her boys’ group. The boys in the group were teenagers with significant emotional difficulties, ranging from depression to explosive behavior.

In my first meeting with the boys, the discussion took an interesting turn. They complained that there were no doors on the boys’ bathroom stalls and that there was yellow soap in the dispensers. It was a bit of a detour, but I encouraged them to say more about their objections.

As I recall, Keith was the first to speak out: “Do you think they have any idea how humiliating it is to go to the bathroom with no doors on the stalls? There’s no privacy; it’s embarrassing. It’s like they don’t trust us; they’re treating us like little boys.”

Sam added, “It’s disrespectful, that’s what it is – it’s disrespectful.”

And then Kurt, getting back to basics, pointed out, “Man, it’s a lot of pressure when you gotta go badly and you know you can’t.”

Benji added “It says ‘Boys’ Room’ on the bathroom door! We’re men! Dammit! What kind of crap is this anyway!”

A little later, another group member, Rob, asked the others if it was true that kids peed into the soap dispenser. Jay said that he saw someone do it but no one could really tell until it was too late because the soap was yellow. To which one of the group members declared, “We have to get them to put pink soap in the dispensers! Then we’ll know if anyone pees in there. Then we’ll know.”

Being heard and really listened to was a rare experience for the dozen boys who comprised the group. They knew about what being misunderstood, rejected and isolated was all about; but not in this group where they felt connected to one another. They were angry and united – outraged.

In time their social worker rejoined the group. I filled her in about the boys’ quest for improved bathroom conditions. She then guided them to develop a list of bathroom improvements that would be presented to the principal. She led them through an exercise in which they rehearsed presenting their grievances. Then she urged them to request a meeting with the principal to present their case.

Many weeks later, I came to the high school after the dismissal hour and headed down a long vacant hallway to attend an administrative meeting. I pushed open the “Boys’ Room” door and was pleasantly surprised to find pink soap in the dispensers and doors on the stalls.

This story affirms that, working towards change does not require revolutionary goals. Supporting young people in taking action against social injustices – big and small – is a great way to help them to think critically, take a stand and prepare to become active citizens in community affairs.

To be published in the Long Island, NY Anton chain of 18 newspapers in March 2012.

A MYSTERY STORY

2011-12-09T02:27:00.000-08:00

A Mystery Story

By Andrew Malekoff © 2011

A few weeks ago, in an attempt to fight off a cold, I ordered a bowl of chicken soup at a local lunch counter. One of the counter boys who is in his late teens asked me if I heard that the United States was just declared a war-zone by the US Senate. I said, “What are you talking about?”

He filled me in. But what he told me didn’t fully compute. What he said, in a nutshell, was that the US Senate passed a bill that would empower the US Military to arrest American citizens and detain them anywhere in the world without being charged or without a trial. I didn’t want to be dismissive. I questioned myself, “Why didn’t I hear about this in the mainstream media?”

I asked him where he heard this. He told me that he read about it on the Internet. When I got home I searched the Internet. What I found was some alternative-media commentary and the actual text of a recent bill (the National Defense Authorization Act - S 1867).

On the evening of December 2, 2011 the US Senate voted, by an overwhelming majority of 93 – 7, to approve what some commentators described as the darkest piece of legislation ever passed in America. Both New York Senators voted “yes.”

After reading the commentary about S 1867 I wondered, “Is there a real threat to our rights, or is this a radical spin?” If I was having trouble making sense of it I imagined others would as well.

The key issues in question are sections 1031 and 1032, which allow the President to authorize the U.S. Armed Forces to detain and hold in custody a person who was a member or part of al Qaeda or “an associated force” and participated in planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners.

I wondered what the fuss was all about. Someone, in a man-on-the-street interview that I found on YouTube, said of the legislation, “If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.” Or, is the devil is in the details. For example, what does “member of an associated force” mean? Could it be stretched to mean anyone with a dissenting voice who government officials perceive as a threat? Could it be someone close to you who is exercising freedom of speech or association?

The interpretations of the commentators were that the legislation would authorize the US military to operate on American soil and to arrest and detain American citizens with no charge, no trial and no oversight. They concluded that by dismissing the right to due process this legislation, if fully enacted, leaves American citizens without the protections of the Constitution and invalidates the Bill of Rights. If signed into law, they reasoned, it could mean secret arrests, no due process, and no right to remain silent and to be tried by a jury of one’s peers, secret prisons, unlawful interrogation and indefinite detention without being charged with a crime.

Ninety-three out of 100 US senators signed on to this legislation. What am I missing? I couldn’t find anything substantial in the mainstream media about this. What should I say to my young friend next time I see him at the lunch counter? Does he have a right to be worried? Do we?

This “exercise” brought to my attention just how difficult it is for young people (and us older ones too) to synthesize the glut of information that is available today. The least we can do is to listen and be co-investigators with young people, attempting together to sort out the mysteries that besiege us in this information-age.

This column will appear in the Anton chain of 18 Long Island, New York newspapers in December 2011.

"GET SPIKED"

2011-12-07T04:05:00.000-08:00

“Get Spiked”

Andrew Malekoff © 2011

In the five-year period from 2005 to 2009 there was a dramatic increase in emergency room visits related to non-alcoholic energy drinks, according to a report issued on November 22, 2011 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Just about half of those emergency-room visits were made by 18- to 25-year-olds who were found to be using alcohol, illicit drugs or pharmaceuticals.

What are energy drinks? They are highly-caffeinated flavored beverages for sale in cans and bottles in grocery stores and vending machines. Children, adolescents and young adults - half of the energy-drink market - are the primary targets of energy-drink marketing.

One popular energy drink – Red Bull – bills its beverage as “developed for people who want to have a clear and focused mind, perform physically, are dynamic and performance-oriented.”

Another popular drink, ROCKSTAR, targets young skateboarders. Here is their rap: “Bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger. ROCKSTAR is the world's most powerful energy drink. Enhanced with the potent herbal blend of Guarana, Ginkgo, Ginseng and Milk Thistle, ROCKSTAR is scientifically formulated to provide an incredible energy boost for those who lead active and exhausting lifestyles – from athletes to rock stars.” Although they highlight the “herbal blend,” they conveniently leave out the 80 milligrams of caffeine listed in ROCKSTAR’s ingredients.

These are just two illustrations of seductive messages, aimed at young people and promising a quick-fix for improving performance. Parents, teachers, coaches and others who care about kids need to educate them to the fact that energy drinks are not the answer to better performance on the athletic field or in the classroom.

There are numerous studies that point to the medical risks of excessive caffeine intake (for example, arrhythmias, hypertension, dehydration and more serious medical conditions). When mixed with alcohol and other drugs, the level of danger increases dramatically.

The term “energy drink” is a misnomer for a product that should be more accurately labeled as a “stimulant drug-containing drink.” Some people believe that criticism about energy drinks is an overreaction - much ado about nothing. After all, as they might say, if the active ingredient in energy drinks – caffeine – is the same substance contained in coffee, what’s the big deal? No one is making a fuss about coffee or trying to get it banned or controlled.

Coffee tends to be viewed as an adult beverage, while energy drinks are aimed at the youth market with little regard for health risks and the consequences of mixing these beverages with alcohol and other drugs.

“Get spiked,” “Party like a rockstar,” and “Feel the freak” are slogans that clearly demonstrate the marketing strategies of energy-drink companies. “The language and images of such advertising are not directed at mature adults. If anything, the marketing of energy drinks removes all ambiguity about whom these products are meant to appeal to: teens and young adults,” according to Russ Paddock of the United States Sports Academy.

Parents, teachers and coaches need to educate young people about the risks to their health and well-being of using energy drinks as an easy alternative to exercise, sleep and a healthy diet – the “keys to quality performance, sustained success and overall wellness,” according to Pamela S. Hyde of SAMHSA.

The full report on Emergency Department Visits Involving Energy Drinks from SAMHSA's 2005 - 2009 Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) can be found on the Internet at: http://www.samhsa.gov/data/2k11/WEB_DAWN_089/WEB_DAWN_089_HTML.pdf

This article will be published in the Anton chain of 18 Long Island, NY newspapers in January 2012.

EXPRESSWAY: YOUNG PEOPLE NEED CONNECTIONS

2011-12-07T03:57:00.001-08:00

Expressway: Young people need connections

published in NEWSDAY on November 17, 2011

by Andrew Malekoff ©

There are times that I feel as if I am being buried alive, one tablespoon of tabloid dirt at a time. To name names here would be redundant. Besides, they all blur together in blaring headlines like the latest scandal, complements of Happy Valley, Pennsylvania.

I wonder what young people think of the endless parade of public figures – government officials, businessmen, entertainers, professional athletes, college coaches and administrators - crashing and burning before their eyes. Perhaps F. Scott Fitgerald said it best when he wrote: “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.”

A few years ago in a survey conducted by North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, we asked 1200 high school students from all across Long Island to tell us their concerns now and for the future.

One of them wrote: “I don’t think this world is ever going to get better. To live in this world you have to be very very strong, because if you’re not, the system will walk all over you…you really cannot trust anybody but your family, and not even them half the time.”

Relationships, illness, divorce and death weighed heavily on their minds. One wrote about the dissolution of his parents’ marriage, “My parents are getting a divorce and now there is talk about my mother being forced to move out of the house and my father move in and I have no say. I have lost faith in the court system. I thought we had the right to freedom of speech, but I guess actually being heard is another story.”

Another talked about his fears: “I am afraid of a lot of things; mainly dying too young and not getting to live to my greatest expectations.”
We asked, “When you’re confused about life who helps you sort things out?” Almost three-quarters said their parents, and their friends fill that role. Far from rejecting parents in favor of peers, family is part of the solution, not the problem.

In an all-day gathering of teens and adults that followed the release of the survey results, the young people talked about well-meaning parents who are overwhelmed with trying to make ends meet, with little or no time for substantive discussion with them; and they talked about teachers who they admire but who are too preoccupied with preparations for standardized testing.

In one small group discussion that day a parent commented: “What stood out for me the most was the observation by several of the kids that they need support from adults to tackle the challenging issues they face. Often, adults complain that kids are apathetic, lazy, unmotivated or apolitical. Maybe it is our own apathy and fears that prevent us as adults from helping.”

And, a teacher said: “Listening to the depths of emotion and world concerns from the students, I came away feeling that we are missing the boat with our kids. I know this is a generalization but, so many young people are walking around with such powerful feelings that we as adults are not helping them with. Our schools appear to be more interested in control, assessments and achievement scores than the life events that affect our children.”

As I reflect on the voices of young people living all across Long Island I am reminded a simple truth – connections count. It is the good connections in their lives that enable our children to bounce back from private crises such as illness, divorce, drug addiction, child abuse and death; and to keep them from being weighed down by the daily drumbeat and demoralizing impact of public scandal and corruption that beset us.

Andrew Malekoff is executive director and chief executive of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center.

THE CHILDREN'S PLAN

2011-12-07T03:52:00.000-08:00

The Children’s Plan

by Andrew Malekoff ©

New York State launched an initiative known as The Children’s Plan that focused on the promotion of mental health and the treatment of children with emotional disturbance. I was pleased to serve on the statewide workgroup that was engaged in the development of the Children’s Plan.

To understand the need that was addressed, let us take a look at the American reality:

• 1 out of 10 children has a serious emotional disturbance;
• More children suffer from psychiatric illness than from autism, leukemia, diabetes and AIDS combined;
• Only 1 out of 5 children who have emotional disturbance receive help from a mental health specialist;
• Emotional disturbance is associated with the highest rate of school dropout among all disability groups;
• Only 30% of children age 14 and older with emotional disturbance graduate with a standard high school diploma and
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds.

At North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, where our mission is to restore and strengthen the emotional well-being of children and families, these statistics are brought to life daily. We are fielding an unprecedented number of emergency calls regarding young people who are so anxious or depressed that they feel that life is no longer worth living. Some live in homes that are like war zones where the rules for survival are: don’t talk, don’t trust and don’t feel. Some are so isolated and lonely that they feel invisible. Others are targets of bias and bullying and suffer in silence.

I will never forget the 12-year-old boy who attended one of our school-based mental health programs - the Intensive Support Program (ISP), a joint venture with the Nassau Board of Cooperative Educational Services. He was a transfer student from a district school where he struggled to learn and was a target of bullying. Upon his return home from ISP, one afternoon, he told his mom, “Mommy, for the first time in my life I feel like a normal kid.” His mother recalled the story to us in tears of relief. One simple sentence, “Mommy, for the first time in my life I feel like a normal kid,” and a lifetime of potential unlocked.

Community-based mental health agencies offer children opportunities to feel competent, fit in with others, stand tall and have a voice. But we cannot do it alone. Early intervention and partnerships with key stakeholders such as pediatricians and teachers are critical.

According to renowned psychiatrist Harold Koplowicz who heads up the Child Mind Institute in New York City, “The sooner we get these kids help, the sooner they can get back to being kids, and growing into happy, successful adults.” He calls for pediatricians and teachers to be better trained in identifying the signs and symptoms of emotional disorders and empowered to notify parents when a child’s behavior falls outside a typical range. His sentiments are reinforced by the key findings and recommendations of the Children’s Plan.

We can no longer afford to operate in “silos” of care that are barriers to integrating and coordinating mental health care for our children. By working together to nurture all children’s potential we give them the boost that they need to have the best chance for a successful future.

Originally published in the Anton chain of 18 Long Island, NY newspapers in November 2011.

HURRICANE HANGOVER

2011-09-12T03:36:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Hangover

By Andrew Malekoff©

Although I am a month behind the news cycle, I have hurricane hangover. The soundtrack of my life during the build up to Irene was like the theme from Jaws, that universal jingle of impending doom. I live in Long Beach, close to the bay and canal and a few blocks from the ocean.

I am not one of those that thought the warnings were over-hyped or unjustified. I think it was the right thing to do, to warn people and issue orders for mandatory evacuation. I did evacuate my family. And, although we did not suffer any damage I do not regret evacuating. I felt the same way decades ago when hurricane Gloria blew in. I wanted my children then, who are young adults now, to know that they should take hurricanes seriously.

What really bothered me with Irene, was the slow and steady pace of the hurricane (think of the Jaws theme now) and waiting for the worst to come, waiting for the storm to broadside us at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning. It felt like a hostile force was advancing and there was little to do except to retreat to higher ground. Did you know that the meaning of the name Irene is peace?

When we reached our evacuation destination, there was no TV, only my trusty 9-volt transistor radio. I was always a transistor-radio-kid, one of those that listened to the World Series with an earplug during Hebrew School in the 1960’s.

Despite the dismal weather, the reception was very good. I picked an FM station, WBAI, only to hear one caller after another posing conspiracy theories about the government using the hurricane as a pretext for testing and preparing us for mass evacuation. They speculated that the government was shutting down mass transit and telling us to leave our homes and communities as a dress rehearsal. For what, I wondered? For a foreign enemy landing on our shores or an alien invasion?

My wife and I looked at each other and the Jaws music in our minds suddenly switched to the ever-familiar Twilight Zone theme; not as ominous as Jaws, but somewhat more unnerving for its suggestion of something other-worldly, mysterious and, perhaps evil lurking in the shadows.

It wasn’t easy to sleep. I kept switching on the transistor radio to hear what was happening. By morning, we were still waiting for “landfall,” which was predicted for between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. It was sort of anti-climactic when those two hours passed. In a few more hours, we headed home to be pleasantly surprised by having been virtually untouched. Of course, we learned others were not so fortunate and suffered significant loss of property, power and peace of mind. And, in some cases, loss of life.

As soon as I got home, I headed up to the boardwalk on my bike to check out the scene there. I passed fallen trees and heard sirens headed for house fires ignited by fallen wires. I struggled for the two miles going west with strong winds in my face.

On the way back, I had the pleasant surprise of traveling two miles without having to pedal even one revolution. There was a powerful wind at my back that carried me the entire way home to the imagined soundtrack of Chariots of Fire.

Orginally published, in September 2011, in the Anton Newspapers, a chain of 18 newspapers in communities on Long Island, NY.

EVERY PARENT'S NIGHTMARE

2011-07-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

EVERY PARENT’S NIGHTMARE…NEWSDAY, July 23, 2011

By Andrew Malekoff

I have not been able to stop thinking about Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old boy taken from a Brooklyn street corner earlier this month and brutally murdered. My boys are now in their 20s and they are not Hasidic Jews, but there is something about Leiby's photo that reminds me of them when they were children.

I get chills when I recall a day when I took my boys to the multiplex theater at the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa. Darren was 3 and Jamie was 7. After a movie, we went downstairs to Nathan's for hot dogs and French fries. When we were finished, Jamie told me he thought that he left his Batman toy in the theater upstairs.

Thinking I would offer him a bit of independence, I said, "Do you think you can go get it and then come back down?" He said yes and stepped on the upstairs escalator. Darren and I waited. After a few minutes, I thought he might be having a hard time at the theater. My eyes scanned the mall. When he didn't return after perhaps 10 minutes, my worry turned to fear.

I picked up Darren so that I could move quickly (or was it so that I wouldn't lose him, too?) and I started to search. Jamie wasn't at the theater. I was frantic and looked into every store. I was sweating profusely and my heart seemed to beat through my chest. My imagination took me places I had never been before; places like the one that found Leiby Kletzky.

Then I approached a mall staff member, who led me to the security office. The security man spoke to someone on his walkie-talkie. After just about a minute, Jamie walked into the security office with a staff member. I picked him up and hugged him for a long moment.

For me, it was a moment of profound relief. Jamie seemed happy that we were together, but not upset. The time we were separated was not the eternity to him that it was to me. (He even found his toy.) I think I had emotional blinders on and don't recall if I even asked where Jamie was located.

Sometimes I remember that experience for no reason immediately evident to me. Other times it is triggered by a news story with a bad ending. Recalling those 20 or 30 minutes brings back some of the same physical sensations: The hair on my neck stands on end, a chill runs up my spine and my heart pounds.

Maybe I can't stop thinking about Leiby Kletzky because of that frightening experience at the mall. If those moments had turned into a lifetime of what the Kletzkys now face, I don't know how I would have survived. Yet, somehow, people do survive traumatic grief. Maybe it is their faith.

I heard that there were children in Leiby's close-knit community who questioned the presence of God when the boy's fate became known. How could they not? And, while I ask myself this same question that a child asks his parents, I can only hope there is a better place somewhere beyond our world that isn't so capricious and merciless to even the most innocent and precious among us.

Advocate to restore funding for the Children's Center of Nassau County Family Court

2011-07-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

Name: _________________________________

Address: _________________________________

City/State: _________________________________

August 2, 2011

NYS Senator Jack Martins
NYS Assemblyman Chuck Lavine
NYS Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel

Dear Local Legislators:

In 2011 Governor Andrew Cuomo cut one-third of its funding for the Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court that is operated by North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center. The Guidance Center pledged to keep the Children Center open and fully operative by raising funds ($28,000) from community supporters to keep it alive this year. They achieved their goal. However, if the funds are not restored by the State in 2012 the Children’s Center is in danger of closing to these budget cuts.

According to the New York State Unified Court System, the Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court is rated among the top utilized Center’s in New York State.

The Children’s Center as Nassau County Family Court offers:
 A quality drop-in child-care services, for children ages 6 weeks to 12 years, while their parents attend to court business; and
 A place where families can learn about and gain access to vital services.

Here are the facts:
 In 2010, the Children’s Center took care of almost 2200 children;
 The Children’s Center was accessible to all families seeking to use the Center 99.5% of the time;
 Ninety-nine percent of families utilizing the Children’s Center have a household income of less than $25,000 dollars annually; and
 The Children’s Center provides a literacy-rich environment for children; it distributed more than 26,000 free books to children, since 2006, as a part of the federal Reading is Fundamental Program.

The result of curtailing this service is:

 Increased stress for at-risk children and their families;
 Decreased family court efficiency; and
 Reduced access to legal services for women.

The Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court is the only Children’s Center on Long Island that has not had its funding cut by 100% and the only Children’s Center in New York State that did not reduce its days and hours of operation.

We need your help to restore this funding in 2012 and to save the Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court. We are counting on you!

Sincerely,

The Power of Group Work with Kids: A Practitioner’s Reflection on Strength-Based Practice

2011-07-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

The Power of Group Work with Kids: A Practitioner’s Reflection on Strength-Based Practice

RECOLLECTIONS By Andrew Malekoff, CEO, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, March 2007

This narrative is a reflection of a practitioner’s formative experience in the field as a VISTA volunteer, forming and working with a group of Mexican-American adolescents before receiving any formal education in social work or the human services. The reflection is highlighted by lessons learned that inform strength-based practice in group work with children and youth. The narrative concludes with seven principles conceived over the intervening years that guides his practice today.

Introduction: Tapping in to What One Has to Offer

Social group work’s origins are rooted by melding three early twentieth century social movements: the settlement house movement, progressive education movement and recreation movement (Breton, 1990). What all three have in common is the conviction that people have much to offer to improve the quality of their lives. Each movement realized this, respectively, by organizing neighbors to challenge and change unacceptable social conditions in the community, enabling students to practice democracy and learn citizenship in the classroom, and providing people of all ages opportunities to experience the profound joy of participation in a creative group.

The practice of tapping in to what people have to offer is another way of saying that strengths matter. Weick and Saleebey (1995) affirm that helping people to discover the resources to improve their situations is not an option for social workers but an obligation. It is our duty to understand what people know, what they can do, and what they and their environment have to offer. The lesson of strength-based practice was taught to me early in my career, before formal education tempted me with deficit-driven paradigms of practice. It was a time before I went to graduate school and in a place where I learned that strengths matter. I learned it from the people who, at the time, mattered most: my neighbors. In this narrative I will describe my first experience in forming and working with a group of adolescents. I will highlight what I learned along the way and conclude by presenting seven strength-based principles for group work practice with children and youth.

My First Kids’ Group

I formed my first kids’ group when I was a 22 year old VISTA volunteer (Volunteers in Service to America) living in Grand Island, Nebraska. The community that I called home for nearly three years was largely Mexican-American. None of the roads in that part of town were paved. When I first arrived I roomed with a local family. A short time later I rented a tiny two-bedroom house on the edge of a cornfield. The rent was one hundred dollars a month. A few blocks from my house pig and cattle auctions were held on Mondays and Tuesdays. Living in Nebraska was nothing like my early years growing up in Newark, New Jersey where the landscape was concrete and telephone poles and the closet thing to a cornfield was the corner bakery.

The group I formed in the spring of 1974 included six kids. There were three boys: Danny, Carlos and Marco; and three girls: Lilly, Mariel, and Toni. They ranged in age from 13 to 18. All were first generation Mexican-Americans. They all knew each other well, living in this close-knit place where everybody seemed to know everybody.

The idea to create a group started percolating after I was in town for only a few days. Danny, whose sister’s house I was rooming in, hot-wired a car and took it for a joy ride. It was a rainy night. The car spun out of control, crashing into the side of the sheriff’s house. Really! I learned later that Danny’s father and older brother had done time in the state penitentiary. I saw Danny headed down the same road. In what turned out to be a good financial investment, I kicked in a couple hundred dollars after being asked to contribute to Danny’s bail.

During the same time I met an 18- year old young woman Mariel, who was soon to become the senior group member. I found out through the grapevine that she had been through drug rehab more than once. I was advised by someone to go to Mariel’s home and meet her parents who were described as very conservative. I was warned that there was no way I’d get anywhere with Mariel without her parents’ consent.

It was a wonderful lesson. I learned never to cut parents out of the picture. It made sense to me that the parents of these kids would need to trust the gringo stranger who had suddenly appeared in town. Yet, over the years I have met countless colleagues who perceive anxious parents as a thorn in their professional side and use the cloak of confidentiality to factor them out of the helping equation.

One by one I got to know each of the prospective group members and their parents and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. Getting to know everyone seemed easy at first. I received many invitations to home cooked Mexican meals. However, accompanying the delicious food and great company were situations that I was totally unprepared for. For instance, there was the time I received a written marriage proposal from one of the group member’s cousins. I never considered a dinner invitation in quite the same way after that.

Hanging Out

I got to know the prospective group members by hanging out in their homes, in the park, on the basketball court, and here and there. The kids were all children of parents who came a generation earlier from Mexico with their parents to work the local beet farms. I also hung out with the adults, often late into the night. I learned something that didn’t take any special assessment skills on my part. The alcohol flowed freely in this place.

There was a Latin club in town. Everyone turned out to dance and have a few beers on Fridays after work. It was a family atmosphere and a time for the community to unite, four generations dancing to contemporary and traditional Mexican music. If a newcomer had any intention of being more that a stranger the Latin club was the place to be.

I gradually began to feel less like a stranger. When I sensed that people had become more comfortable with me I thought it made sense to get a few of the kids together. I thought that forming a club might serve to address some of their needs like preventing alcohol abuse and strengthening cultural identity. Many elders in the community feared that assimilation was sucking the rich heritage from their children’s souls.

I had an idea. The kids loved to dance and listen to music, and could they dance. It seemed to me that sitting around and talking rap group style was one thing we could and would do, but that they would probably like doing a lot more than talking. This wasn’t, as they say, rocket science. It just made good sense to me to do what they liked, were good at, and might find meaningful and productive.

All these years later I continue to meet colleagues who assign second-class status to groups that dance and sing and laugh and run and jump and play. An air of condescension and professional arrogance often surrounds the use of nonverbal activities in group, especially in those schools and clinical settings where the spoken word rules the day. When the activity of the group is other than earnest and insightful discussion, parents, referral sources, administrators, and colleagues too often arch a collective eyebrow of disapproval as if to say, “This is nice but when does the real work begin.” There is nothing more deadly to the creative process needed to grow good groups that such uniformed, blind, authoritarian rigidity. Spiritual incarceration. That is what I call it. Learning from the Inside-Out.

As the kids’ group took shape I worried that I didn’t know anything about Mexican culture. I decided that the dance floor at the Latin club was a good place to start. The most spirited dances were communal, young and old circling the floor as a large group, accenting the need to stay connected in the present by preserving the past.

If I could learn Mexican dance at the Latin club, I figured that there had to be others in town that could teach me and the group other things we needed to know. I thought that if I could find such people and get to know them that I could convince them to help me, help us.

I didn’t know anything about alcoholism either. So I found out about an alcoholism program across the street from the cattle auction. I got to know Jim, the director of the center. We spent some time together and he provided me with literature on the subject. Jim told me that he was in recovery and invited me to an open AA meeting. I didn’t know what “recovery” meant, so he taught me. He agreed to help in any way he could. I also met an elementary school teacher who lived in the community. Dolores was a dynamic woman with a great smile, unlimited knowledge about her heritage, boundless energy and a burning desire to help the young people in the community. She was dying to help out. I told her about the group and she agreed to teach dance and sprinkle in some history lessons along the way.

Soon I met others who, as they learned about the group and its purpose, wanted to pitch in too. There were women who offered to sew traditional dresses for the girls to dance in, men who loaned their cherished sombreros to the boys, people in recovery willing to talk about alcoholism and the road to sobriety, and so on. Soon the group had a small army of helpers. And all I had to do was ask.

Giving Up Control

And so I made another valuable discovery. And this was a big one. I learned that I didn’t have to control everything. I could depend on others. Others being the kids themselves and the grown ups who had a stake in them. This took a lot of pressure off me. It meant that I didn’t have to know everything. I did have to be willing to trust others and have faith in what they might have to offer. I later discovered that this was a very unpopular way to think among colleagues who revere a one-to-one medical model, where professional is knowledgeable decision maker, client is passive recipient, pathology rules, and DSM is the holy bible. (“Hallelujah”, cried the lonely managed care clerk from his desolate outpost in the hinterlands of corporate America.)

We decided on a group name: Los Seis – The Six. As I got to know Los Seis better I realized that despite the overwhelming odds that they faced they had lots to offer. They were attractive, creative, talented, intelligent, energetic, passionate, and open-minded – open minded enough to give me the priceless and timeless gift of letting me into their lives so that I can share this gift, and all I learned from it, with others. Others like you, reader.

The group met several times a week. It was fun, exciting, and at times puzzling. One day a newspaper crew came to cover the story of the group. As the photographer readied for the shoot the group unraveled before my eyes. A simmering dispute between Marco and Toni exploded. In frustration, everyone threatened to quit the group. Several ran from the building. I chased them down and persuaded them to return. The full page spread of photos that appeared two days later in the Sunday paper was so impressive that no reader could have picked up on the chaos that transpired just moments before the photos were taken.

The kids always seemed to bounce back from adversity in the group. But there was more at work that individual resiliency. The group had become a force, a distinct entity with an identity and life of its own. There was an undeniable path that I couldn’t explain and didn’t understand at the time. Years later I learned about group culture, group process, and strength-based work and it all started to make some sense.

In time Los Seis became best know as a dance group that traveled throughout the State spreading a message of cultural pride and alcohol abuse prevention. In a sense they became advocates, extending the bonds of belonging beyond the group itself. A highlight was their first public appearance before a gathering of the local community. One of the poems chosen for the event is an epic of the Mexican-American people, the most famous poem of the Chicano movement in America. It’s called “I am Joaquin” or “Yo soy Joaquin”, written by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales (1967), long involved in the civil and human rights movement of the Mexican-American people. The book length poem give voice to what many in the community felt.

As the lights were turned down in the community center, the group members took turns reading by candlelight as a hundred of their family and friends, young and old looked on and listened.

I am Joaquin,
Lost in a world of confusion,
caught up in the whirl of a
gringo society,
confused by the rules,
scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation,
and destroyed by modern society.
My fathers
have lost the economic battle
and won
the struggle of cultural survival…
La Raza!
Mejicano!
Espanol!
Latino!
Hispano!
Chicano!
or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
and
sing the same
I am the masses of my people and
I refuse to be absorbed.
I am Joaquin.
The odds are great
but my spirit is strong,
my faith unbreakable,
my blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I shall endure!
I will endure!

Working with Los Seis has been one of the enduring pleasures of my life. Nevertheless, at the time I couldn’t help but wonder, how did this happen? What did I do to help make it happen? Was it a fluke? Could I do it again?

Practice Principles for Strength-Based Group Work

It has been 30 years since Los Seis and my belief in the value of good group experiences for kids has only grown despite countless obstacles. In time I became a student, and then a teacher and author, of what was at first the product of an intuitive journey. As I continued the journey, later in graduate school and then in agency work I became disheartened to see so many talented people bailing out and abandoning group work with kids. But who could blame them. Higher education, with a few notable exceptions, has failed. And there is little or on reliable support and supervision in most work places.

Too much of what passes as group work these days is nothing more than curriculum-driven pseudo group work with little interaction amongst group members, no mutual aid, cookbook agendas, and canned exercises. The emphasis is on controlling kids, shoving education down their throats, and stamping out spontaneity and creativity.

Somewhere along the way I became a missionary of sorts, encouraging others to stay the course and attempting to demystify group work so that it could be more easily understood and purposefully practiced.

And so, with the spirit of Los Seis in mind and heart, I’ll conclude with seven principles and a poem that I hope you will embrace, seven strength-based bricks accompanied by a lyrical message to begin building a foundation for the important work ahead:

(1). I hope that those of you who work with young people in groups or who administer programs that include group work, will learn that a group shouldn’t be formed on the basis of a diagnosis or label. I want you to be crystal clear that a group should be formed on the basis of particular needs that the group is being pulled together to address. Felt needs are different that ascribed labels. Understanding need is where we begin in group work. Such a simple concept, yet so foreign to so many.

(2). I hope that you will learn to structure your groups to invite the whole person and not just the troubled or hurt or broken parts. There is so much talk these days about strengths and wellness. This is hardly a new and revolutionary concept. But it has been neglected for too long. However, good group work practice has been paying attention to people’s strengths since the days of the original settlement houses over 100 years ago, mostly without any fanfare.

(3). I hope that you will value the use of verbal and non-verbal activities and will, for once and for all, learn to relax and to abandon the strange and bizarre belief that the only successful group is one that consists of young people who sit still and speak politely and insightful.

(4). I hope that you will come to understand that losing control is not where you want to get away from, it’s where you want to get to. What I mean by this is, when control is turned over to the group and when the group worker give up his or her centrality in the group, that mutual aid can follow and then members can find expression for they have to offer. Encouraging ” what they have to offer” – that’s the kind of group work we need to practice, that’s what real empowerment is all about.

(5). I hope that you will stay tuned in to the near things and far things, the near things of individual need and the far things of social reform. Our young group members need to see the potential of changing not only oneself but also one’s surroundings, so that they may become active participants in community affairs, so that they might make a difference, might change the world one day where we have failed to. A good group can be a great start for this kind of consciousness development and action among young people.

(6). I hope that you will learn that anxious and angry parents are not our enemies and that we must collaborate with them and form stable alliances with them if we are to be successful with their children. Many parents suffer from profound isolation and self-doubt. We must learn to embrace their frustration and anxiety rather than become defensive and rejecting. They get enough of that as it is.

(7). Finally, I hope you will learn that a good group has a life of its own, each one with a unique personality – what we group workers refer to as a culture. We must learn to value the developmental life of a group. Because if people can take this from today, when those that inhabit the world outside of our groups question the value of our efforts, amidst the noise and movement and excitement of a typical kids groups – and when they raise an eyebrow or toss puzzled and disapproving looks our way and ask us, ” what is going on in there?!?” We’ll have more confidence to move ahead and to hang in there and not bail out as too many and adult already has.

I’ll leave you with a poem that I wrote on the existential plight of those of us who work with kids in groups and the faith that is needed to stay the course. The poem, which I wrote while watching a group of kids in a roller rink, is my attempt to demystify the concept of group process (Malekoff, 1997).

What is Going in There? Question and response

What is going on in There? (The question)

We bring our kids to you,
To see what you can do;

They meet a bunch of others,
See, we are all their mothers;

We hear a to of noise,
And, yes, boys will be boys;

But what is going on in there?,
Nothing much we fear.

Our rooms are side by side,
And it’s not my style to chide;

But your group’s a bit too crazy.
And what you’re doing’s kind of hazy;

After all they’re here to talk,
Yet all they do is squeal and squawk;

What is going on in there?
Nothing much we fear.

Hi I’m from the school,
And it’s not my style to duel;

But Johnny’s in your group,
And I know that you’re no dupe;

But his dad has called on me,
To gain some clarity;

So what is going on in there?,
Nothing much, I fear.

Now here we are alas,
Facing you in masse;

We haven’t got all day,
So what have you to say;

About this thing called group,
This strange and foggy soup;

Just what is going on in there?,
Nothing much, we fear.

What is Going on in There? (The Response)

If you really wish to know, have a seat, don’t plan to go.

It will take awhile to get, but you will get it, so don’t you fret.

A group begins by building trust, chipping ways at the surface crust.

Once the uneasy feeling is lost, a battle rages for who’s the boss;
Kings and Queens of what’s okay and who shall have the final say.

Once that’s clear a moment of calm is quickly followed by the
slapping of palms.

A clan like feeling fills the air,
the sharing of joy, hope, and despair.

Family dramas are replayed, so new directions can be made.

Then in awhile each one stands out,
confident of his own special clout.

By then the group has discovered its pace,
a secret gathering in a special place.

Nothing like it has occurred before,
a bond that exist beyond the door.

And finally it’s time to say good-bye,
a giggle, a tear, a hug, a sigh.

Hard to accept, easy to deny,
the group is gone yet forever alive.

So you’ve asked me “what is going on in there?,”
I hope that my story has helped make it clear.

Maybe now it is easier to see,
that a group has a life, just like you and like me.

References

Breton, M. (1990). Learning from social group work traditions. Social Work with Groups, 13:3, 21-34.

Gonzales, R. (1967). I Am Joaquin. New York: Bantam.

Malekoff, A. (1997). Group Work with Adolescents: Principles and Practice. New York: Guilford, 50-52.

Weick, A. & Saleebey, D. (1995). A postmodern approach to social work practice. The 1995 Richard Lodge Memorial Lecture, Adelphi University School of Social Work, New York.

Andrew Malekoff is executive director / CEO for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, NY. He is editor-in-chief of Social Work with Groups, a journal of community and clinical practice.

The article was earlier presented as a keynote presentation entitled: “Group Work: The Hidden Treasure in Group Development” March 8, 2002, Melville Marriott, Melville, NY; and published as: “The Power of Group Work with Kids: Lessons Learned” Social Work with Groups, 25:1/2, 2002; “The Power of Group Work with Kids: A Practitioner’s Reflection on Strength-Based Practice,” Families in Society, 2001, 82:3.

The article also appears on the Social Welfare History Project: http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/recollections/the-power-of-group-work-with-kids-a-practitioner%e2%80%99s-reflection-on-strength-based-practice/ with the permission of the author.

THE LONGEST DAY

2011-07-03T04:46:00.000-07:00

The Longest Day

RECOLLECTIONS By: Andrew Malekoff, CEO, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, March 2007

This article is about a community-based children's mental health agency's - North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center - response to the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

“And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd…and this also has (become) one of the dark places of the earth.” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

A chill returned 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. I waved to a police officer wearing a light blue windbreaker. The words NYPD COMMUNITY AFFAIRS were printed in white block letters on the back of her jacket. She waved back and smiled. I headed for the emergency lane on my way to the boat that would be returning the mental health workers to the Pier 94 on 57th Street.

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 wouldn’t block anyone’s view. The family lost their father and husband, a decorated firefighter. The widow was a slight woman of Italian descent, probably in her sixties. Although it was hard to guess her age because of the years added by September 11th.

Her husband’s photo was pinned to her wool coat, and to the coats of her three children. He was handsome. He had a white mustache and 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 me to please make sure that no one obstructed his mother’s view. He said, “You can see how short she is, less than five feet.”

World Trade Center Memorial Service: October 28, 2001

The service began with a processional that included His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York. Then, singing the Star Spangled Banner was police officer Daniel Rodriguez of the NYPD. He had become a presence across the nation in recent weeks, appearing in his dress blues and singing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium.

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 the folding chair. I told her that she could grab on to me. “Hold on to my shoulders,” I said. She hesitated. “Don’t worry you won’t knock me over,” I told her.

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 pants pocket and handed her a handkerchief. When I was picking out my clothes earlier in the morning I came 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.”

As I stepped away from this family to exit the memorial service my eyes were drawn to an attractive young woman with blonde hair, wearing dark sunglasses. She held a framed 8 by 10 inch photo portrait of her husband. I can still see his face clearly. Earlier, a colleague of mine talked to the woman with the photo. She leaned over and whispered to her, “You know when I look at him I feel like smiling.” And the woman holding the photo of her husband smiled weakly and said, “That’s the kind of guy he was, he made everyone smile.”

After a few more goodbyes I continued down the emergency lane. The organizer told us earlier that God Bless America was our cue to leave the site and head for the boat. I walked along a narrow path sandwiched between fifteen thousand mourners of every shade and age. Some were singing, some crying, and some holding up photos of lost loved ones. Passing me in the opposite direction was a woman who was hooked up to a respirator. Emergency personnel wheeled her away on a stretcher, while a companion walked alongside wearing a surgical mask.

Many mourners wore surgical masks. The odor of the smoldering ruins was strong and distinctive. After three hours I could feel something accumulating inside my throat. My imagination jumped ahead ten years. I wondered about the health risk to those who have been exposed daily to the toxins rising from ground zero. I thought about a photojournalist that I met who barely escaped the attack. He referred to his assignment that day as “a field trip into hell.” Maybe this is what hell smells like, I thought.

The Tyranny of Imagination

After walking several blocks to the Hudson River, we boarded a boat and headed back to the Pier. It would be about a thirty-minute ride. As we drifted away from ground zero I tried to wrap my mind around what I just came from. The idea of 15,000 mourners at a gravesite for thousands of murder victims in a location less than an hour from my home was hard to absorb.

I thought about the dozens of people I met in recent weeks who escaped and their surreal descriptions of the morning of 9/11, images and sensations that will never leave them: the odor of jet fuel; sweat-drenched firefighters in full gear climbing up stairs and urging everyone else to head down; women bursting from the buildings carrying shoes in hand in order to run faster; people jumping to their deaths rather than being burned alive; and frantic figures scattering from the site holding food trays overhead to avoid the blizzard of debris, running as fast as their legs would carry them past stretch limousines with assorted airplane parts jutting from the hoods.

One woman, an Empire BlueCross BlueShield employee, told me that when she exited the building the first thing she did was look up. Almost immediately she saw the second plane crash into tower two. She said that before she could run to safety she had to find another witness to confirm what she saw. “I thought I was going crazy, hallucinating,” she said. The horrifying images of those who escaped are rivaled only by the tyranny of imagination that now plagues the bereaved.

Weeks before the memorial service we had been receiving calls at the agency. There were calls from businesses, local government, the New York City Fire Department, and local schools and community groups.

We also received direct calls from people who escaped and families who lost loved ones. One call was from a parent whose eleven-year-old son Danny refused to eat. His father was missing. Through Danny’s story I learned about the tyranny of imagination. Danny imagined his father to be alive in his office in the World Trade Center and trapped, alone, and starving. If his father couldn’t eat, Danny reasoned, then he wouldn’t eat.

A Community Agency Responds

As the leading community-based children’s mental health center on Long Island we anticipated an avalanche of calls from individuals and institutions. We knew that how we organized our efforts would be critical. We also knew that there is no blueprint for the unprecedented.

How did we respond? On September 11th several top staff gathered to make a plan. First, any staff member directly affected by the attack was encouraged to do whatever they needed to do for themselves and their families. Second, staff members were directed to contact all agency clients to check in and make themselves available as needed. We knew about the potential effects of the disaster on persons with less exposure but significant risk factors such as prior unresolved trauma or loss. Third, the agency would extend its hours and days of operation. Fourth, we would make a list of staff willing to make themselves available for special assignments including responding to individual and family crises, providing consultations to schools, leading groups for surviving family members of deceased firefighters, and offering support to displaced employees who escaped and lost colleagues. This was how we started. Soon thereafter we addressed how to meet the ongoing needs of our own staff, soon to be steeped in the recovery effort.

Preparing for the Unprecedented

Within 24 hours of the terrorist attack there was a request from an employee assistance program. Professionals were needed to meet with court personnel in New York City. I was one of two who volunteered. The “debriefing,” as the EAP director called it, was to take place all day on Friday, September 14th. There were no further details or instructions.

I took down travel information, identified a contact person, and wondered what I would do when I got there. I figured that I would draw on my clinical, group work, and crisis intervention experience. Intuitively, I started reaching for frames of reference.

One of my assignments fifteen years ago was to meet with a group called Parents of Murdered Children (POMC). The lay leaders for the group, a bereaved husband and wife who lost their son, called the county executive’s office and said that the group was “stuck” and needed some assistance. I learned from that experience that trying to act smart was a big mistake. A colleague from another agency took a prescriptive stance, while I sat quietly. Being there, listening, and bearing witness was where it was at. In time I was accepted, enabling me to help the group to identify their need to do more than repeatedly tell their stories.

They expressed a need to take social action. I learned from them about secondary victimization at the hands of various bureaucracies. In time they moved their meeting place to the agency to accommodate their growing membership. They became effective advocates, influencing legislation and treatment of crime victims and their families. My experience with POMC also taught me about the value of moving from support to social action.

I remembered another group, a group of kids I once worked with from changing families. One prospective group member witnessed the murder of his mother at the hands of his father. Some of my colleagues didn’t think he should join the group. They reasoned that he would vicariously traumatize everyone else. In other words, he would freak out the other kids. I insisted that he be included. He did well in the group, spoke as freely as he chose to, and was readily accepted by the others. I learned from that experience to always err on the side of inclusiveness.

I remembered my part-time job as a crisis worker. The beeper would go off and soon I was in the emergency room or police station with little time to prepare. I learned from that experience that by assuming a stance of uncertainty and cultivating a part of my mind reserved for the unknown, I could cut myself some slack and learn from the inside out. After all, no one is an expert at another’s experience. Inside out, that’s the way to go.

How does one prepare for the unprecedented? Listening and bearing witness, offering groups to reduce isolation and foster social connection, and learning from the inside out. It was a start. After all, social workers always talk about learning by doing. This was as good a time as any to do just that. I had to rely on what I already knew and, most of all, be flexible. It was also important for me to say to myself, “I’m not in this alone.” Many would be spending time with individuals, families, and groups who are struggling with the aftershock of 9/11. We struggle ourselves. Emotionally no one has been spared.

Zero Degrees of Separation

So, three days after the attack I went to the Supreme Court to meet with court personnel. I met with three groups for about one-and-a-half hours each. Participation was voluntary.

The groups included individuals with missing relatives or friends, individuals with relatives or friends confirmed dead, individuals who were in the World Trade Center complex during the attack, individuals with family members who barely escaped, individuals who witnessed the attack and collapse of the Twin Towers from courthouse windows, and others who heard about it, like many of us on television, radio or through word of mouth. All were deeply affected. Most were in a state of disbelief. Following are my reflections on the day.

When I first arrived court officers confiscated my pocketknife. I learned that this is a new policy at the courthouse. Prior to the World Trade Center attack any blade less than four inches was okay.
I met with my contact person, gathered some information, and quickly suggested how to organize groups. Knowing something about planning groups was invaluable. There were three groups of 8 to 12 people. We met in a vacant courtroom. I arranged chairs around two long adjacent prosecution and defense tables. I asked that there be no observers.

While I was waiting for my first group a court officer stopped by and told me, “Today should be interesting.” I asked him what he meant. He said, “It’s foreclosure Friday.” He explained that every Friday they have an auction of foreclosed property and, typically, about two hundred Arab-Americans participate in the auction. This seemed to signal growing unease with people of Middle Eastern descent.

Although there were many differences among the participants, there was common ground in their struggle to cope. Many signs and symptoms of trauma and stress were reported. These included numbness, shock, headaches, loss of appetite, aches and pains, frequent trips to the bathroom, sleeplessness, flashbacks, disbelief, startle response to loud noises and especially airplanes, helplessness, gruesome nightmares, anger, uncertainty, guilt, and fear.

Fear was a powerful theme. Many felt that the courthouse was unsafe. During one group meeting a female court officer came in to search for explosives. We later learned that a bomb threat had been called in. She looked under chairs and desks and behind the elevated area where the judge sits. She never said a word. She just searched. Several group members nodded in agreement with one who said, “I feel like we are a target in this courthouse.”

Many group members reported having difficulty regulating and expressing emotions. In every group at least one or two people wept openly, women and men. In every group at least one person bolted from the room and then came back. More than one person said, “I can’t stop crying.” And more than one said, “I can’t cry.” More than a few were angry.

There was anger at the government. “How could they let this happen?” they wondered. There was strong sentiment among a few to strike back. There were some not-so-veiled signs of bias towards people of Middle Eastern descent.

Many shared feelings of disbelief, saying how surreal it all seems. One group member said, “I am in a semi-daze; I feel like I am not even here.”

Guilt was a powerful theme, especially guilt about going on with mundane day-to-day activities. This was balanced by the belief that showing strength and not giving in to terrorism was necessary. A court officer said he felt insignificant, like “a grain of sand.” He said he felt helpless and wondered if he was going crazy.

A group member who lamented, “Aren’t our children entitled to the life we enjoyed,” best expressed the loss of innocence.

Someone’s son escaped from the 78th floor. He took the stairs. His co-workers waited for the elevator. They didn’t survive. His mother through sobs retold the son’s story. When he emerged from the building, she told us, he witnessed flaming bodies falling from the sky. Two colleagues held her hands as she told the story.

In each group, members reached out to comfort one another through physical contact and understanding words. In one group a woman who said she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t cried, was brought to tears by another’s pain over a missing sister.

Despite the pain, all three groups welcomed humor. A court officer who loves to dance said he’d never dance again. Later, when the group was discussing ways to cope with stress, it was recommended that he teach the group how to dance. The image brought laughter and a momentary relief from tension.
In closing, participants said, “It was good to vent,” “It’s good to get it out,” “It’s good to know you’re not alone,” and “It’s good to know you’re not crazy.”

I was struck by the difference between what I was first told about these people and the reality. I had been advised that not too many people were personally affected. I discovered that everyone was profoundly affected. The experience generated empathic connections, fostered mutual support, reduced isolation, and normalized people’s responses and reactions to a surreal situation.

I remain deeply moved by the intensity of the experience and the participants’ ability to reach out to one another. It confirmed for me what I was already feeling. All of our lives are changed forever and to move forward we need each other. I knew that experiences like this, in groups, would be important for people in other settings and workplaces. And so I discovered a new frame of reference for the work ahead.

I discovered from this experience that the culture of people’s associations in the workplace and other settings had to accommodate to the disaster. I felt that in order for September 11th not to cause alienation, people needed permission and support to tell their stories and share ongoing difficulties and concerns. This would foster social connection, reduce alienation, and help people to cope with their reactions to the terrorist attack and anxiety associated with war in Afghanistan and domestic threats such as bio-terrorism. My experience in the courthouse helped me to understand in a deeper way that trauma isolates and atrophies otherwise healthy relationships, preventing them from growing.

Taking Care of Ourselves

The leadership of the agency created various opportunities for the staff and board of directors to tell their stories and share concerns. It required thinking “out of the box.” At the October board meeting, in which the traditional yearly strategic planning agenda was abandoned, board members and administrative staff debriefed and defused. After the meeting a past president of the agency described the experience as a “defining moment for the organization.” It galvanized the board’s commitment at a critical time, stimulated a course of action for supporting the development of our trauma and bereavement services, and strengthened the bond between board and staff.

Debriefing and defusing is only the beginning. We are learning from one another that the lessons we will offer to the traumatized for coping with the disaster also apply to us. In time we would learn about “vicarious PTSD” and “compassion fatigue,” and “secondary traumatic stress disorder,” fancy terms for our own vulnerability from too much caring and too little self-caring. Eating well, exercising, going easy on caffeine, getting sufficient rest, and…well, everything we advise to others now applies to us. We’re really all in this one together.

Parade of Grief

On the boat ride back to the Pier it was more comforting thinking about the pride of being associated with a committed organization and dedicated colleagues than being tormented by what brought me there in the first place.

As the pier came into view I knew that many families would soon be arriving to collect urns with ashes from ground zero. Each family would also be given an American Flag. If the deceased were a veteran, families would receive a special plaque acknowledging their service to the United States. And a few would get the rest of my father’s handkerchiefs.

My job was to accompany families to any one of dozens of booths occupied by Red Cross workers. As each family approached a booth, a Red Cross worker would recite a few well-rehearsed lines of condolence and then hand them a single urn and flag.

After they collected urns and flags, I accompanied families to a communal area where they could have a bite to eat. If people needed to talk there was an informal spot with comfortable chairs and couches. Most did not choose this option.

Two sisters asked me if they could go to the photo wall where family members posted thousands of snapshots of the missing. They said they wanted to write something on their brother’s photo. I escorted them to a wall that was bordered on the base by hundreds of teddy bears that were placed there by family members of those who died. There were lots of teddy bears at the Pier. There were also therapy dogs on hand. These gentle creatures were sprinkled about, offering their intuitive gifts to comfort the children, and grown ups too.

Many of my colleagues had been in this place weeks before, staffing what was known as Children’s Corner, spending time with the children while their parents presented DNA samples or applied for death certificates. A family assistance center was also set up on Long Island, to offer a more convenient setting for the thousands of surviving family members living in the suburbs just east of New York City.

Photos and intimately detailed descriptions lined the walls inside and outside of the Pier. They were also posted on buildings and makeshift walls that surrounded ground zero and in various other locations throughout the city. Loved ones described ankle bracelets with nameplates, dimples on elbows, and birthmarks of various shapes and sizes. And there were love poems and pleas for help in finding the missing. Following is a handwritten page I saw posted in Penn Station:

Ray Valdez, age 39, wearing khaki pants, navy blue long sleeved shirt “My brother arrived at work at 8:30 on September 11. His building was hit soon after. He called home on a borrowed cell. He left this message: ‘Liz it’s me, Ray. My building has been hit. I made it to the 78th floor. I’m okay but will remain here to help evacuate people. See you soon.’ Those were my brother’s last words. We have physically searched every hospital on the list provided to us. He was always the type to help one in need. If anyone has seen Raymond please call. God Bless.”
I offered an older couple, who lost a daughter in the disaster, a bag for the urn and flag. Macys had provided paper shopping bags with handles. Macy’s bags will never look the same to me. As I helped them with the bag, I saw the tears in their eyes. I was a little surprised when the gentleman said how well taken care of he felt.

In a conversation with three brothers a little while later, they shared a slightly different sentiment. The brothers ranged in age from mid-twenties to early thirties. They told me that their brother, a firefighter, left no wife or child behind and that both of their parents were deceased. They wanted to know why they couldn’t have three urns, one for each brother. They were also angry about the lack of benefits provided by the fire department. “Just because he didn’t leave a wife or children behind, it’s as if he doesn’t count,” said the eldest. The brothers signaled something that was coming, something that would replace the warm feeling associated with the abundance of good will generated in the aftermath of this disaster. Coming are disillusionment, frustration, anger, and feeling overwhelmed with the inevitable bureaucratic nightmare of red tape.

Reconstruction, Recovery, and Reaching Out

Seven years later survivors of the Oklahoma City terrorist attack continue to struggle. Many are still in counseling and some, particularly rescue workers, have only just begun. Marriages have ended, custody of children has been lost due to new addictions that have developed, and there have been more than a handful of suicides related to the 1994 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. There are also signs of getting through the trauma. An important part of recovery and reconstruction is taking some action that represents triumph over helplessness and despair. We learned about this first hand.

One of the services offered by the agency in the aftermath of 9/11 are bereavement groups for children who lost parents in the World Trade Center. One group worker made contact with an Oklahoma organization to exchange information and experiences in order to prepare for the work ahead. One day a large box arrived in the mail. It was addressed to the children in the bereavement groups. It came from a group of elementary school children in Oklahoma City.

Inside the box were 55 teddy bears. A laminated card bordered by American flags was hanging from string around each teddybear’s neck. Each card contained a message written by an Oklahoma City child to a child from New York. One of the cards said,

“Dear New York, I am very sorry about the plane crash. And I am very sorry if someone special to you died in it.”
Accompanying each Teddy Bear was a plastic bag with several items inside and a note explaining their significance. “To the families and friends of the lost:
A candle to remind you of the light they brought to your lives;
A (chocolate) kiss to remind you of the love they continue to send;
A flag to remind you that America will never forget.
A postcard for when you need to reach out;
We promise to be here.”

Everything feels different to me now. I remember a conversation I had many years ago with two parents whose son had been murdered. The father said, “It’s six years since our twenty year old son was stabbed to death in his own home in the middle of a sunny afternoon. The pain of our loss is still sharp and tears are never far from the surface.”

Many years from now when September 11th is remembered as a national day of loss, I’m sure I’ll think back and try to recall what things felt like before that sunny summer morning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Andrew Malekoff, MSW, is executive director/CEO for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, Roslyn Heights, NY and editor of Social Work with Groups.

This article was first published in a special issue of the Journal, “Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping,” Volume 8, Number 3, Summer, 2002, pages 28-35. This special issue of the Journal is devoted to professional helpers responses to 9/11 and was co-edited by Andrew Malekoff and Alex Gitterman. Published by California State University at Long Beach.

This article was also posted on the web on The Social Welfare History Project: http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/recollections/the-longest-day/
with the permission of the author.

"Building Men for Others"

2011-06-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

“Building Men for Others”

Andrew Malekoff © 2011

Schoolyards, playing fields, gymnasiums, vacant lots, street corners, makeshift clubhouses, and stoops were but a few of the special places of my boyhood. These were the platforms upon which the richest of memories, sweet and sour, were built. In later years, it has been the countless hours of my work with groups of boys at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center that have been most evocative of those special places and times. The associated images and scenarios provide me, at each memorable stop, with a visceral reminder of my earliest struggles to belong, to feel special, and to be valued.

I can vividly recall the year-long struggle, at age 10, in trying to scale the grammar school roof; a rite of passage. There was the repeated disappointment in falling short and the intermittent beat of humiliating taunts by the older boys. However, what sticks with me even more is the image of dangling arms from above, my friends reaching out for my outstretched hand: a majestically simple gesture that captured the mutuality upon which our time together would be permanently rooted.

William Pollack, in his book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, wrote about boys helping out boys and the importance of them having peers on which to lean. In Season of Life, journalist David Marx developed this theme from an unusual vantage point that is most often associated with what many think of as modern-day gladiator culture - football.

Marx wrote about a season that he spent with a private high school football team in Maryland led by two unconventional coaches, Joe Ehrmann and Biff Poggi. The coaches’ mission with the boys on their team was “to build men for others” by helping the boys develop empathic and nurturing relationships and helping them to commit themselves to causes greater than themselves. Their core lesson was that success was measured by what kind of friends, brothers, husbands, and fathers the boys would become; versus surrendering to attributes of false masculinity comprised exclusively of athletic prowess, sexual conquest, and economic success.

If we hope to raise our boys to become stable, secure, successful, happy, principled, courageous, and inspired men with meaningful relationships in their lives, we must be prepared to attend to their unique needs. Boys emulate what they observe. If what they see is emotional distance, extreme competition, guardedness, and coldness between men, they are prone to copy that behavior. Boys need to be encouraged to initiate friendships, maintain them, and experience and resolve the conflicts that arise in male friendship. Being a part of a group - a club or a team, for example - with sound adult leadership is an ideal arena for learning how to build relationships, negotiate differences and resolve conflicts.

Boys need permission to have an internal world of feelings, peer and adult support to help them to express a full range of emotions, and models of manhood that exemplify emotional attachment. Boys also need to see that physical toughness and stoicism, as stand-alone attributes, are narrow indicators of male strength. They need to see that emotional courage is as genuine an item as physical courage, and that empathy is a source of strength and a foundation for lasting relationships.

Anton newspapers, Long Island, NY, July 2011.

The Children's Center

2011-06-26T04:23:00.000-07:00

The Children’s Center

Andrew Malekoff © 2011

Among the casualties in the latest round of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget cuts is a network of child-care centers based in family courts across New York State that offer safe havens for children. The Children’s Center in Nassau County Family Court is operated by North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center and is rated among the top utilized Children’s Centers statewide, according to the New York State Unified Court System.

The Children’s Center is a place where parents who cannot afford child care can leave their children, from ages 6 weeks to 12 years, as they await court appearances. The philosophy of the children’s center is to offer a two-pronged approach for children: quality drop-in child-care services while their parents attend to court business, and a place where families can learn about and gain access to vital services.

Despite consistently high marks for the Children’s Center in Nassau County Family Court, its future is uncertain. Here are the facts on some of the benefits of the Center:

1. In 2010, the Children’s Center took care of almost 2200 children;

2. The Children’s Center was accessible to all families seeking to use the Center 99.5% of the time;

3. Ninety-nine percent of families utilizing the Children’s Center have a household income of less than $25,000 dollars annually;

4. The three most frequent referrals for families utilizing the Children’s Center were to: Child Health Plus (health insurance), Food Stamps, and WIC (a federally-funded health and nutrition program for women, infants and children);

The result of curtailing this service, according to a recent report by the New York Law Journal, is increased stress for at-risk children and their families, decreased family court efficiency and reduced access to legal services for women.

In addition to quality child care, the Children’s Center provides a literacy-rich environment for children. Studies demonstrate that children in low-income families are eight times more likely to read to and share books with their young children when provided with books and encouragement. Since 2006, the Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court has distributed more than 26,000 free books to children as part of the federal Reading is Fundamental Program.

At the Guidance Center, our mission is to restore and strengthen the emotional well-being of children and families. At the Children’s Center, we provide opportunities to enhance vulnerable children’s lives in many ways. The Children’s Center offers a safe haven in a stressful environment, worthwhile things for kids to do, peace of mind for parents awaiting their court appearances, valuable health- and nutrition-related resource information and referrals for families, plus a chance to reduce their court-involvement in the future.

If you are interested in seeing the Children’s Center at Nassau County Family Court survive, write to your local state legislator and attach a copy of this column.

Originally published in the Anton newspaper chain, Long Island, NY, 29, 2011

REBIRTH

2011-06-26T04:20:00.000-07:00

REBIRTH

Andrew Malekoff © 2011

I was privileged to be at a pre-release screening of the extraordinary feature-length documentary film called Rebirth at Hofstra University in June. In just two months, you can see it too.

Rebirth’s theatrical premiere will be held on August 31, at the IFC Center in New York City and on SHOWTIME on the 10th anniversary commemoration of September 11, 2001.

Rebirth follows the transformation of five people, over the last 10 years, whose lives were forever altered on that day. Aside from some brief footage depicting the day that the towers fell, to set the stage, the focus of the film is almost exclusively on the life trajectory of these five people.

The film-makers, led by director Jim Whitaker, introduce us to Tanya, a young woman who lost her fiancé; Nick, a teenaged boy who lost his mother; Tim, a firefighter who lost all of his friends; Brian, a construction worker who lost his brother; and Ling, a woman who was badly burned in the attack on the Twin Towers.

At the emotional core of the film is Tanya, a young woman who lost her fiancé, Sergio, a New York City firefighter. Tanya bares her grief with such authenticity that viewers are riveted to her every word and expression.

Nick was 15-years old when his mother died. A few years after the tragedy he became estranged from his father, who remarried, adding a complication to Nick’s grief. The openness with which Nick expresses his sadness and anger, offers us a rare window into an adolescent boy’s grieving.

Tim and Brian, offer the perspective of two men who lost, respectively, a best friend and a brother. Complicating Tim’s grief is his forthright feelings of survivor’s guilt, reminiscent of a soldier at war struggling with the loss of his fallen comrades. Brian offers another angle, with his touching reflection on how heartbreaking it is for him when he sees other brothers doing simple things together, like shopping at Home Depot.

Last but not least is Ling, who experienced a different kind of loss. She was badly burned over her right arm and the right side of her face and endured 40 surgeries over the intervening years. Ling offers us a multi-layered perspective of her pain, despair, resignation, hope and resilience. I found Ling to be a heroic figure who handled herself with grace, dignity and humor throughout her ordeal.

The sixth “character” in the film is Ground Zero itself. The film-makers, via multi-camera time-lapse photography, artfully tracked the evolution of the space where the Twin Towers once stood over lower Manhattan. Film-goers will be treated to this visual marvel and signs of rebirth and growth in segments that are interspersed throughout the interviews.

Rebirth is not a political movie, although some reviewers criticized the absence of a political voice in the film. I strongly disagree. The film was made to tell the story of loss, healing, hope, growth and resiliency in the context of one of the most horrifying chapters in American history. The film does that and much more. The lessons about complicated grief presented to us by Tim, Tanya, Brian, Ling and Nick transcend 9/11.

The film has an afterlife – it stays with you for weeks and you want to talk about it. Rebirth is a film best viewed with others. I would not recommend it for children under 13 years of age. If you have older adolescents in your life, watch it together and talk about it with them.

See Rebirth! You won’t regret it and you won’t forget it.

To be published in Anton Newspapers, Long Island New York, August 18, 2011

No Refuge

2011-04-16T09:05:00.001-07:00

No Refuge
Andrew Malekoff © 2011

There are more than one-million documented episodes of domestic violence in the United States each year. In Nassau County over 16,000 domestic violence calls were reported to the police one year ago. Nevertheless, only 25% of domestic violence incidents are reported to the police, according to a 2009 report by the Children’s Defense Fund. The collateral damage in these violent encounters is three to ten million child witnesses who feel alone and vulnerable.

What is domestic violence? It is an abusive pattern of behavior that is used by one intimate partner to gain control over another. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats that influence a partner. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, terrorize, threaten or hurt an intimate partner. Although there is a higher incidence of domestic violence against women, men are also victims of domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a community problem that, according to Jim Morin of the Wakefield Alliance against Violence in Massachusetts, “fills our emergency rooms and our morgues…keeps employees from being able to work…makes children fearful and interferes with their ability to learn… contributes to crime on our streets [and] destroys homes and families.”

Children of all ages who witness domestic violence may show signs of crying, irritability, aggressiveness, sleep disturbances, bedwetting, nightmares, digestive problems and developmental delays. These are children who are more likely than their peers from non-violent homes to commit suicide, abuse drugs and alcohol, be unemployed or, later in their lives, to commit violence against their own partners.

For children living in violent homes there is no refuge. There are only adults - terrifying abusers and terrified victims - locked in a perpetual cycle of violence, who are emotionally unavailable and incapable of offering protection. Although children are innocent bystanders, they often feel that they are to blame for the brutality that they witness in their homes. They then carry the shame and self-hatred that blaming oneself generates.

Children who witness violence need to learn how to keep safe when a violent incident happens and need to be clear that they did not cause their parents’ problems and the violence that ensues. They need to understand that they are victims. They need to know that being a child is important and that it is their job to play, learn and make friends, versus attempting to prevent, defuse or repair a violent relationship between adults in their lives. If you know a child who lives in violent home, you can help.

According to Lundy Bancroft, author of “Helping Your Children Heal the Wounds of Witnessing Abuse,” if you know children who are suffering from exposure to violence you can ask them how they are feeling, name possible feelings for them if they cannot name them, reinforce what they tell you about their exposure to violence (“I know this is hard to talk about. You are so brave and I am so proud of you.”), tell them that it is not their fault and tell them that they are safe when they are with you.

When it becomes necessary to take action, do not confront the alleged
abuser under any circumstances. You are unlikely to stop him. If you initiate a confrontation it will likely lead to retribution against the child for betraying the family’s conspiracy of silence. Consult with local resources that can provide you with expert advice and guidance.

If you know a child who is living in such a home call the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence 24/7 Hotline at 516-542-0404 and ask for help.

This column was published in the Anton News, Long Island, NY, in May 2011.

When a Child Refuses to Go to School

2011-04-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

When a Child Refuses to Go to School
Andrew Malekoff © 2011

Twenty-eight percent of children across the United States refuse to go to school at some time during their school years. In a recent survey of new applications at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, we found increasing numbers of children who refused to go to school. This was further validated at a meeting that the Guidance Center hosted for counselors, social workers and psychologists from public and private schools throughout Nassau County.

School-refusal behavior is identified, according to the NYU Child Study Center, in boys and girls from 5-17 who: (1) are entirely absent from school, and/or; (2) attend school initially, but leave during the course of the school day, and/or; (3) go to school following crying, clinging, tantrums or other intense behavior problems, and/or (4) exhibit unusual distress during school days and then plead for future absenteeism.

Naturally, the meeting with local school personnel led to speculation on what causes children to refuse to go to school. To no one’s surprise, bullying topped the list. Nevertheless, although bullying is one cause, other issues such as a transition from one school to another; an illness or death in the family; or school-performance problems, also trigger school refusal.

A few things to consider when school-refusal is a problem in your home:

1. Do your best to get your child to school every day. The more a child is allowed to stay home, the harder it will be to get him or her out of the house;
2. You may think that your child is not being honest about feeling poorly in the morning. Try to remember that anxiety can lead to physical symptoms like aches and pains or nausea;
3. Talk to your child and school personnel to see if you can discover what is leading to his or her avoidance of school. It could be bullying or academic problems or social isolation and trouble making friends;
4. Consider consulting with a school guidance, social work or community-based mental health counselor, especially if every morning is a battle; and
5. If there are troubles at home, like a divorce, death in the family, new sibling, or a recent relocation, don’t ignore them. Family therapy can help to sort things out and increase your child’s ability to cope with difficult changes in his or her life.

School-refusal is an issue that we deal with frequently at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center. Adults – parents, teachers, counselors, coaches – must work together in trying to understand the underlying causes and triggers for a child’s school-avoidance behavior.

By working together – school, community and family - we can be successful in helping fearful or anxious young people to overcome of school-avoidance problems and help them to and return to school and learn, socialize and move forward in their lives.

This column was printed in the Long Island Anton chain of newspapers in April 2011.

PLAYERS TOO QUIET ABOUT HEAD INJURY

2011-03-07T04:57:00.000-08:00

Players too quiet about head injury

Andrew Malekoff

NEWSDAY, appearing on March 3, 2011, p. A35

Concussions in sports have reached alarming proportions that is, indeed, more than an NFL problem ["Football's tragic call to tackle head injury," Editorial, Feb. 25]. This is silent epidemic fueled by a gladiator culture.

What can adults who care about kids do to help to break the silence about this public health issue? We must insist that all children, teenagers and their parents be educated early on about the risks, consequences, signs and symptoms of head injury. This should include values education that puts the gladiator play-at-any-cost culture up for inspection, particularly when it comes to contact sports.

Children need alternative models for demonstrating courage and heart - a counterforce to the dangerous and false belief that putting one's well-being in jeopardy when playing a game is noble. Competitive sports involve sacrifice, perseverance, loyalty, honor and courage - all values that will serve one well throughout life. Maintaining a code of silence about a serious head, or other, injury that can lead to lifelong consequences must be deemed unacceptable.

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 develop the good sense and courage, without shame, to break the silence.

Editor's note: The writer is the executive director of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY FROM HALLMARK

2011-03-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

The One that Got Away from Hallmark

By Andrew Malekoff© 2011

I subscribe to a few magazines for leisurely reading. Occasionally, mail order catalogues addressed to me arrive in the mail. Usually, I throw them out. There are a few catalogs, however that I do thumb through, like the one that I get from L.L. Bean.

None of the mail order catalogs I get these days are as appealing as the Johnson Smith Company catalog that I got when I was a boy. It was a small booklet with colorful illustrations and descriptions of jokes, pranks, collectibles and unusual items. Back in the day, I spent hours pouring through my Johnson Smith catalog imagining what pranks I could play on friends and family.

As each April Fools’ Day approaches, I am reminded of my Johnson Smith days. I was wondering if they still printed a catalog. So I searched the Internet and I found an online catalog with a heading that read: "Things You Never Knew Existed...and other items you can't POSSIBLY live without." I clicked on the link for gags and in a flash I was ten again.

As I scrolled and clicked my way through the online catalog I found a rubber mouse, double-barrel shotgun lighter, flushing toilet bank, gnarly teeth, a Zombie Handbook and more than a few risqué unmentionables. When I clicked on the picture that accompanied each item, I was taken to cleverly-worded descriptions, no doubt aimed at the discernable pre-teen consumer.

For example, there was a Smoking Donkey Cigarette Dispenser. The description said: “Fill the plastic pack mule with 24 regular size cigarettes (not kings). Press his ears back, then down, and he dispenses the cigarettes one at a time from under his tail!” And, there was a disclaimer that read, “Although we do not encourage the use of tobacco products, the Smoking Donkey is a remnant of a bygone era and intended to be a collectible.” What, to display alongside one’s Lladro collection?

Another featured product was a Bible Flask that was advertised as “More Than Meets the Eye!” The ad went on to say: “The good book giveth like never before. A four-ounce stainless steel flask is hidden inside what looks like a classic King James Bible.” This item also included a disclaimer: “WARNING: Not for children under three years.” Does that mean that the Bible Flask is suitable for the kindergarten crowd?

When I was 10-years-old I could read that catalog endlessly. I think it contributed to my developing a pretty good sense of humor.
I think April Fools’ Day is the only holiday that explicitly celebrates having a sense of humor and yet schools and businesses don’t close down. I’m glad that Hallmark didn’t hijack April Fools’ Day and pressure us into another concocted card, gift and expensive restaurant holiday. For April 1st, all you need is a sense of fun and an active imagination.

There are web pages devoted to kid-friendly suggestions for having fun with your family on April 1st. One is written by Kate Goodin who offers lots of ideas. For example, for the kid who checks his e-mail first thing every morning, she suggests parents “put part of a post-it note over the tracking ball on a computer mouse -- it won't work! (Make sure to write ‘April Fools!’ on the note).”

Having an official day that is devoted, each year, to celebrating humor, no matter how juvenile, is more important than we know in these serious and troubling times. So, here’s to April Fools’ Day; the one day, as Mark Twain famously said, that “we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four.”

To be published in the Anton chain of 18 Long Island, NY newspapers in March 2011.

BRUTAL TEENS ON LONG ISLAND

2011-02-12T05:09:00.000-08:00

Brutal Teens on Long Island

by Andrew Malekoff© February 2011

The title of this month’s column is likely to evoke associations of murder and mayhem. However, don’t be misled; this is not a tale of teens gone bad. It is about our winter of discontent. And, I am not talking about NIFA taking over Nassau County’s finances.

So why the title, you may be wondering. It all started with a series of annoying television messages scrolling across the bottom of the screen. One of them read “…brutal teens on Long Island.” It was a partial message that required the viewer’s waiting for the next scroll-go-round to get more details.

I anticipated reading a horror story about violent or victimized teen-agers. But, when the script scrolled back around, the story flipped and the full message read: “Temperature reaches brutal teens on Long Island.”

So, don’t go any further if you were expecting to read about stabbings, shootings or lunchroom riots. But, do read on if you are interested in spending a few minutes reflecting on our record-breaking Long Island winter.

Let us begin with a psychological phenomenon known as seasonal affective disorder, which is appropriately known as SAD. This is a more serious problem than ordinary “winter blahs” or “cabin fever.” SAD only occurs during the winter and is characterized by depression; decreased energy and concentration; carbohydrate or sugar cravings; decreased interest in work or other activities; increased appetite and sleep; excessive weight gain, and social withdrawal. Although you can seek counseling for SAD or hook up one of those special lamps to mimic sunlight, the good news is that SAD symptoms commonly get better with a change of seasons.

But that’s enough psychobabble from me. This winter stinks! I have never experienced such consistent snowfall in my life. If I wanted to live among the flakes I would have moved to Vermont or Colorado (or to L.A. for the other kind). I don’t dislike snow. It is pretty. I admire the beauty of snow-covered trees on the Taconic and mountains on the New York Thruway as much as the next guy. It makes me happy to see kids sledding, skating, building snowmen, having snowball fights and shoveling snow to make some fast cash - all things that I loved to do as a kid.

On second thought, maybe the extreme snowfall this winter is not so bad. After all, we are all in the same boat. Rather than isolation and withdrawal, excessive snow accumulation and the inconvenience and hardship it creates encourages a sense of community. We commiserated with one another about our cars being plowed in, icy walkways and roads, broken wrists and dented vehicles and, in time, the filthy soot-covered mountains and roadside ridges of snow.

Snow brings us together as a people. We help one another dig out, we lend a hand to frail and elderly neighbors by cleaning their walks and we greet red-faced youngsters with dripping noses with cups of hot cocoa after they spend a pleasurable day of frolicking with friends in the snow. I guess this has been a really joyous winter, after all.

Not!

Published in the Anton Newspaper chain of 18 Long Island newspapers, in February 2011.

PARADE OF BROKEN HEARTS

2011-01-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

PARADE OF BROKEN HEARTS

by Andrew Malekoff© January 2011

There will be many reflections about the 2001 terrorist attack on America in the months to come. Following is my reflection on the memorial service at the World Trade Center on October 28, 2001. I attended the service in a group of mental health professionals who offered support for the bereaved.

A chill occurred 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. I headed for the emergency lane on my way to the boat that would be returning us to the pier on 57th Street, where we would be greeting thousands of mourners who planned to collect urns with ashes from ground zero.

Moments earlier I had 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 mustache and a full head of silvery hair, combed straight back. When the memorial service had started, an hour earlier, one of her sons, an off-duty police officer, had asked me to please 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 World Series.

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 the folding chair. I told her that she could grab on to me. “Hold on to my shoulders,” I said. She hesitated. “Don’t worry you won’t knock me over,” I told her.

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 pants 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 had 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 marched in 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.

To be published in the Long Island, New York Anton Newspapers in the last week of January, 2011.

STANDING BY OR STANDING UP TO BULLIES

2010-12-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

Standing By or Standing Up to Bullies

By Andrew Malekoff ©

My friend, Ralph Kolodny, professor emeritus at Boston University School of Social Work, commented on the brutality of the schoolyard in children’s lives. He said, “we tend to forget the pain that normally characterizes interaction among children. Oddly enough,” he added, “the work of the imaginative journalist or novelist often provides a more accurate picture.”

For example, in Ray Bradbury's short story "The Playground," Charles Underhill, a widower, tried to protect his son from the terror of the schoolyard. Underhill wondered how childhood could be considered the best time of life, when it was the “most terrible, most merciless era, the barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world."

Closer to home, four Long Island students - Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam – had the guts to stand up by giving voice to their pain in a recent Newsday exposé entitled, "In their own words: Battling the bullies" (November 14, 2010). Jake, a freshman, said, “Kids would [harass me] and get detention. Then their friends would do what the other did. It was almost like a virus getting passed from one friend to the next…school was just hell.” According to his mom, Jake recently developed stress-related cardiac issues.

I wonder what the consequences will be for these four young people for publicly revealing their suffering and the powerlessness of adults to protect them.

We all know that the boundaries of Bradbury’s fantasy schoolyard now extend into peoples’ homes through cyberspace, virtually obliterating any sense of sanctuary that children once found in the evenings, on weekends and during the summer.

Attempts by adults to rescue children who are bullied by exposing, reprimanding, lecturing or squashing the attackers typically leads to an escalation of the very behavior they to eliminate, further entrenching everyone involved in the process.

Bullying is not about a fair fight, it is about the abuse of social or physical power. Bullies love an audience and, therefore, depend on bystanders. According to the journalist Marian Wilde, “Bystanders are important because bullying most often takes place in front of peers and it almost never happens when adults are watching.”

According to Wilde, “If the audience shows disapproval, bullies are discouraged from continuing. However, bystanders, especially children, need to be empowered to act. The majority of children won't act for a variety of reasons, perhaps because they are afraid, confused or unsure of what to do.”

Bullying is intensified today by a broad decline in civility. We live in a world of grown-ups who do not think twice about overstepping personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.

If we cannot turn back the hands of time, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a reflective pause between impulse and action. Sometimes this involves making the decision to act and to move from standing by to standing up.

Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam showed great courage in standing up for themselves and thousands of other victims of bullies. They stood up publicly, even permitting their photographs to accompany their powerful words. We owe it to them to stand by their sides by joining with our children to stand up for those who suffer in silence at the hands of bullies.

Published in the Anton chain of newspapers in Long Island, New York, December 2010

THE TORMENT OF BULLYING

2010-11-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

The torment of bullying...bullying in the Schools

Originally published in Newsday: November 19, 2010, p. A37

by Andrew Malekoff

In a Ray Bradbury's short story "The Playground," a father tried to protect his son from the horrors of the schoolyard. He wondered how childhood could be considered the best time of life, when it was the most "barbaric time when there were no police to protect you, only parents preoccupied with themselves and their taller world."

I admire the courage of the four kids - Gavin, Maria, Jake and Sam - who gave voice to their experiences in a Newsday story, "In their own words: Battling the bullies," Nov. 14, 2010. I wonder what the consequences will be for them, for publicly revealing their suffering and the powerlessness of adults to protect them.

We all know that the boundaries of the schoolyard now extend into people's homes through cyberspace, virtually obliterating any sense of sanctuary that children once found in the evenings, on weekends and during the summer.

Bullying is intensified today by a broad decline in civility. We live in a world of grown-up people who do not think twice about trampling personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.

If we cannot turn back the hands of time, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a reflective pause between impulse and action.

Editor's note: The writer is the executive director of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center.

PLEASE DO FIGHT WITH YOUR TEEN-AGERS

2010-11-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

PLEASE DO FIGHT WITH YOUR TEEN-AGERS

By Andrew Malekoff© 2011

Teen-agers enjoy a good “fight” with adults who do not feel a need to dominate and are willing to listen. As children progress from the “earthbound” quality of concrete thinking to the “intergalactic” quality of complex thinking, they become capable of formulating contrary-to-fact-hypotheses, of leaping with their minds here, there and everywhere. Herein lays the source of teen-agers’ growing ability and fervor for challenging others’ ideas, beliefs and values and for engaging in furious debate, often to the dismay of parents, teachers and other adults.

One day when my son Jamie was 14, he told me that he was thrown out of class. He had argued with his Spanish teacher about how she had graded a test. One of the questions had a visual component. The class was asked to write, in Spanish, a sentence describing what they had observed in a drawing that depicted two women who were simultaneously holding a gift-wrapped package. Jamie told me that his answer was, “Una mujer está recibiendo un regalo” (A woman is receiving a gift). When the test was returned his answer was marked wrong and points were deducted. The correct answer, the teacher said, was, “A woman is giving a gift.”

He argued that the drawing could be interpreted both ways, giving or receiving. The debate was heated. The teacher was flustered. Jamie pressed on, continuing to argue his point until he was silenced by the teacher

He told me that he then raised his hand. The teacher ignored him at first. Nevertheless, his long outstretched arm became an exclamation point, punctuating the space in the classroom.

“JAMIE WHAT IS IT?” she shouted. He responded, “I just like to hear the sound of my voice.” His enraged teacher then banished him.

British educator Janet Batsleer has spoken eloquently about the hostilities and complicities that young people have experienced in schools. She refers to “Those people who have ‘spoken out of turn,’ or who have not spoken ‘properly,’ or who have learned carefully exactly when to speak in order to please the teacher, or who have become afraid to speak for fear of being spoken about as a problem or in even more hostile ways.”

We should welcome debate from young people. Reasoned arguments gradually replace simple reliance on authoritative pronouncements by grown-ups.

As a child’s brain develops, opposites such as good and bad, or black and white, or yes and no, can be held in one’s mind simultaneously, enabling an individual to examine subtle shadings of disparate ideas and to tolerate the ambiguities that are generated by thoughtful debate. This “quantum leap” in thinking enables one to consider many viewpoints at once, use inductive and deductive thinking to reason and test reality by challenging contradictions and inconsistencies.

Young adolescents find that they can begin to argue for argument’s sake—for the fun of it. When we engage with them in spirited debate we help them to cultivate critical thinking, which is essential in order for a young person to become an active citizen in community affairs; to learn when to stand up and speak out.

So, please do fight with the teen-agers in your life. Fight with them to help them to flex their cognitive muscles and fight with them for fun. If you can avoid becoming defensive or intimidated, you might be pleased to discover that from the same source of adolescent combativeness and intellectual intransigence spring the seeds of inspiration and idealism.

To be published in the Long Island, NY Anton Newspapers in November, 2011.

FRIENDLY FIRE?

2010-09-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

Friendly Fire?

Andrew Malekoff©

Mary Tillman is the mother of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan. She wrote the book Boots on the Ground by Dusk, which detailed her attempt to find out the truth about her son’s death and exposed a cover-up by the Pentagon and the White House. Mary Tillman dedicated the book to “all military families, who are seeking to understand the sacrifices their sons and daughters have made. They too are entitled to the truth from their government.”

Pat Tillman was arguably the most famous soldier serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was an outstanding professional football player with the Arizona Cardinals, who passed up a multi-million dollar contract to join the U.S. Army in 2002. Tillman’s family had a legacy of military service and he felt compelled to fall in step after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack against America.

Tillman had movie-star good looks and an incisive and curious mind. He was a free spirit and a risk-taker. He did not subscribe to any religion, yet he was deeply spiritual. He was married to his high school sweetheart, Marie, and, with her support, enlisted in the Army, along with his younger brother, Kevin. Her two eldest sons advised their mom of their decision on Mother’s Day, May 9, 2002.

When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2002, Pat Tillman said, regarding his decision to enlist, "Sports embodied many of the qualities I deem meaningful. However, these last few years, and especially after recent events, I've come to appreciate just how shallow and insignificant my role is . . . It's no longer important."

Tillman expected to serve in Afghanistan, but did not anticipate the war in Iraq, where he spent his first tour of duty, although he was uneasy about fighting in what he considered to be an illegal war. Sometime later, while in a canyon in Afghanistan, he was killed by gunfire. His death on April 22, 2004 was first attributed to an ambush by enemy forces. A nationally televised memorial service was then held to honor him on May 3, 2004.

As more details became known regarding the circumstances of his death, it was clear that he was not ambushed by the enemy but was killed by “friendly fire” - fratricide. Official documents later revealed that the Army withheld this information from the public and the family until sometime after the memorial service.

In the intervening years Pat’s mom, doggedly searched through thousands of pages of heavily redacted testimony in order to get to the truth. Regarding her tireless search, she observed, "This isn't about Pat, this is about what they did to Pat and what they did to a nation. By making up these false stories, you're diminishing their true heroism. [The truth] may not be pretty, but that's not what war is all about. It's ugly, it's bloody, it's painful. And to write these glorious tales is really a disservice to the nation."

Although the Tillman Story was more well-publicized than many other accounts of war, in the days and months to come more and more soldiers will be returning home to Long Island. Sadly, some families will be left with only emptiness and grief. According to the Veteran’s Health Alliance of Long Island (VHALI), of the 1,000,000 veterans who live in New York State, 174,000 of them live on Long Island. In fact, Long Island is second only to San Diego in the percentage of veterans among its citizens.

In all cases we owe veterans and their families our understanding and support.

This column will be published in the Anton Newspapers, Long Island, NY in October 2010.

"HANG ON"

2010-08-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

“Hang On”

Andrew Malekoff©

About 20-years ago I was swimming in the ocean off Long Beach, where I live, and someone pointed to a cluster of girls that had drifted towards the jetty, the rock formation that helps to protect the shoreline from erosion. The girls must have been pulled out by the undertow and were unnoticed by the lifeguards.

I swam to them. When I arrived, there were three little girls; one looked about nine-years-old. The others, who were crying and holding on to the older girl, appeared to be six or seven. The older girl was barely in control of her emotions. I wrapped my arms around the three of them and said, “Hang on.” Swimming in with them as a group was not an option; neither was leaving any of them behind. All I could do was hold on, calm them, steer them away from the jetty and wait. Finally, the lifeguards arrived and took over. I swam to shore and went back to my beach chair. I never saw the three little girls again. Nevertheless, I think of them often.

When I recall this encounter, I realize that the four of us were strangers who spent maybe 90 seconds together. I said only two words to them: “Hang on.” Ninety seconds, two words and 20-years and I still think about them often. We were so close that I could see their freckles. Afterwards someone told me that they were sisters.

Let’s consider another scenario. Try to picture me swimming out to the three girls. Now, imagine if, instead of telling them to “Hang on,” if I treaded water at a safe distance and asked them if they had Medicaid insurance. Imagine if they answered, “No mister.” And, if I then said, “Sorry, girls,” turned my back on them and swam to shore.

This is the situation that we now face as New York State is making a dramatic departure from its responsibility to make sure that our most vulnerable citizens – our children – get community-based mental health care, regardless of their family’s economic status. They expect us to throw the underinsured middle class and working poor overboard with no life preserver. That’s our government.

And, the health insurance industry is no better. Most private health insurers pay substandard rates that we can no longer afford to accept. To add insult to injury, as one journalist Amy Goodman, observed, “profit-driven insurance claim denials actually 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.

Although Timmy’s death was the impetus for the passage of Timothy’s Law, which extends insurance coverage for mental illness, profit-driven insurance companies still have a very long way to go.

For example, in spite of the deepest and most lasting recession in more than a half a century the five largest health-insurance companies in the U.S. revealed combined profits of $12.2 billion last year.

I invite you to jump into my Atlantic Ocean memory with me, because it is a story that is about more than me and three little girls. It is about all of us and the thousands of children that community-based mental health agencies like ours guide safely to shore every year and offer them the chance to see a brighter day.

New York State and the health-insurance industry need to understand that our children’s lives are at stake and that their ongoing efforts to curtail universal mental health care cannot continue.

Published in September 2010 in 18 Anton Community Newspapers • 132 East 2nd Street • Mineola, NY 11501

LOST LOVE

2010-07-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

LOST LOVE

By Andrew Malekoff© 2010

Last past spring brought the tragic news of the death of Yeardley Love, a member of the University of Virginia women’s lacrosse team, allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend, a UVA men’s lacrosse team player, in an alcohol-fueled fit of rage. Both teams competed in NCAA championship tournaments after Love was buried.

News of the tragedy and the school’s subsequent decision to play on, led me to wonder about how Love’s surviving teammates and friends coped with their emotional turmoil. Being a student-athlete requires a difficult balancing act. Yet there can be no preparation for sudden, inexplicable and violent death.

To explore this further, I interviewed Bob Malekoff, professor of sports studies at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., and former men’s lacrosse and women’s soccer coach at Princeton University. Bob is also my younger brother and the author of the critically acclaimed book, On the Mark: Putting the Student Back in Student-Athlete.

Andy: What do you think about the decision of the UVA teams to play after Love’s death?

Bob: While the two coaches were likely consulted, the ultimate decision would lie with the athletic director and senior university administration - including the president. Although cancellation may have been a wise course of action, there was a great deal of discussion about honoring the wishes of the Love family, which were for both teams to compete in the tournament.

Andy: How do intercollegiate athletics fare when it comes to monitoring off-field behavior?

Bob: Competitive success typically trumps behavioral conduct. This can be seen at all levels from youth sports through professional ranks and, certainly, in intercollegiate athletics. As interest in the game of lacrosse has grown, there is increasing pressure on coaches to win championships. This might lead to less vigilance regarding the off-field behavioral issues of some athletes.

Andy: How does the culture of intercollegiate athletics affect young people just out of high school?

Bob: This depends on the coach and administration. There are coaches who focus on the whole person. Others focus almost exclusively on winning. The shame in the latter is that it doesn't have to be an either-or proposition. Although some conveniently blame coaches, they ought to look, as well, at college leaders who reward competitive success and little else. Coaches who consistently make values-based decisions should be supported and lauded.

Andy: Some reports suggest that, prior to Love’s death, there were signs of violence by her boyfriend.

Bob: No one can blame Yeardley Love’s teammates or members of the men’s lacrosse team for this tragedy. However, there is no doubt that they are now far more aware of what a lethal combination unchecked anger and alcohol can be and how they can contribute to domestic violence.

At UVA’s graduation in May, Yeardley Love received a posthumous bachelor’s degree. In his final speech before retiring, University President John Casteen III recalled some things he would never forget about the school: "The sounds of children on the lawn during Halloween. The chapel's bells. The cheers at games... And the name of Yeardley Love."

Published in 18 Anton Newspapers on Long Island, NY, the week of July 26, 2010.

Homer Simpson on Health Insurance

2010-05-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

Homer Simpson on Health Insurance

Andrew Malekoff© June 2010

We are all familiar with stories about the ineptitude of government officials and regulators in protecting the public. At the SEC, they fell asleep at the wheel as Bernie Madoff made off with billions. In its eagerness to put more low-income families into its own homes, HUD failed to rein in Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae from saddling borrowers with mortgages they could not afford. So, it comes as no surprise to me that I cannot get a straight answer about who regulates the commercial insurance industry in New York State.

New York State is on the verge of implementing a plan for restructuring the financing of community-based mental health clinics. The plan discriminates against the underinsured middle class and working poor and is scheduled to commence on October 1. It represents a dramatic shift away from universal mental health care and towards care for families with Medicaid insurance only.

Those who have Medicaid are able to easily access community-based mental health services. Otherwise, you will soon be out of luck. When a family cannot get essential community-based mental health services that is what is known, in insurance industry parlance, as an inadequate network of care. Network adequacy has to be monitored and enforced.

In an attempt to get some straight answers, I contacted nuclear power plant safety inspector Homer Simpson, who was recently quoted as saying, “America's health care system is second only to Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain; well, all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky stars we don't live in Paraguay!”

Andrew Malekoff: It is great to see you Mr. Simpson. You are looking dapper as ever.
Homer Simpson: D’OH!
AM: I know, I know, enough small talk. So, let’s get down to business. As someone with quality assurance experience, do you have any insights into who is overseeing the commercial insurance industry in New York State?
HS: D’OH!
AM: Are you expressing astonishment at my question, or are your referring to the D.O.H. - the New York State Department of Health?
HS: D’OH!
AM: A state official told me that this was the State Insurance Department’s (SID) jurisdiction.
HS: D’OH!
AM: Okay, okay, take it easy. I contacted a senior examiner at SID and she told me that they (SID) had regulatory authority over all licensed insurance companies and that they did enforce the insurance laws and all policy provisions but, she was quick to add, “We do not get involved in the network adequacy issue.” She said that that was the Department of Health’s job. I take it that you concur?
HS: D’OH!
AM: As I am sure you know, the commercial insurance industry uses managed-care companies to hold down costs. They decide, usually from hundreds of miles away, who gets what kind of mental health care, for how long and at what rate of reimbursement. In other words, they don’t really manage care, they manage cost and sometimes they even mangle care - at a nice profit.
HS: D’OH!
AM: According to Patrick Gauthier from Advocates for Human Potential Healthcare Solutions, “Despite the deepest and most enduring recession in 70 years…the five largest health-insurance companies in the nation disclosed combined profits of $12.2 billion last year — a 56 percent increase over the previous recessionary year. They managed this feat even though they experienced a combined loss of nearly two-million members to unemployment.”
HS: D’OH!
AM: My sentiments exactly! I am not sure that families know what to do if they cannot find a provider in the advertised network of care available to them via their health plan. May I ask you one final question, Mr. Simpson?
HS: D’OH!
AM: It will be quick. I promise. I raised the issue of network adequacy with the network manager for a well-known insurance company. She said to me, “We have a large volume of therapists within a five-mile radius of your agency that see young children which supports that our network needs are being met. What brings clients to your agency rather than an individual clinician's office?” How do you think I should answer her?
HS: First of all, Marge and I want to thank the Guidance Center for helping our family. Here is what I recommend you say in response to the network manager’s question: “The kind of comprehensive service that a community-based provider offers cannot be duplicated by any private practitioner in your network. For example, at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, the wrap-around services, for which they are not reimbursed by you or any commercial insurer, are by no means unnecessary frills or perks. They are essential services for working with a growing population of families in emergent crisis and in need of a community-based agency approach that is designed for this population, versus an individual private practitioner with limited availability, time and resources.” That should set her straight. Now I have to leave before happy-hour is over at Moe’s.
AM: D’OH!

To learn more about your rights as a health care consumer go to the following website: http://www.ins.state.ny.us/hrights.htm.

Published in the Anton chain of 18 newspapers, Long Island, New York in June 2010

MAKING ROUNDS

2010-05-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

MAKING ROUNDS

by Andrew Malekoff © 2010

I have been writing this column since February 2007. Although I try to make points to be helpful to parents and other community members that care about kids, sometimes I think what I make are “rounds” that are less hard-edged and softer than points.

My reflections in this month’s column don’t unfold in a straight line, rather in a circular and pattern. I do not think that my memories are remarkable. They are made up of a combination of milestones, transitions and random, mundane associations. I am not sure if they will have universal appeal. I will leave that for you to decide.

I was born in Newark, New Jersey on May 14, 1951. In my early years I grew up in a second floor flat in the same neighborhood where author Philip Roth once lived. The best thing about where I lived was that there were stores around the corner. Among my favorites were a bakery, candy store, luncheonette and a burger joint with a pinball machine.

My grandfather Joe was a carpenter who emigrated from Russia. He lived with us for a few months. He lost an eye in an on-the-job accident. It was replaced with a glass eye that he removed from time to time to show to me. He once mistook a box of Spic ‘n Span, a cleaning product, for a box of Wheatena oatmeal. The boxes were similar in size, rectangular shape and orange color. As a result of the mix-up, a pot of boiling water and cleaning powder overflowed and flooded the kitchen with soap suds.

My other grandfather Harry was a tavern owner who came to the U.S. from Poland. He had diabetes and two prosthetic legs that I once saw him take off and put on. I often wondered what fake parts I would have when I got older.

My aunt Rose, my dad’s younger sister, told me a story about when my mom and dad first met. The two families planned a get together at my mom’s house. I found out that my dad’s family was worried because Grandpa Joe slurped his soup. Aunt Rose told me that, although they were poor, they did not want to appear to be low class. When the soup was served they held their breath waiting for Grandpa Harry to start. He slurped too. Everyone was relieved and, well, the rest is history.

We moved to a suburb of Newark called Maplewood when I was 10-years-old. It happened fast and without any warning. There was a moving truck one day and the next day my younger brother and I were sleeping in a new bedroom where we heard crickets outside the window. No one consulted me about moving. I left all of my friends behind and had to make new friends.

In the suburbs I rode my bike everywhere since there were no stores around the corner. My father, Izzy, took over the tavern after Grandpa Harry died. The tavern was called the P.O.N. which stands for the Pride of Newark. One day someone set the P.O.N. on fire. Some years later there were race riots in Newark. I did not see my dad that much in those days.

My mother, Evelyn, started her own business when I was in junior high school. I didn’t understand. I later learned that it was to help pay the bills. She was an antiques dealer. In time she opened her own store. The sign on the store read: Antique Evelyn. That is what she was known by for the rest of her years.

My parents died in the 1990’s after at least a decade of serious health problems.
My father had multiple myeloma and my mother had heart disease. During my earlier childhood years my parents each smoked three packs of Camels every day. Sometimes they sent me to the store to buy them for twenty-five-cents a pack.

One day in the early 1990’s, when her health was failing and she was living alone, my mother fell. She called me from a hospital in Newark. The call came at two-in-the-morning. She sounded groggy when she asked me to bring her a box of tooth powder. By this time I was living on Long Island. I drove to the hospital. Her face was bruised and swollen from the fall. She wanted the tooth powder to hold her dentures in place so that she would look good. I stayed with her for a little while and then drove home and went to work.

My father died in the same hospital where I was born. I slept in my dad’s hospital room for several days before I watched him take his last breath on a late Sunday afternoon in May. And, then I drove back to Long Island, to a neighborhood where there are stores that I can walk to, just around the corner from where I live.

Published in the Long Island based Anton Newspapers in April / May 2010.

“Will all parenting experts please leave the room!”

2010-05-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

“Will all parenting experts please leave the room!”
By Andrew Malekoff © 2010

“We have a new word in our lexicon – parenting. The word refers to what I call the technology of being a parent. The increased usage of the term is most unfortunate, and I avoid it wherever possible.” So says La Jolla, California psychologist Richard Farson in his new book, “Will all Parenting Experts Please Leave the Room!” (Western Behavioral Sciences Institute: http://www.wbsi.org/farson/books.htm).

In my unvarnished view of parenthood, it is less a well-posed, still-life portrait and more a roller-coaster ride; harrowing yet fun, with unexpected twists and turns, ascents and descents. You experience anxious anticipation and vertigo-inducing surround-sound. Sometimes, however, it is not so exciting - more like a crawling commute in rush- hour traffic, enervating, meandering, puzzling and endless.

As many of us know, parenthood can bring confusion, misunderstanding and doubt. This is an inescapable reality for most parents. Parenthood is rarely neat. It is more abstract than still life, more jazz than classical. Yet, according to Richard Farson, there is a myth that one can learn parenting techniques and all will be good.

Many times parents feel helpless because their kids make noise and move about, laugh and have fun at what feel like the most inopportune times. Raw parenthood looks like it just crawled out of bed; it is a half-eaten slice of pizza, a shirt hanging out, a chair leaning back, a runny nose, mismatched socks and a dripping ice cream cone. And there are moments when it can also be compared to a sunset. Parenthood is an adventure.

At times, parents feel ashamed and apologetic; and yet, the unspoken message from the “experts,” according to Farson, is that “somewhere there exists a person, an expert, who has it all figured out and knows how [be a perfect parent]. No wonder parents feel vaguely incompetent at the very time they think they are acquiring helpful information.” Farson offers readers a fresh, if controversial, view on the absurdities and paradoxes of parenthood, in the face of a consistent downpour of advice on what has come to be known as “parenting.” For example, he says, “Most parents love their children. Most would die for them. Paradoxically, however, as a society we do not honor or respect or even like our children. We indoctrinate, patronize, ignore, mistreat, segregate, dominate, prohibit, compel and incarcerate them.”

Among his riffs is one on the myth of quality time and the belief that how much time we spend with our children is less important than how the time is spent.

Farson reasons that genuine quality time should not be measured in discrete bursts of undivided attention. Quite the contrary he says, “It is the time when you don’t have to do anything with your child, when the child simply knows that you are around and available. It is taking comfort in the simple awareness of each other’s presence. It is allowing yourself to be angry with your child, in the knowledge that there will be time to get over it and make up.”

His advice about the myriad of books on how to have quality time with your children is to ignore them. My advice: don’t ignore Farson’s book. It will make you scratch your head. It may even make your head hurt and make you feel angry. At just 107 pages, and, with such chapter headings as “Parenting is Impossible” and “Don’t Pity the Latchkey Children,” this anti-parenting parenthood book is a must read.

And, if you are really looking for a headache, you can then read Farson's “Will All Marriage Experts Please Leave the Room!”

To be published in the Long Island based Anton Newspapers in May 2010.

IF YOUR CHILD IS NOT HEALTHY, MY CHILD IS NOT SAFE

2010-03-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

IF YOUR CHILD IS NOT HEALTHY, MY CHILD IS NOT SAFE

Andrew Malekoff © 2010

Gladys Carrión, Commissioner of the New York State Office of Children & Family Services, oversees 26 juvenile detention facilities that hold close to 2,000 kids under 16 who have committed criminal acts. In a 2008 interview with New York Daily News, she stated that over 80% of the adolescents in this system have serious mental health problems that go untreated. Carrión described the network of juvenile facilities as a “pipeline to prison.” The system damages children and families and fails to make our neighborhoods safer.

Sara Montalbano, a social worker at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, who specializes in mental health counseling for delinquents and juvenile offenders and their families, has worked with a wide range of adolescents. “On one end of the spectrum,” she explains, “there are kids who were arrested for punching a hole in the wall at home. On the other end, there are kids who set fires and committed assaults and murders.” Montalbano asserted that, “There are not adequate resources to help these children and families on either end of the continuum.”

In an exposé by New York magazine (Feb. 10, 2010), it was reported that a US Department of Justice investigation found that employees in several New York State juvenile detention facilities were “restraining kids so often and with so much force that kids had endured concussions, broken teeth and broken bones.”

Since her appointment in 2007, Commissioner Carrión has closed 9 juvenile residential facilities. This has been replaced, in part, with alternatives-to-prison prevention programs that include psychiatric support and family therapy. However, historically elected officials have hesitated to support “pay now or pay later” prevention programs.

“The fundamental problem with elected officials,” according to Lee Staples, clinical professor at the University of Boston School of Social Work, “is that they almost always choose to ‘pay later’ because when the bill comes due, they frequently are no longer in the same office. They are resistant to ‘paying now’ for fear of losing the immediate votes of angry taxpayers.” This is a structural problem that works against almost all preventive programs. Add in “the paradox of prevention,” whereby the general public no longer sees a pressing problem when social programs are successful, and those same programs suddenly are at risk.

According to Dr. Staples, “We saw the phenomenon clearly in the city of Boston when gang violence spiked more than a decade ago. Some very effective preventive programs were put in place, violent crime statistics dropped dramatically, the programs were cut and the statistics almost immediately shot back up. It is not so much that politicians cannot learn that prevention really saves money but, rather, they see an imperative to act based on short-term electoral self-interest and immediate budgetary constraints – which, of course, is always present in an underdeveloped social welfare system.”

Closer to home, in 2009, then Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi threatened to shut down 43 community-based youth services that served over 60,000 children and families across Nassau County, to help close a reported $130-million dollar county budget deficit. The impact of eliminating critical prevention services would have resulted in a greater cost to taxpayers - $200,000 per year to lock-up a juvenile in a state residential facility. And, the return on the investment is poor, as almost 90% of those locked up in these settings engage in ongoing criminal activity.

The citizens that fought back to preserve youth services in Nassau County were operating at a higher moral standard than those who were counting votes. Morality aside, though, advocates for youth services have a visceral understanding about the real consequences of not supporting prevention. They are not, as the old insult goes, “bleeding hearts.” If a person supports prevention it does not mean that they excuse criminal behavior.

It does not take a bleeding heart, only a rationale mind, to know that if your child is not healthy, my child is not safe.

This Parenting Plus column by Andrew Malekoff was first published in the Anton Newspapers chain of Long Island on March 25, 2010.

RED DOT IN HAITI, TEAR DROPS ON LONG ISLAND

2010-02-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

RED DOT IN HAITI, TEAR DROPS ON LONG ISLAND

By Andrew Malekoff© 2010

Ludmyard Charles, 16, said that when she got home the phone rang. It was her father. He told her to get a glass of water. Then he asked her if she was sitting down. Next, he shared the heartbreaking news that her aunt, Ludmyard, was killed in the earthquake. The aunt she was named after who was pregnant, had lost her life when the earth opened up. The girl’s eyes filled up and she said of her aunt - “We were like sisters.”

A few days ago, I had the privilege of meeting Ludmyard and six of her fellow Westbury High School students, all of whom have roots in Haiti. I asked them about the emotional aftershocks of the January 12th earthquake that toppled national landmarks and shantytown homes and killed and injured untold hundreds of thousands of people in and around the capital city Port-au-Prince.

Each one of the four girls and three boys learned about the earthquake when they arrived home after being together in an after-school program led by North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center. Eighteen-year-old Vayola Justinian recalled, “When I got home my mom was crying. The TV was on. When I looked at the screen I saw a map of Haiti. There was a red dot.”

I asked the students about the media coverage and they said that it was both good and bad. “It was good to have updates,” said 18-year-old Joes Paraison, “but bad to see pictures of the dead and injured.” The others nodded and Joes said, “By the second day it felt like my family was going crazy” watching television. He said that the faces on the screen were hard to see clearly, leading them to wonder if anyone of them was a family member. Joes then recalled a most troubling of images - “a truckload of dead children.” Seeing such devastation from afar, including pictures of people buried underneath rubble, added to their feelings of helplessness and their wish to be there to help.

Their counselor Pascale Beaubrun, a native of Haiti, who is based at the Guidance Center’s Leeds Place in Westbury, later said that they turned their sorrow into action by collecting money and contributing to the Yéle Haiti Earthquake Fund, a charity initiated by Grammy-award-winning musician and producer, Wyclef Jean.

Myriam Jerome, 18, reasoned that it was better that the earthquake happened in the afternoon when everyone was out and about. Had it happened in the late evening when they were asleep in their homes, she explained, there would have been an even greater human toll.

Unwinding from a day at school Michael Belizaire, 17, played a video game, while the youngest in this group, 15-year-old Policia Jean, turned on MTV. Both were later alerted by family members to tune in to CNN. In a short time they too saw the red dot in Haiti. Michael told us that his family’s house in Haiti was near the National Palace in Champs de Mars. He worried about his father and uncle who, he later learned, had survived.

Joes said that he tried to “move on” and had discovered that it was not as easy as it sounded. “Each day when I go to school, I try to forget, but every day when I get there someone else is crying.”

“How do you cope?” I asked. They turned to one another and gestured in a manner that emphasized their deep connection to one another. They talked about the support offered by groups of Haitian youths in school and in the community.

Camy Pierre, 16, said that it was important “to comfort one another and don’t do anything reckless or lose control.” I asked Camy what he meant by that. He said that some of their peers were insensitive and said hurtful things about Haiti. Michael chimed in and stated how important it was to always “think positive.”

I asked about what they did when friends alone were not enough. One of the girls said that she was worried about a girlfriend who was so distraught that she thought she could hurt herself. When she realized that more than friendship was needed, she advised a trusted school counselor. All of them said that they were aware of where and who to go to for more specialized support in school and in the community and found support in that as well.

Expressions of helplessness and grief quickly turned to frustration and anger as they talked about disturbing phone calls from Haiti and learning about mass graves and rampant lawlessness and rape. I said that it must be unbearable to sit with such news. Joes emphasized the importance of talking and not allowing one’s feelings to get "all bunched up."

Long after we said goodbye, I was left with a feeling of abiding respect and pride for this group of thoughtful and deeply empathic young people. They are, without a doubt, among the finest of Haiti’s - and Long Island’s - sons and daughters. Let us never forget them.

To be published in the Anton Newspapers on Long Island New York, February 24, 2010.

Medicaiding-the-System Redux

2010-01-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

Medicaiding-the-System Redux

by Andrew Malekoff©

January, 2010

Executive Director, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center
Roslyn Heights, New York 11577

BONUS-DOLLAR BLITZ CIRCA 1991

In 1991, New York State implemented a plan to use Medicaid dollars to fund outpatient community-based mental health services. That two-decade-old approach, also known as Medicaiding-the-system, is on its way out.

Medicaiding-the-system was a combination of (1) a base Medicaid rate applied for each outpatient mental health visit for Medicaid recipients only and (2) supplemental or bonus dollars paid on top of each base payment to subsidize non-Medicaid recipients. This approach to support community-based agencies was developed to replace local assistance or deficit-financing.

Local assistance was a simple and sensible public-private financing partnership. The partners were the State and County governments (through government contracts), mental health consumers (through fee-for-service payments) and the local community (through fund-raising).

Local assistance funding insured that all stakeholders chipped in a fair share to support an essential community-based service. However, New York State decided that if Medicaid could cover these costs, that they could systematically reduce and ultimately eliminate the amount that they chipped in through local assistance contracts.

If New York State will not support essential community-based mental health services for the most vulnerable members of our communities, who will?

BONUS-DOLLAR BLITZKREIG CIRCA 2010

In recent years, New York State recognized that the Medicaid bankrolled bonus-dollar approach of financing community-based clinics had the inadvertent affect of propping up commercial insurers that were paying substandard rates and limiting access to essential services. Having uncovered that festering wound, they got to work on creating a new financing plan that they refer to as clinic reform.

The clinic reform plan will raise the Medicaid-base rate and phase out bonus-dollars over a four-year-period. The Medicaid base-rate will apply only to those individuals that have what is known as straight Medicaid insurance; that is, Medicaid that is not managed by a commercial insurance company. There will be no reliable funding stream to replace the lost bonus dollars except for a finite pool of funds, presumably to cover services for indigent consumers.

In discussions with State officials about the devastating consequences of the clinic reform plan for the middle class and working poor, I was told that clinics must re-negotiate rates with commercial insurers. That is nothing new. It is common practice. The State officials advised me that if the commercial insurers do not raise their rates to sufficient levels that will help to cover the cost of services provided, then we should terminate our contracts with them.

Community-based providers routinely re-negotiate rates with the managed-care companies that represent the commercial insurers. However, they rarely agree to rates that will cover the cost of service. As one such managed-care company representative recently told us, “C’mon, we are hurting too.” For more information on public and private insurance markets in New York I refer you to the following website: http://www.uhfnyc.org/publications/880618.

If we drop the commercial insurers, as I was advised to do, it means that middle class and working-poor families are out of luck. They will not be able to afford to pay out of pocket to access community-based outpatient mental health services that are structured to meet their families’ needs. For example, at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, almost 30% of all evaluations in 2009 were emergencies that were seen within 24 to 48 hours. Who will take care of these emergencies? Private practitioners?

Clinic reform is nothing more than a downgraded version of Medicaiding-the-system. With clinic reform, the term community-based mental health center becomes a thing of the past as only a small segment of the local community will be able to access needed services.

APRIL FOOL’S DAY 2010

New York State is throwing in the towel at a time when there is unprecedented need for community-based mental health services. As the complex funding history described above is demystified, more and more families are advocating for a freeze on clinic reform. I urge you to call your local New York State legislators and tell them to extend the projected clinic reform start date of April 1, 2010 and to restore local assistance financing.

Don’t accept, “But there is no money!” for an answer. Please listen; the fact is that the cost to place a child or teenager in a psychiatric or juvenile detention center or a young adult in jail is far greater than what it costs to support quality community-based mental health care that will keep them at home.

We all know that familiar refrain, pay now or pay later.

This is an advance proof of Mr. Malekoff’s monthly column PARENTING PLUS, that is scheduled for publication in January, 2010 in the Long Island, New York Anton chain of newspapers.

BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF CARE

2009-12-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF CARE

By Andrew Malekoff©

What do the following have in common? Asthma, Cancer, Crohn's Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Degenerative Disc Disease, End Stage Renal Disease, Hepatitis C, Hypoglycemia, Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Leg-Calvé-Perthes, Marfan Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, Migraines, Polycystic Kidney Disease, Scoliosis and Supraventricular Tachycardia.

If you guessed that they were all physical illnesses you are correct. However, another common thread is they are illnesses that a group of young people in the radical-alternative DIY (do-it-yourself) community have been diagnosed with and have written about (along with a few young people that care about them) in a publication entitled Sick, a compilation zine on physical illness.

For the uninitiated, a zine (derived from magazine) is a topical publication typically intended for an alternative or underground audience. A zine tends to include written and visual work aimed at promoting and supporting a social movement. DIY represents an ideal or value for many young people who associate themselves with the punk subculture.

One contributor, Luci, speaks for her fellow contributors when she asks, "How can a disabled person find allies and support?" This book will help supporters and supportees to find some answers, insight and inspiration.

Among the moving narratives in SICK is a love story entitled “Scar Mates” by Rainbow, who has been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. After being rejected by one young suitor who could not deal with the scars left behind after Rainbow’s open heart surgery and kidney transplant, she fell in love with a young man that she met on-line, who has been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and Diabetes.

Along with providing poignant first-hand accounts of living with physical illness and chronic disease, many of the authors offer practical advice for young people struggling with these ailments, as well as suggestions for friends and family members that care about them. For example, the authors advise patients to be kind and understanding about themselves and to ask for what they need.

There are also useful tips for friends and family members. In a piece entitled, “Illness and support,” Ben Holtzman says that people with illness do want to talk about it. He says that saying something small is almost always better than saying nothing at all. The practical advice contained in the collection might be dubbed as uncommon common sense because, although it seems very basic, it is the kind of advice that requires gentle prodding and encouragement to carry it out.

Beyond practical tips, there is great wisdom sprinkled throughout. For example, Emily Klamer, a student, writer and activist from Missouri, who is living with degenerative disc disease, writes elegantly about the “lurking threat” of illness that we all face sooner or later.

SICK editor and essayist Ben Holtzman, who was diagnosed with cancer at age 26, introduces the collection by stating that, "Illness is considered taboo; it's seen by many as awkward, if not depressing, to bring up...The collective strength of these pieces...is meant to further... action toward building communities of care."

The stories are gritty, no-holds-barred, first-hand accounts of what it is like to live and cope with physical illness and chronic disease, including the struggle to get and then find one’s way through the maze that is health insurance. By openly revealing what it feels like to be young and sick, the authors - mostly young women - go a long way towards supporting Holtzman's vision.

Hospitals and physicians would do well to have this publication, and ones like it, available as resources for young people with physical illnesses and their friends and family members. Giving voice to what it is like to suffer in silence, is a way that these young DIY authors have extended the bonds of belonging to create true communities of care.

Write to illnesszine@gmail.com if you are interested in learning more about building communities of care.

Published in the Anton newspapers on Long Island, NY in December 2009.

LONG ISLAND BUSINESS NEWS ON CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH

2009-11-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

Long Island Business News

Pushing for parity

Commentary by Andrew Malekoff

Published: November 2, 2009, page 20A

More low income and middle-class families than ever before are in need of low cost, high quality community-based mental health care. Yet, the New York State Office of Mental Health is implementing a plan that will result in a system of community care where only those children and families with Medicaid “fee for service” insurance coverage will be assured ongoing access to these critical services. At the same time, Gov. Paterson has proposed cutting local assistance dollars for behavioral health services.

The erosion of local assistance funding in conjunction with clinic reform is the perfect storm for the destruction of children’s community-based mental health services on Long Island. There will be no real cost savings left in the wake of this storm, only the incalculable cost of young lives being lost and set adrift, and families being splintered and destroyed.

A once proud community-based mental health care system that was “for one and for all” is being systematically deconstructed into a depleted “Medicaid-only, others need not apply” delivery system.

New York state has a statutory responsibility to make sure that its most vulnerable citizens – our children – get care regardless of their families’ economic status. Instead, what we are getting is institutionalized classism that cuts the middle class and working poor out of the behavioral health equation. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the new Federal Mental Health Parity Act will not help.

Offering unlimited clinic visits at substandard rates is not parity, but rather a barrier that denies access to the middle class and working poor. Commercial insurers that cannot demonstrate an adequacy of network for behavioral health care should have their licenses revoked by the State Department of Insurance.

Community clinics have always been a mainstay in addressing the needs of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances and their families. Private psychotherapists and counselors, with rare exception, cannot afford to offer the labor-intensive work necessary to properly serve families that are struggling with serious emotional disturbances.

I call on New York State, in conjunction with local governments, to restore and enhance rather than slash local assistance funding – a partnership between local and state government, the local community and the client-consumer. Action must to be taken now to reverse the course of clinic reform and to preserve local assistance funding before it is too late.

Andrew Malekoff is executive director and chief executive of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, in Roslyn Heights.

TESTIMONY ON GOVERNOR PATERSON'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS TO HUMAN SERVICES

2009-10-31T06:50:00.000-07:00

New York State Hearing on Governor Paterson’s Proposed Budget Cuts
Brookhaven Town Hall Auditorium
Farmingville, New York
Testimony by Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director / CEO
North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center
480 Old Westbury Road
Roslyn Heights, New York 11577

Representing the Long Island Coalition of Behavioral Health Providers, Inc.
400 Garden City Plaza – Suite 202
Garden City, NY 11530

October 27, 2009
Good afternoon senators. My name is Andrew Malekoff and I am the executive director and CEO for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, New York. I am here representing the Long Island Coalition of Behavioral Health Providers.

More low income and middle-class families than ever before are in need of low cost, high quality community-based mental health care. Yet, the New York State Office of Mental Health is implementing a plan for these critical services that will result in a system of community care where only those children and families with Medicaid “fee for service” insurance coverage will be assured ongoing access to care. At the same time, Governor Paterson has proposed cutting local assistance dollars for behavioral health services.

The erosion of local assistance funding in conjunction with the march towards clinic reform is the perfect storm for the destruction of children’s community-based mental health services on Long Island. There will be no real cost savings left in the wake of this storm; only the incalculable cost of young lives being lost and set adrift, and families being splintered and destroyed.

For more than half a century North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center has been a proud provider of community-based mental health services on Long Island. The lethal mix of clinic reform and decades of diminished local assistance dollars portends a mental health delivery system that will no longer assure access to mental health care for children regardless of their parents’ ability to pay.

A once proud community-based mental health care system that was “for one and for all” is being systematically deconstructed into a depleted “Medicaid-only, others need not apply” delivery system.

New York State has a statutory responsibility to make sure that its most vulnerable citizens, our children, get care regardless of their families’ economic status. Instead, what we are getting is institutionalized classism that cuts the middle class and working poor out of the behavioral health equation.

Many children with what seems like ample health insurance coverage will no longer receive behavioral healthcare services from community clinics as a result of the lack of parity between government (Medicaid) rates and rates paid by commercial insurers for behavioral health care. And, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the new Federal Mental Health Parity Act will not help. Offering unlimited clinic visits at substandard rates is not parity, but rather a barrier that denies access to the middle class and working poor. Commercial insurers that cannot demonstrate an adequacy of network for behavioral health care should have their licenses revoked by the State Department of Insurance.

Community clinics have always been a mainstay in addressing the needs of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances and their families. Private psychotherapists and counselors, with rare exception, cannot and afford to offer the labor intensive work necessary to properly serve families that are struggling with serious emotional disturbances.

We call on New York State, in conjunction with local government, to restore and enhance rather than slash local assistance funding – a partnership between local and state government, the local community and client-consumer. Action must to be taken now to reverse the course of clinic reform and to preserve local assistance funding before it is too late.

Thank you, senators, for holding this hearing and for giving me the opportunity to testify before the committee.

Andrew Malekoff is executive director and chief executive officer for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, Roslyn Heights, New York email: amalekoff@northshorechildguidance.org

DENTALLY CHALLENGED

2009-10-31T06:36:00.001-07:00

DENTALLY CHALLENGED

By Andrew Malekoff©

A few months ago there was a news report about a guy from upstate New York that was accused of practicing dentistry without a license. The report stated that he operated in his kitchen. In lieu of Novocain he offered his patients a slug of wine to help them through the pain. The story brought back a flood of memories from my childhood. One was a traumatic episode that I re-live to this day every time I sit in a dentist’s chair.

Our family dentist, a family friend, reminded me of the actor Peter Lorre. If you are too young to recall him, Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor that often played alongside Humphrey Bogart and was typecast as a creepy, sinister foreigner.

Summer Camp

As a pre-teen in New Jersey many of my friends went away to upstate summer camps in “the mountains.” For me, summer days could be fun or long and boring. I stayed at home and spent my summers at area swimming pools and playgrounds or watching baseball games on television. Except, that is, for one summer in the early 1960’s. My mom asked me if I’d like to go to sleep away camp for a month. I was ecstatic for the opportunity and said, “Yes!”

Along with the news about going away, were sudden car trips to the doctor for a physical exam and a series of shots, and to the dentist to get my teeth checked out. I passed the physical with flying colors and took the shots in stride. I didn't do so well with the dentist. On the car ride home mom told me that I needed sixteen fillings. Sixteen! Since camp was only a few days away she said that I had to get all of the fillings at one time. An appointment was set for the next Friday night at eight-o’clock.

Sitting Down

The dentist’s office was in his house and adjacent to his kitchen where my mom sat from 8 pm to 12 am drinking coffee and chatting with his wife. He did not give me Novocain, which was consistent with my other visits. In-between drillings and fillings Peter Lorre slithered away through a door that led to the kitchen, maybe for a slug of wine reserved for adult patients, while I sat quietly waiting for the next assault. I was stoic. I didn’t complain or shed a tear all night.

I discovered that I could endure lots of pain, and hide it well, on that warm summer night. When we left I didn’t say anything about it to mom or to anyone else.

My only four weeks at sleep away camp were fun. What I remember most though, like it was yesterday, were the four hours in the dentist’s chair.

Standing Up

I recently found a website dedicated to “dental horror stories.” One was written by someone much younger that me, who said that his dentist was always in a rush. One time when he was a kid, he said, the dentist started drilling about 30 seconds after he shot him up with Novocain and before he was numb. He said, “I grabbed him by the wrist and told him to stop.”

He left in a huff and came back five minutes later to finish the job when he was fully numb. Nevertheless, he “fired” the dentist after the encounter, despite the fact that he had a close association with his family. His parents were very upset that he refused to see that dentist again. “I didn’t care,” he said, “he acted like a jerk, and I wasn’t going to stand for it!”

Good for him and for all kids (and others) today that are willing to stand up to authority in the right way and at the right time. Good for you!

This column originally appeared in the Anton newspaper chain on Long Island, New York, October 28, 2009.

THERE ARE JUST NO WORDS

2009-09-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

THERE ARE JUST NO WORDS

By Andrew Malekoff©

Almost a year ago, Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was murdered allegedly by a group of high school boys on a hate-crime spree. Shortly after the murder I was invited to participate as one of six panelists in an online forum sponsored by Newsday.

The panel addressed a number of themes - exposure to prejudice, bigotry and discrimination, the role of the schools and bridging communication gaps. The final theme of the forum was “confronting authority.” This was presented by the editors as follows: “…there are growing suspicions that government institutions have played a major role in perpetuating racial tensions. New allegations that have surfaced since Lucero's death suggest that inadequate attention has been given to patterns of hate-driven violence. Add to that the intensifying trend in law enforcement toward criminalizing and cracking down on illegal immigration. How do community members deal with racism and hate crime when law enforcement and other authorities are seen as complicit in the oppression and violence?”

As I considered this, no prescriptive response came to mind. Instead, a troubling image was jarred loose within me. The image is of a black-and-white photograph that appears on the jacket of a book I read entitled Sons of Mississippi, by Paul Hendrickson. The book is based on that single photograph. It depicts a close-knit gathering of seven Mississippi sheriffs at the University of Mississippi prior to the admission of its first black student James Meredith in 1962. One of the sheriffs is brandishing an axe handle, to the obvious delight of the others. They are anticipating and evidently preparing to participate in the upheaval to come as James Meredith prepares to integrate the University of Mississippi.

Hendrickson’s narrative is culled from interviews, research of documents and literature about the era. Most compelling are his interviews with the sheriffs’ sons and grandsons and with Meredith's son, Joe, regarding their experiences with racism.

Thinking about that photograph makes me wonder about how, 40 years from now, the children of the Long Island law enforcement and other government officials that have, in some cases, turned a blind eye to hate-driven violence or even encouraged it, will look back at the November 9, 2008 murder of Marcelo Lucero. Also how will children and grandchildren of Lucero’s contemporaries view it.

Near the end of the book Hendrickson offers readers one final perspective on the chilling photo of the sheriffs. He quotes the poet and art critic Mark Strand, who reflects on the paintings of Edward Hopper. Strand says, "The shadow of dark hangs over them, making whatever narratives we construct around them seem sentimental and beside the point." This describes precisely how I feel about the murder of Marcelo Lucero as I visualize a photograph taken almost one year ago of seven teen-aged boys from Patchogue, New York in white jumpsuits and handcuffs.

Sometimes there are just no words.

First published in the Anton Newspaper chain on Long Island, New York on September 23, 2009.

PROJECT REBIRTH

2009-08-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

PROJECT REBIRTH

By Andrew Malekoff©

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America, several artists joined together to produce a soft cover book entitled 9/11: Artists Respond. The book of graphic art showcases the artists’ responses to the terror that befell the world. One nine-frame piece by Jeph Loeb and Scott Campbell entitled “Please Stand By…” features a girl of about eight years of age watching cartoons on television. By the third and fourth frames, the image on the screen changes to a live feed of the Twin Towers ablaze. As the little girl stands transfixed, stuffed animal in hand and her face less than 12 inches from the screen, the commentator announces, “We interrupt this program to take you live…” the little girl turns away and calls, “Mommy…” The next three frames show her mother dropping a basket of laundry. Then, with her face contorted in anguish, the mother embraces 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?”

Recently I had the opportunity of viewing another set of images in the form of a moving 30-minute preview of a feature-length documentary film by filmmaker Jim Whitaker that captures rebuilding of the World Trade Center (WTC) and nine people coping with 9/11. Whitaker, who was visiting New York City to attend a wedding at the time of the terrorist attack, is the founder of Project Rebirth, a non-profit initiative aiming to chronicle living history and honor 9/11 victims and first responders.

The film introduces us to a diverse group of nine people, all of whom were impacted by 9 / 11 and agreed to participate in a series of interviews conducted by Whitaker during following years. These individuals include:

• A survivor from an impact floor on the South Tower
• A NYPD officer who oversaw recovery efforts at the Fresh Kills Landfill
• A fireman that survived the collapse of the Towers, but lost his best friend in addition to 343 fellow firefighters
• A teenage boy who lost his mother
• A young woman who lost her fiancé
• A construction worker who lost his brother and assisted with recovery efforts
• A Muslim American woman who became an advocate for religious tolerance
• A volunteer in the recovery effort who later assisted hurricane Katrina survivors
• A man who lost his domestic partner of 14 years and then moved to the West Coast

They generously offer us, and future generations no doubt, the intimate gift of their unfolding grief and resiliency in the face of disaster.

The film is scheduled for release in 2010. In addition to preserving history through this personal record of the long-term grieving process, it is the aim of this film to capture the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. This is accomplished through the use of 12 time-lapse cameras recording 24/7 at the WTC site.

It is the mission of Project Rebirth, beyond creating the documentary, to educate and inform students and future generations, and to help support victims of and first responders to major disasters. A Project Rebirth Center will be developed to integrate and improve on therapeutic, educational and training resources focused on grief and trauma suffered by victims and first responders to major disasters.

I am not sure whether Project Rebirth answers the little girl’s question of, “when are the cartoons gonna come back on?” But I am certain that this astounding work of art will go a long way toward helping survivors and responders of disasters to find their ways out of the darkness.

For more information visit the Project Rebirth website at www.projectrebirth.org.

Originally printed in the Anton Newspapers on Long Island on August 27, 2009.

REFORM PLAN LEAVES CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS BEHIND

2009-08-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

REFORM PLAN LEAVES CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS BEHIND

By Ronda Fein, PhD

First published: Saturday, August 8, 2009, Albany Times Union

In his very articulate July 27 commentary, "It's not reform when it hurts the poor," Andrew Malekoff expresses concern about the state Office of Mental Health and the state Health Department pursuing a "reform" plan that will leave a significant number of children and adolescents without access to mental health care.

The plan will assure continued access to care only to children and families with Medicaid fee-for-service insurance coverage but not to families that have no insurance, or insurance with limited mental health coverage. Families struggling with serious emotional challenges will have trouble finding help if not covered by Medicaid fee-for-service. Clinics and mental health care providers will not be able to continue to accept the low rates offered by Medicaid managed-care carriers and families will not be able to access help.

Anyone who has been through a period of time with a child who is seriously depressed, anxious or behaviorally challenged knows how it affects every facet of one's life.

Our society has moved toward a very misguided view of treatment for mental health issues as being provided in a pill, mainly as a result of pharmaceutical companies' marketing efforts. Medication may be helpful but there is no substitute for the intensive work provided by community clinics, which can target the whole family.

As Mr. Malekoff suggests, the Office of Mental Health must also restore and enhance local assistance funding, which includes a partnership among local and state government, local community and client-consumers for specialty children's outpatient mental health clinics that serve non-Medicaid fee for service clients. Low- and middle-income families deserve access to this care, which is often provided by high quality community-based mental health clinics.

Ronda Fein, Ph.D.

Saratoga Springs
The writer is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice.

IT'S NOT REFORM WHEN IT HURTS THE MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR

2009-07-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

It's not reform when it hurts the poor

By ANDREW MALEKOFF

First published in print: Monday, July 27, 2009, Albany Times Union

More low- and middle-income families than ever are in need of low-cost, high-quality community-based mental health care. Yet, the state Office of Mental Health, along with the state Health Department, is aggressively pursuing a "reform" plan that will assure continued access to care only to children and families with Medicaid fee-for-service insurance coverage. This will leave a significant number of children and adults in the lurch.

This clinic reform plan sets up a mental health service delivery system that will no longer assure access to care for children, regardless of their parents' ability to pay.

This represents a dramatic departure from New York's statutory responsibility to make sure our most vulnerable citizens -- our children -- get care, regardless of their family's economic status.

Clinic reform signals movement away from a universal model of care to one that will discriminate against underinsured middle-class and working-poor families. Because of the lack of parity between higher rates paid by government and those paid by commercial insurers, many children with what seems like adequate health insurance coverage will no longer receive behavioral health care services from community clinics.

Community clinics are the last bastion in addressing the needs of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances. Private psychotherapists, with rare exception, will not provide the labor-intensive work necessary to properly serve children and families struggling with serious emotional disturbances.

One step forward would be for the Health Department to pressure commercial Medicaid managed-care carriers to increase their rates to match Medicaid rates. A second step would be to do the same with commercial insurers.

As community-based clinics void contracts with underpaying commercial insurers, as they are sure to do, families will be denied service if they are unable to pay the full cost. Commercial carriers that cannot demonstrate an "adequacy of network" can and should have their licenses revoked.

Consumers must be educated about these issues so that they can join the fight now and later, when denied services because their carrier cannot offer them an adequate network of care.

Last but not least, the Office of Mental Health must restore and enhance local assistance funding, also known as deficit financing -- a partnership between local and state government, the local community and client-consumer -- for specialty children's outpatient mental health clinics that serve a significant proportion of non-Medicaid fee for service clients. If implemented in its current design, the clinic restructuring plan will guarantee only narrowly-defined treatment for those with Medicaid fee-for-service eligibility. Clinic reform is certain to increase the marginalized role of middle-class and working-poor families in society.

Action must to be taken now to modify the course of clinic reform, before it is too late.

Andrew Malekoff is executive director of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights and a member of the state Office of Mental Health group developing the New York State Children's Plan.

MIND OVER MATTER

2009-07-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

MIND OVER MATTER

by Andrew Malekoff

More low income and middle-class families than ever are in need of low cost, high quality community-based mental health care. Yet, as I reported in my April 2009 column, the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) in conjunction with the New York State Department of Health is aggressively pursuing a “reform” plan (clinic reform) for these critical services that will result in a system of community care where only those children and families with Medicaid “fee for service” insurance coverage will be assured continued access to care. This will leave a significant number of children and adults living on Long Island in the lurch.

For more than a half a century North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center has been a proud provider of community-based mental health services here on the Island. We are in receipt of the recently released New York State Office of Mental Health Outpatient Clinic Reform Implementation Paper (March 11, 2009) that describes a “soup to nuts” reform of our services. Not only does the reform plan threaten the viability of our agency, but it sets up a mental health service delivery system that will no longer assure access to mental health care for children regardless of their parents’ ability to pay.

This policy shift represents a dramatic departure from what we see as a statutory responsibility on the part of New York State to make sure our most vulnerable citizens – our children - get care, regardless of their families’ economic status. New York State government is moving away from a universal model to a residual model of care where Medicaid coverage is the ticket of admission for community-based mental health.

I have been wondering if the individuals that helped to craft this plan experienced any conflict related to the inconsistency between their beliefs and actions. In my conversations with clinic reform workgroup members, my impression is that they believe strongly in quality community-based mental health care for all children and families. Yet they support a plan that cuts a large segment of the population out of the equation.

To their credit, OMH leadership is committed to the development of an “uncompensated care pool,” consisting of funding to address the uninsured. However, that still leaves the underinsured middle class, lower middle class and working poor on the sidelines.

Three further steps are needed. First, the New York State Department of Health must put pressure on Medicaid managed care insurance carriers to increase their rates to match the government rate. Second, the New York State Department of Insurance needs to do the same with private insurers. Insurance carriers that cannot demonstrate an “adequacy of network” can have their licenses revoked. Third, consumers must be educated about these issues so that they can effectively fight back when denied community-based services because their carrier’s rates are too low to offer them an adequate network of care.

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, who wrote about the war on the middle class said, “I believe our middle class has suffered in silence for far too long, and simply cannot afford to suffer or be silent much longer. Hardworking Americans have not spoken out about their increasing marginalized role in this society, and as a consequence they’ve all but lost their voice.”

I believe that the clinic reform plan is further validation of Dobbs’ contention. We cannot afford to be silent. Perhaps for some policy makers and insurance carriers, quality community-based mental health for middle class children and their families all boils down to a question of mind over matter – they don’t mind and we don’t matter.

Please join the fight to save children’s community-based mental health services on Long Island. Our children matter - all of them.

Published in the Long Island Anton chain of newspapers in June 2009,copyright Andrew Malekoff

HELLO DALAI

2009-07-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

HELLO DALAI

by Andrew Malekoff

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” – P.J. O’Rourke

The Dalai Lama and the New York State Senate

On May 9, 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate the Dalai Lama offered an invocation for the New York State Senate, calling for compassion during tough times. The 73-year old spiritual leader of Tibet spoke from the chamber floor about honesty and transparency and told the Senators and spectators about his deep respect for American values. “This house,” he said, “I think demonstrates the American democratic system.” Ya think?

Just one month later, as we are now painfully aware, a failed legislative coup paralyzed the system that the Dalai Lama praised in the house that he sanctified. Since that time the State Senate deconstructed into a child’s game of “Who gets to hold the gavel.”

Teaching our children about conflict resolution

What can we learn from the senate stalemate fiasco that will help our children when they are in conflict with their peers? According to Marjorie Kostelnik, Dean of College of Education & Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska, in our zeal to reach a compromise, a child might be denied their legitimate right to maintain possession of a desired object. When this occurs, she advises, “the focus should shift to helping the child who wants the object to generate appropriate strategies, such as asking, trading or bargaining to achieve their goal.”

Of course, sometimes our first response to the fuss is to say: “OK kids, who started it?’ or ‘How many times have I told you not to quarrel?” Children typically respond by denial or finger pointing. Of course, neither of these responses leads to constructive problem solving.

Kostelnik says, “It is better to approach the conflict saying: ‘You both seem very upset’ or ‘It looks like both of you want the [gavel] at the same time.’ These statements focus on the problem that exists between the children rather than giving sole responsibility to either child.” Boy oh boy, our New York State Senators sure have given us a lot to think about.

Perhaps the most important goal in conflict resolution is not so much the outcome of a situation as the enhanced ability to handle conflicts on a more mature level. In healthy conflict resolution there are some basic rules of conduct that we can teach our children. No name calling, staying with the topic at hand, no dredging up the past, keeping an open mind, and listening to other points of view. This means no filibustering or talking over one another.

These tips are especially important, living in an era of violence –random, sudden, illogical, and lethal – where anything that seems the slightest bit threatening – a put down, a disagreement, a dirty look – demands immediate retaliation. We need to help our children to peaceably resolve conflicts. It is ironic that the Dalai Lama, a man that advocates for peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect, spoke before the Senate just weeks before the mess in Albany.

The Dalai Lama and the Beatles

To digress a bit, when I was a freshman in college in 1969, the Beatles were at their pinnacle. A rumor went around that Paul McCartney died. Word spread like wildfire that there were hidden messages about this on their album covers and in the lyrics of their songs. One neat trick, back in the day, was to play their songs backwards for clues. I did this with the song “Revolution Number 9.” I was sure that when I spun the vinyl disc counterclockwise that I heard the words, “turn me on dead man, turn me on dead man.” This was so freaky that it gave me goose bumps. Of course, the whole thing turned out to be nothing but a clever hoax.

For some reason, this episode in my life recently popped to mind and led me to get hold of the audio of the Dalai Lama’s address to the New York State Senate. Something told me to play it backwards. When I did, I could swear that I heard two words repeated over and over again – term limits, term limits, term limits.

Andrew Malekoff (copyright, July 2009)

FROM ROMPER ROOM TO THE RUBBER ROOM

2009-06-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

FROM ROMPER ROOM TO THE RUBBER ROOM

By Andrew Malekoff

Among my earliest memories are watching black and white television shows like Ding Dong School and Romper Room. My father told me that Miss Frances, the teacher from Ding Dong School, used to come into the bar and grill that he managed in Newark, New Jersey. The bar was called the PON, which is short for the Pride of Newark.

At the time I didn’t understand why people went to a bar. Even though I couldn’t figure it out, I had an even harder time understanding why Miss Frances would go there since in those days the bar occupied, for the most part, by men sitting on stools. And, it smelled of beer. Oh yeah, and there were spittoons under each stool. I didn’t understand that either. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing at the PON. After all, she was the most famous nursery school teacher in the world.

I must admit that although I know a lot more now than I did when I was a child, there are still lots of things that I don’t know or understand. For example, recently I had a conversation with some colleagues and one of them referred to a place that selected New York City school teachers sit everyday called the Rubber Room.

Have you ever been a part of a conversation when everyone else seems clued in except for you? That was me. So I set out to do some homework. I discovered that the Rubber Room is where hundreds of New York City school teachers report to every day. These are teachers that are accused of some sort of misconduct and are deemed unfit to teach; their teaching privileges are withdrawn, at least until the adjudication process is exhausted. So, they sit in a room and get paid full salary to do nothing at a cost of over 35 million dollars a year.

I learned that there is no official place called the Rubber Room that you can find in a school directory, for example. The origin of the name seems to be linked to the fact that some of its inhabitants may have emotional problems or are at risk being driven mad by sitting idle and rendered useless in such a place for months and sometimes years. It reminds me a of a “time out” room for teachers.

I have not found a Rubber Room on Long Island. I imagine that there are Long Island residents that teach in the city and sit in the Rubber Room. There is a neat website: www.rubberroommovie.com that provides some Rubber Room facts. Here is a sample from the website.

• How long do teachers spend there? It can be months, although some have spent 8 to 10 years in the Rubber Room.
• How does someone get out? There is a hearing, like a trial, that determines their guilt or innocence and that leads to termination or a return to the classroom.
• Is it pleasant? Some complain of an unhealthy, volatile and even dangerous atmosphere where overcrowding, depression, screaming and even fights over chairs and tables are commonplace.

How can it be that in the 21st century that such a place exists in a neighboring school system?

Really smart and dedicated educators spend a great deal of time figuring out how to take care of our children and make sure that they have the proper setting, instruction and support to optimize their academic and social-emotional development. Yet, just footsteps beyond the Nassau-Queens border we discover a world apart, a throwback to the dungeon of medieval times.

I wonder what Miss Frances would do if she had to sit in the Rubber Room? Could it be that in her later years that is why she often visited the Pride of Newark?

Published in the Anton Chain of newspapers, Long Island, New York, May 2009

"IF YOUR CHILD IS NOT HEALTHY, MY CHILD IS NOT SAFE"

2009-05-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

“If your child is not healthy, my child is not safe”

by Andrew Malekoff

Are we going to continue to catch the children that are falling through the cracks or are we going to abandon them?

There is a critical decision that has been made in Albany that will impact negatively on thousands of children and families across Nassau County and that will dramatically increase costs to taxpayers as increasing numbers children will be removed from their homes and institutionalized.

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has implemented a plan that they call Transforming New York’s Mental Health System (the Plan). The Plan is a blueprint for the destruction of children’s community-based outpatient mental health services in Nassau County.

Here are the facts:

The Plan is dramatically skewed in favor of funding services for individuals with Medicaid-only insurance coverage. At North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, for example, this represents only 7% of people that use mental health services.

The Plan discriminates against the middle and lower middle class and working poor families that are underinsured or uninsured and live in the suburbs of Nassau County. In fact, the Plan discriminates against all people that pay taxes and are entitled to basic mental health services. Although the Plan refers to something called an “uncompensated care” provision, it does not address the deficit generated when serving a preponderance of middle and lower middle class and working poor families.

Community mental health centers are the last bastion in addressing the needs of children and teens with serious emotional disturbances and their families. Private psychotherapists and counselors, with rare exception, cannot afford to offer the labor intensive work necessary to properly serve families that are struggling with serious emotional disturbance. If you know one that can, terrific! Competent private practitioners know when they can handle a situation on their own and when they need to refer to a community-based agency that specializes in children’s mental health; the very place that the New York State Office of Mental Health has kicked to the curb.

The consequence of the OMH Plan will be devastating to the children and families in Nassau County. It will lead to the loss of life, children being plucked from their homes and institutionalized, and families being splintered and destroyed.

I ask you to join me in calling on Nassau County and New York State to restore and enhance local assistance funding – a partnership between local and state government, the local community and client-consumer. Local assistance funding will support community-based children’s mental health centers that would otherwise disappear or be rendered ineffective as the result of the dramatic lack of government support to the suburbs that the Plan represents.

Call Tom Suozzi and your local County and State legislators and tell them:

• That the New York State Office of Mental Health’s Plan discriminates against their constituents - the middle and lower middle class and working poor children and families that are uninsured and underinsured.

• The New York State Office of Mental Health is discriminating against children and youth with mental health disorders and their families.

• To restore local assistance funding in New York State or there will be no responsive, community-based children’s mental health services in Nassau County by the year 2012 if not sooner.

I urge you to take just a few moments of your time to join the fight for children’s mental health. Community mental health center’s are there for you and your family in your time of need.

Things may be going great in your family, but we know that even when they are, the unexpected enters and we all need a credible place to turn to.

And, if you are fortunate enough to never need such help, please bear in mind what a local mom once told me about her reason for supporting children’s mental health, “If your child is not healthy, my child is not safe.”

First published in the Anton chain of 18 newspapers in Nassau County, New York in April 2009.

A PLAN TO GUT MENTAL HEALTH

2009-05-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

NEWSDAY
April 21, 2009, p. A34
A plan to gut mental health

More middle-class families are in need of mental health services ["More seek help in stressful time," News, April 20]. Yet, the New York State Office of Mental Health has a plan that is a blueprint for the destruction of children's community-based mental health services in the suburbs.

The OMH plan - called Transforming New York's Mental Health System - is dramatically skewed in favor of supporting services for families with Medicaid-only insurance coverage. That means it discriminates against the middle- and lower-middle-class and working-poor families that are underinsured or uninsured.

At the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center these kinds of families represent almost 75 percent of those seeking our help.

The answer is for Nassau County and New York State to join to restore and enhance local assistance funding - a partnership between local and state government, the local community and the consumer of mental health services.

Andrew Malekoff

Long Beach

Editor's note: The writer is executive director for North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights.

EYES WIDE SHUT

2009-02-28T08:07:00.000-08:00

Eyes Wide Shut

As we come to the end of the motion picture awards season one recent independent and obscure film that stands out for me is Wendy and Lucy. In this film we meet a young woman who is hanging by a thread. Wendy is doing her best, with little support and money, to survive day to day and maintain her dignity. Along the way she loses her dog Lucy, the only stable and loving relationship in her life. Ultimately, she is faced with making a heartbreaking decision that their mutual welfare depends upon.

As Wendy’s car that also serves as her bed breaks down and her resources dwindle, she collects cans and bottles and shoplifts dog food. She encounters a group of homeless people making a fire, a self-righteous store clerk, a smug auto mechanic, a sympathetic security guard, and a psychotic drifter, among others. We see each of them from the unique perspective of a young woman alone and on the verge of economic collapse and homeless destitution.

Wendy offers a lens through which we can see such a transformation evolve. Many homeless people were something and somewhere else first. Wendy is such a person.

Although this low budget, spare film is a dramatic and moving work of fiction, it reminds me that we cannot afford to overlook the impact - the anxieties and fears - that the downturn of the economy has on today’s teenager. Parents need to be open and direct with their children.

According to Allen Cardoza, founder of West Shield Adolescent Services in Newport Beach, California, here are four significant ways parents can help teens survive and thrive in an economic downturn:

1. Speak immediately and honestly about the family financial and employment situation. Provide reassurance that the economic situation is not their fault. You cannot predict when it will end, only that as a family you will get through it.

2. Be firm about spending changes that will need to be made. Allow reductions across the board. Prioritize what is needed most by whom.

3. Assist your teenager with income producing ideas such as a dog walking service, grocery delivery, mowing lawns, etc. Allow your teenagers to contribute a percentage to the household budget and keep a portion for their own "extras."

4. Budget a fun family activity at regular intervals to keep everyone connected and motivated.

Wendy and Lucy is a film that offers a window on an extreme situation in which a young woman barely out of her teens demonstrates resilience in her quest to overcome the significant risks she faces. Teenagers today, despite what might be projected as apathy, have strong feelings about what is happening in our world and in their family. We need to keep them informed without imposing guilt or blame.

Wendy and Lucy pleads with us to do what we must all do with children and teens we care about during these difficult times - not to close our eyes or turn our backs on them.

Originally published in the Anton Newspaper chain, Long Island, NY, in February 2009.

NATALIE CIAPPA'S LAW

2009-02-28T08:03:00.000-08:00

Natalie Ciappa’s Law

By Andrew Malekoff©

One month ago the Nassau County legislature passed a bill that requires police to notify school districts about heroin arrests. The bill, Natalie Ciappa’s Law, is named after a teenaged girl from Long Island, who died of a heroin overdose in June, 2008.

My heart goes out to Natalie’s family and to the growing number of families on Long Island that grieve the loss of their children to heroin and other addictions. Having worked in the addictions field for over three decades there are a few simple truths that I have learned. One is that drug addiction is a disease that destroys families. Another is that it doesn’t have to.

A Disease Suffered Secretly

Those that are afflicted with heroin addiction and their families have been stigmatized by an unforgiving society that view it not as an illness but as the consequence of a moral failing, lack of will power or poor parenting. Although progress has been made in dispelling such damaging myths, I am afraid that we still have a very long way to go.

Most people with physical illnesses are the beneficiaries of widespread understanding, sympathy and support. Not so with addiction. Can you imagine for a moment lecturing a parent whose child is diagnosed with brain cancer and telling them that if they had enforced an earlier curfew that the cancer could have been prevented. Such is the twisted logic of the self righteous and ignorant who refuse to accept that addiction is a disease that does not discriminate by race, faith, upbringing or privilege.

The stigma of addiction necessitates that it is most often suffered secretly, only deepening the pain for all that care for an addicted child. Public support must replace secret pain; and therein lies the challenge in Natalie Ciappa’s Law. With this law comes enormous responsibility. School officials will no longer be able to keep a straight face and say, “There is no drug problem in my school district.”

A Call to Action

Will the passing of this law bring with it dialogue and collaboration among stakeholders that will ensure that notification of arrest information will cause no further damage to suffering families? Will the passing of this law protect and prevent others from criminal activity, and also help young people and families to find and get the help that they need?
The answer to these questions is: It depends. It depends what school district leadership does with it. I assure you that it will not be easy. But nothing worth fighting for ever is.

Natalie’s Ciappa’s Law will shake things up and create dilemmas and concerns among school officials, family members and others. Sometimes it is worth the risk to shake things up in order to make a difference.

Beyond notification, I hope that the law that bears her name will do two things. First, I hope that it will serve to remind all parents that Natalie was not a bad girl. She was a beautiful young woman who suffered from an insidious and progressive disease. In addition to the good that it can do, passing this law is a step towards publicly restoring Natalie’s good name and the dignity that she deserves in death. Second, I hope that the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) will provide adequate funding and strong leadership for drug and alcohol treatment for teenagers and their families.

Natalie’s Legacy

Finally, although there are those that believe strongly that this new law is flawed, either because it does not go far enough to expose other illegal drug activity or because it goes too far in exposing vulnerable individuals, it is my hope that Natalie Ciappa’s Law will be a step forward in the ongoing march to ensure that all our children are healthy and safe.

Originally published in the Anton Newspaper chain, Long Island, NY in January 2009.

PRESERVING EMPATHY IN HARD ECONOMIC TIMES

2008-11-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

PRESERVING EMPATHY IN HARD ECONOMIC TIMES
By Andrew Malekoff ©

As executive director of the pre-eminent children’s outpatient mental health agency on Long Island, I have grave concerns about the impact of the global economic meltdown on services that address the emotional well being of vulnerable children and their families.

Despite the influence of distinguished legislators with big hearts, big government has treated children’s mental health with little respect over the years. For example, at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center we have not received an increase in government funding for our core children’s mental health services for the better part of two decades.

In addition, a key factor contributing to declining revenues for children’s mental health services is a poorly regulated managed health care system that is more interested managing costs than managing care, paying a substandard rate for critical services and often denying payment for no good reason.

“The First Hostage of Survival is Empathy”
Beyond anticipated government cuts in human services funding I am concerned about individual and corporate supporters retreating into survival mode. As community activist Paul Tonna warns, “The first hostage of survival is empathy.”

To make up the difference in big government’s neglect and managed care’s scheming, services like ours have relied for decades on the compassion and generosity of community supporters that extend themselves to the cause. It is important to know that these people are more than do-gooders, despite the good that they do.

They are smart and selfish. They are smart because they know that what we do is cost effective, saving tens of millions of taxpayer dollars by keeping troubled kids at home and out of costly institutional settings. They are selfish because they know, as one of them stated, “If your child is not healthy, my child is not safe.”

Beyond these attributes our supporters are empathetic. They look into the eyes of their own children, grandchildren, niece and nephews and feel a deep connection to all children.

The Kindness of Others
Over the years family members and friends have asked me what led to my choosing a career in the human services, intimating that it is not the most lucrative path. My greatest influence was observing the profound impact of the kindness of others during my growing up years.

The father of my childhood friend Rich died in the 1950’s. My friend was six- years-old at the time, decades before “grief counseling” became a part of our lexicon. I lost touch with Rich as we grew older, moved apart and went our separate ways. When his mother Lillian died in 1993 I sent him a note. Some weeks later Rich, who is a physician today, wrote back to me. I saved his letter and I read it from time to time. When I do, it always leaves a lump in my throat. His letter to me starts like this:

“Dear Andy: What a surprise to hear from you! My mom’s death has caused me to spend hours thinking about my childhood. Some of my most fond recollections involve you and your family. Your father was the dad I didn’t have…”

I observed my father and mother and other adults in my family carrying out acts of profound kindness and generosity with no fanfare and without ever the expectation of anything in return, for all the years that I was growing up. I married a woman who came from a similar family, one in which her parents took in their nieces after the death of their mother. Now I have found these people again among our board of directors and community supporters. What they have in common with my family is their empathy.

Preserving Empathy
Government bureaucracies are by definition dispassionate and have no empathy. They have rules and regulations. But, only in tyrannies do they get to run things. One can only hope that the policies that guide their rules are guided by values rooted in the felt needs of real people.

I know that we cannot rely exclusively on government to take care of us. We must rely on one another. If we allow empathy to slip away under cover of economic survival, we are in trouble. The demise of empathy will be the most perilous consequence of the collapsing economy.

Let’s take care to preserve empathy. When all else fails it is all that we have to maintain a humane society.

Originally published in the Anton newspaper chain, Long Island, NY in November, 2008.

WHAT'S A SCHOOL TO DO ABOUT HATE, a dialogue

2008-11-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opfocus5938830nov23,0,6928477.story
Newsday.com

WHAT'S A SCHOOL TO DO ABOUT HATE?, a dialogue

As the shadow of a slain Ecuadorean looms over a high school, a conversation about tattoos, critical thinking and culture

November 23, 2008, pages A52-A53

All seven teenagers charged in the fatal attack of immigrant Marcelo Lucero are students at Patchogue-Medford High School, raising questions about what role schools should play in teaching about racism.

A panel of activists and experts on training and counseling about racism and bias crimes is discussing this issue, and other aspects of the story, at newsday.com/opinion. We've adapted part of the conversation here.

Andrew Malekoff, executive director and chief executive officer, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center:

I am going to take this question and ask another series of questions related to the situation at hand. . . . Can we take a step beyond curriculum-driven bias education and violence-prevention training and the like, for just a moment, and just imagine how a situation should be handled in real time . . .

Let's say a high school knows that an individual had a tattoo of a swastika printed on his body. Let's say that it is a fact known by some adults and some students in the school. The tattoo is not displayed regularly, but it is exposed when the student changes his clothes to compete on a lacrosse team.

How should this be addressed? Or should it? And is the message that it sends important to the student body and . . . the school culture? Finally, how should a principal, a teacher, a coach, a team and/or a fellow student handle this situation, and what are the implications of each of these person's actions?

Omar Henriquez, community organizer:

Facilitate the process by which members of the black, Latino and immigrant community can fully participate on the school's programs and initiatives. Most of the school board members . . . are white. This has got to change. School boards must reflect the members of the community. Once people of color begin to participate, ideas on how to deal with this and other issues will begin to flow. PTAs must be inclusive. Minority staff should include not only the janitorial, but administration as well. In other words, curtail the discrimination and racism that already exist at that level. It would be a beginning.

Jeffrey L. Reynolds, chief operating officer, BiasHELP of Long Island:

I do think the schools should play a role, though parents, communities, houses of worship, etc., all play a central role as well. Exposure to others makes it somewhat harder to dehumanize and demonize others, so activities that encourage cross-cultural communication are important. And they shouldn't start in high school.

Schools at all grade levels can and should do a variety of things: 1) Ensure diversity among school board members, faculty and staff; 2) Require annual cultural competence trainings for board, faculty and staff; 3) Enact a detailed, written policy on bullying, harassment and violence; 4) Create and facilitate well-integrated (into all subjects) age-appropriate exercises and lessons - heck, encourage kids to help figure out what works and what doesn't; 5) Partner with community-based organizations and law enforcement to help deliver critical messages; 6) Release annual reports about violence, acts of bullying, harassment, etc.; 7) Create new ways for kids to report incidents or seek help in a confidential and maybe even anonymous way, and 8) Come up with a crisis-response game plan that can be put into play following a critical incident.

Some schools are doing some of these things really well. Others not so much. ... Here's the bottom line: Marcelo Lucero was allegedly killed by Jeffrey Conroy, but there's more than enough blame to go around. We need a fresh look at what passes for diversity education - it ain't a "multicultural day" - and we need to hold those educating our kids more accountable.

To address Andrew's tattoo query: I think a conversation should have happened between the student, his parents and school personnel to explore why he felt compelled to adorn his body with a hateful symbol. Beyond that, the student shouldn't be barred from sports but perhaps should have been barred from displaying the tattoo in the locker room or elsewhere.

Andrew Malekoff:

I like Jeffrey's approach to the parents, to explore this issue and to reinforce not baring the tattoo. In Jeffrey's recommendations, he says: "Create new ways for kids to report incidents or seek help in a confidential and maybe even anonymous way." So, someone reports the fact that this kid has a swastika tattoo and says he and others are very uncomfortable with this fact, and that there are adults in the building, who know that he has told, who just shrug. What next? This is now a part of the life of the building. It is not a dramatic, highly publicized news event that gets lots of attention and even a blog on Newsday. Rather, it is a simmering reality in the life of the school that is being ignored.

Yeah, the kid comes in with the parents, and it is addressed and the tattoo is concealed for the most part. But it is alive in the school that J.C. has a swastika on his leg, and it reflects a subculture in the school that is predisposed to such things as "beaner-jumping." This is spoken in whispers, but it is real. What next?

There is a well-known expression in the field of alcoholism that has been generalized beyond the field and that is known to much of the public. It goes like this, "There is an elephant in the room." It represents something that is known to all, that all have deep feelings about, and live with but refuse to confront in a forthright manner.

Not to beat a dead horse (as I ungracefully mix metaphors). But when there is something alive in the culture of an institution, and not in the abstract as in, "XYZ is a racist school or community," for example, but when there is something real in the everyday life of the school or institutional community, like a kid with a swastika, and that same kid with a following, how do schools keep this reality ... from being known but ignored, acknowledged yet accepted in silence?

The insidiousness of something like this either reinforces a sick culture, unsettles a benign culture, or challenges a healthy culture. I am interested in what suggestions there are for how schools (or other institutions) can confront something real like this, not something in the abstract and not something that has been exposed through the media. Because I believe that it is these seemingly minor everyday realities in the life of a school that shape the culture. Where is the counterforce, and what should it look like?

Jeffrey L. Reynolds:

If I ran the school, I'd make sure that the student with the tattoo and those around him got a series of really clear and vivid lessons about the Holocaust and the history behind the swastika. I think your best counterforce are this kid's peers, who should have reacted with horror when seeing the tattoo for the first time. Odds are that, instead, the other kids laughed or said nothing, yet probably had some reservations about it and him. If those kids fully understood the history, they might have been more likely to speak up.

Andrew Malekoff:

I think also that the swastika is a symbol that, in its current use, goes well beyond its origins in Nazi Germany and has morphed into a broader symbol of hate. A history lesson is a good start. And the wish that better educated and more sensitive peers will stand up is one that I share, although I think the standing up part is rare; rare among adults as well. This discussion must also address workplace issues; that is, what happens in the workplace for its employees when such behavior and symbols are forced underground by apathy or fear?

The school is a community made up of children, youth and adult employees who all must be included in the equation. Schools need the capacity for ... confrontation that addresses issues and problems in a direct, caring and forthright manner. When the school or workplace replicates the oppressive or prejudicial behavior of society, caring adults and peers must skillfully intervene to raise consciousness, stimulate interaction, foster understanding and motivate change.

Easier said than done, I know. A school can start with this as a value and goal and then be dedicated to figure out how to get there. No school should be pressed to transform its culture in a day. A gradual and earnest process is a good place to start; relying on one another as well as outside experts. The outsiders can help, but quite often it is in a hit-and-run sort of a way. If outsiders are going to be involved, choose a community-based agency with a track record, that you know is willing to stay for the long haul and not come and go. Choose a life partner for change, not a fling.

Michael O'Neill, Sag Harbor Anti-bias Task Force:

It will take the schools to bring home the experience of this trauma, which will help our young both try to understand and to deal with the inexplicability of the evil that haunts us. It is the young that are most amenable to change.

There are now widely used programs thatwere well developed and finely tuned over the decades for the schools to use that are quite familiar to them. They teach tolerance and fight hate. Programs from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Jewish Committee, among the many out there, help children recognize anger and triggers of hurt and conflict, meanness, name-calling and acquiring the sensitivity and respect needed to overcome learned bias. When these programs are instituted by school districts and are implemented in the curricula throughout the school year, they are effective.

Unfortunately, it often takes a trauma for school districts to recognize their need. It will take the wisdom accumulated through the mediation of all of the community's institutions to fashion year-round "teaching moments" that will move us forward in the progressive political sense of our shared fate, and the recognition of our interdependence that sustains our very life.

Jeffrey L. Reynolds:

Our educators conduct programs in schools across Nassau and Suffolk, and there's a notion that a 45-minute workshop once a year will fully address these issues. In most cases the schools want more but feel pressured by educational mandates - so much so that issues like violence prevention, HIV/AIDS education, pregnancy prevention, substance use prevention often take a backseat to the three "R's." Nobody wants to be the school at the bottom of a test score list in Newsday. Of course, now Patchogue-Medford's kids are on the cover for several days, so perhaps schools will finally take a second look and find innovative ways to better integrate violence prevention messages and lessons.

Michael Meyers, executive director, New York Civil Rights Coalition:

That schools have an educational role in extirpating base prejudices is certain. But it is not a proselytizing role. Encouraging critical thinking, students' examination of stereotypes, giving students accurate information, a deep understanding of history and current events, and the tools to debate, to see and refute misinformation - [these] are vital to the educational process. But one of the chief examples of wrong-way education is encouraging "tolerance." People who are of so-called "different" races or ethnicity or sexual orientation do not want to be "tolerated." They want their humanity respected and their rights protected.

Individuals are just that, not groups. All blacks do not look alike. Ditto for Hispanics.

Blacks and Hispanics and Asians do not belong to different races from whites. We all belong to the same race, scientists assure us; we are all members of the human race. Indeed, "race" as a social construct is just that. It is a social invention, and it surely does not help educate anyone when our schools and teachers perpetuate myths around "race" - myths such as "white culture" and "black culture." The textbooks our children are reading are profoundly errant.

In this vein, schools should stop paternalistically presenting lessons about "the Negro," or "the African-American" (especially during Black History Month). There is no such thing as "the Negro" or "the African- American." Just like there is no such thing as "the white American" or "the Jew" or "the homosexual." Or, for that matter, "the woman."

Andrew Malekoff, executive director and chief executive officer of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center

Omar Henriquez, community organizer

Jeffrey L. Reynolds, chief operating officer of BiasHELP of Long Island

Michael O'Neill, Sag Harbor Anti-bias Task Force

Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.

WHAT TEENS NEED

2008-11-17T02:11:00.000-08:00

WHAT TEENS NEED

By Andrew Malekoff©

Cries of “hate” ring out in the slaying of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero, allegedly by a group of seven Patchogue-Medford High School students. The victim seems to have been targeted for his ethnicity, and the crime is horrific. But our community will benefit more over the long run by recognizing that while it is not normal to be involved in a murder such as this, it is normal for every adolescent to face the issue of diversity.

Those of us who work with youth in schools, community centers and counseling practices face the challenge of helping teenagers to address the question openly and honestly. We need to encourage discussions about ethnic identity, prejudice, and inter-group relations not as taboo, but as a normal part of growing up.

We can help young people to tune in to ethnically and racially charged local, national and international events impacting on them. When stories like the killing of Marcelo Lucero dominate the media, young people’s stereotyping and polarization are too often reinforced.

A meeting I had with a group of teenagers on Long Island in the immediate aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings comes to mind. The teenagers talked about their feelings regarding profiling and stepped up security in schools and in the community.

One member, Carlos, recalled being stopped by a police officer who asked to check his arms. “He was looking for gang tattoos. He thought I was MS 13,” Carlos explained as he slowly pulled his shirt sleeve back across his forearm as if back in the moment. “I told the cop, ‘First, of all I’m Salvadorian and proud of it. Second, I’m not a gang banger.’ ”

“A week later,” Carlos continued, “I saw the same cop at my restaurant job. It was the same cop! Well, I work as a maitre de and I was wearing my tuxedo. He looked me over and seemed really confused, puzzled. I smiled and said to him ‘See I’m the same person.’ ”

A healthy exchange of ideas and opinions about controversial subjects, especially in the safe environment of a professionally moderated group, enables young people to test out their beliefs and attitudes, to practice listening to others’ views, to respectfully express differences, and to discover common ground.

Carlos’ revelation led another member to share an experience with a different kind of bias. Jackie, a 15-year-old girl with a stud in her tongue and hoops in her left ear, told the group the story about how when she got her tongue pierced, all of a sudden, “Everybody looked at me differently, like I was from another planet, a dirt bag. But I’m the same! I’m still a good student. I’m the same kid as before.”

Jackie’s reflection illustrates that in addition to advancing an understanding of cultural differences, we can reach for common experiences among young people across cultures. This can open pathways for relating among different ethnic groups.

Presently, we all face the sad possibility of seeing a dramatic erosion of empathy and loss of community amid the struggle for economic survival. We cannot afford to allow the development of empathy to slip away from our youth in the process.

I have a hypothesis about the recent presidential election that relates to this issue. This was a campaign in which the possible effects of racism were frequently and publicly expressed — much more than ever before. Long after Barack Obama’s speech about race, there was constant fear expressed in the media about a “Bradley effect,” in which potential voters would tell pollsters they supported Obama and then pull the lever for a white candidate instead.
Perhaps this open discussion about race — somewhat analogous to a group session — gave a number of people a chance to process their feelings and ultimately feel comfortable voting for a black president.

Ironically neither candidate touched the issue of immigration in the debates and town hall meetings. If the presidential election marks a step forward in racial sensitivity, I wonder, did we take a step backward with respect to attitudes about immigration?

Published in NEWSDAY, Sunday, November 16, 2008, pp. A48-A49

________________________________________

OUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

2008-10-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

OUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

By Andrew Malekoff©

I have known Jay since he was a school age child. After graduating from high school he enlisted in the armed forces where he rose to the rank of Army Specialist. Jay (not his real name) served during Operation Iraqi Freedom and operated a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a tank that is used in open desert warfare and urban combat environments. Jay and I spent some time together when he was on leave.

Jay plopped himself down on a couch next to me. He opened his laptop, tilted it towards me, and began clicking on to the photos that he took in Iraq. I looked at photos of the local landscape; snapshots of Iraqis of all ages posing with and without American soldiers; pictures of caches of weapons and improvised explosive devices (IEDs); and group shots of soldiers in their teens and early twenties striking various poses, some showing off fresh tattoos.

Sometime after his return to Iraq, Jay was discharged. He received a Purple Heart after an explosion threw him from his tank, leading to severe head trauma. Because he has yet to receive medical clearance to drive a car, his dream of becoming a police officer is fast fading.

Upon his final return home, Jay described to me the circumstances leading to his injury and some of the other situations he encountered during his time at war. Although his stories were haunting reminders of the damaging effects of war, I felt privileged to be one of the trusted few to bear witness to his experience. I knew that my friendship alone would not be enough to help him with the demons that he was trying to shake loose.

Today there is a legion of Jays that are home and on their way home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many will require a broad array of services to help them and their families with the transition to civilian life.

An April 2008 study by Rand Corporation found that nearly 20% of service men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, or about 300,000, have symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder with characteristic symptoms of anxiety, depression, irritability, feelings of isolation, intrusive memories of traumatic moments in war, and difficulty sleeping. Yet only 50% have sought treatment, and they have encountered severe delays and deficits in getting care.

Many returning service members come back to families where their spouses have kept the family going during the deployment and have managed many crises and concerns. Some soldiers may not find it easy to accept that their family has changed and roles have shifted, if ever so slightly, in their absence.

Children often will need an adjustment period to warm up to the returning parent. For example, younger children may act shy around them or may not appreciate the returning parent’s need to take care of themselves and to spend time with their partner. Teenage children may seem detached or distant as they spend many hours away from home with their friends, engaged in social activities. Without support, the returning service member may misinterpret this expected behavior and experience it as a personal affront.

As we approach the seventh anniversary of 9/11, let us not forget our military service members who were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and their families. I recently had a conversation with John Grillo, a Viet Nam era veteran and board member at North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center. He reminded me that, "The majority of these young men and women are the sons and daughters of our friends and neighbors. For some of us it may even be our son or daughter. For the most part they look okay and act just like us, even though they may be silently struggling with events of their most recent war time experiences. These young men and women deserve our sensitivity and our absolute support."

I don't think that I could have said it any better, and I couldn't agree more.

Originally published in the Anton chain of newspapers, Long Island, New York.

THE ADVERTSING OF EVERYDAY LIFE

2008-10-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

The Advertising of Everyday Life

Andrew Malekoff©

In the afterglow of the New York Giants heart-stopping victory in Super Bowl Forty-Two, here is a sobering thought: according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly half of all traffic fatalities during last year’s Super Bowl weekend were caused by impaired drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.08% and above. Super Bowl Sunday has become one of the deadliest days for drunk driving crashes. It has also become a banner day for alcohol advertisers.

On the eve of the Super Bowl, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) traditionally calls on alcohol beverage marketers to avoid advertisements that appeal to young people. Who can forget Budweiser’s animated lizards Walter and Louie? The use of cartoon characters to promote brand loyalty at an early age is one of the more blatant marketing approaches. There are of course, more subtle and sophisticated approaches that play on the emotional lives of viewers of all ages.

I distinctly recall a televised beer commercial that posed the question, “Why ask why?” The ad portrayed a young man in a bar frustrated by his search for romance finally discovering a “true friend.” As the young man set out on his journey, viewers observed in him a sense of futility and resignation. The voiceover mused rhetorically, “Why ask why...while love isn’t easy…refreshment is.” The ad ended with the young man hoisting a bottle of his favorite brew to his lips.

What this commercial and many like it tell young people is: don't think, don’t feel, numb your senses, and recognize that relationships are hard work and hardly worth the effort. The ad says that although you cannot really depend on others, alcohol is dependable and delivers every time.

Advertisers are clever. Since their goal it is to sell products, it is only logical that they are going to present positive messages about drinking. According to a report issued by The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at Georgetown University, from 2001 to 2005, underage youth were almost 250 times more likely to see an advertisement selling alcohol than one of the alcohol industry’s “responsibility” ads, designed to educate young people about the dangers of underage drinking. “The primary messages kids get about alcohol on television are from alcohol product ads that not surprisingly promote their use and enjoyment,” according to David Jernigan, executive director of CAMY.

One of the goals of advertisers is to try and establish brand name loyalty at a tender age. According to addictions experts, by the time our children are 21 years old they will have seen an average of 100,000 alcohol commercials. Since about ten percent of all drinkers consume about fifty percent of alcohol it’s clear that they’re targeting the most vulnerable of our young.

How do you suppose ordinary folks that don’t have the deep pockets of the alcohol industry can contend with this multi-billion-dollar bully pulpit? Have you ever heard the Texas Ranger creed? “No man in the wrong can stand up to a fellow in the right who keep on a –comin’.” Perhaps a corny saying from days done by, but this is just one example of what I refer to as “the advertising of everyday life.” We all know about this.

The advertising of everyday life is comprised of those homespun messages that parents and grandparents and other caregivers pass along to their children. Almost everyone can think of one or two from our growing up years. I believe that parents, and other caring adults, can be just as clever as Madison Avenue.

My mom was an antiques dealer known in the business as Antique Evelyn. She was a businesswoman first, but she loved collecting old signs and tins with interesting advertisements. When I was about 12-years-old Antique Evelyn brought home an old sign that read: None of us in our business or social life can coast along on a reputation of past performances. It’s the good job we do today that counts.

She framed the sign and placed it in a strategic place in the bathroom – just behind the toilet. This way my brother and I (and our dad) would come eye-to-eye with the sign several times a day, every day, year in and year out. According to my own calculations I zoomed in on that sign at least 5,000 times during my youth.

Coaches have slogans, preachers have sermons, teachers have lessons and my mom had signs. These are the advertisements of every day life. Some people might refer to this as imparting values. It is the collective commercials of everyday life that represent the “fellow in the right who keeps on “a-comin’,” a counterforce to the multi-billion-dollar bully and the rest of his gang.

Oh, and about mom’s sign; it is hangs in my office today.

Originally published in the Anton chain of newspapers, Long Island, New York.

FIRST TIME VOTERS - VOTE!

2008-10-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

FIRST TIME VOTERS – VOTE!

By Andrew Malekoff©

As Election Day 2008 approaches I wonder how first-time voters, particularly teenagers, are faring with the challenge of sorting out the two candidates. Even when I have had my best sleep and my powers of concentration are sharpest, I cannot fully trust what I am thinking and hearing and whether or not I can accurately differentiate substance from style and media image from genuine person. As I watch and listen to the debates and see political ads flashing by, I am reminded of psychologist Howard Gardner’s view that we tend to place great emphasis on intellect, especially language skills and ability to reason and perhaps less emphasis on more personal intelligences.

The Candidates, Character and Multiple Intelligences

Dr. Gardner, author of “Multiple Intelligences,” identifies key areas that we should look for in leaders that go beyond scholastic ability. They include abilities to understand oneself and others; and an ability to address profound human concerns, and especially during times of crisis. These are abilities that we cannot possible know about for sure through scripted sound bytes and clever marketing.

We know that John McCain is a war hero, a brave soldier who refused to abandon his comrades and made an unimaginable personal sacrifice. We know that Barack Obama is the product of a racially mixed union. He resolutely navigated a labyrinth of social minefields that growing up biracial necessitates.

In my view, both are imperfect men of character that have proven themselves in times of crisis. If there is agreement that the character issue is a wash, does it make it any easier for young people placing their ballot for the time? I think not. After all, it doesn’t make it any easier for me.

Fear Factor

And, we cannot forget about the fear factor, the fire that is ignited and stoked in the laboratories of sleazy political operatives who trade in paranoia. They tell us that the actuarial tables are stacked against 72-year old John McCain, and that Barack Obama is a variation of the fictional Manchurian Candidate on a mission to bring down the country. The fear factor is aimed at fence sitters, independents who can be swayed one way or the other and whose collective votes can make all the difference.

So when one checks off character, pushes through media deceit, and overcomes the fear factor – all formidable obstacles to overcome – first-time voters are left with faith, faith about what they glean that each candidate really stands for in the areas that are most important to them.

Hometown Security

For me, what is really important in this era of homeland security, physical security that protects us from the outside-in, is that we don’t ignore hometown security, security that protects us from the inside-out. Inside-out security is about what needs to happen in the guts of our states, cities and towns to improve the standard of living, quality of education and physical and mental health care for all Americans.

Since 2001, according to first ever American Human Development Report (2008-2009) for a wealthy, developed nation, published by the Columbia University Press, “the income of the typical American family has stagnated…health outcomes for children are bad and not improving…and globalization and technological change have made it extraordinarily difficult for poorly educated Americans to achieve economic self sufficiency, peace of mind and self-respect enabled by a secure livelihood.”

Sorting More than Campaign Buttons

When I vote in a few days I will be reminded for the first time in decades of the excitement in the air that I felt as a child when the Kennedy-Nixon campaign was in full swing in 1959. I was too young to vote but I was able to choose a button from a bridge table that someone set up around the corner from our apartment on Wainwright Street in Newark, New Jersey. I was happy with the button I chose to pin to my t-shirt.

This year, almost a half-a-century later, there is a lot more to do than to sorting out buttons. First-time voters and I need to sort truth from slick campaigning fiction. As Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, former president of Notre Dame University said, “Voting is a civic sacrament.”

I offer all good wishes to first-time voters who have sacrificed their time and energy to make some sense of who to support on November 4th. It is the soul searching and the struggling through that make you the true winners on Election Day.

Congratulations and welcome to the machine.

To be published in the Anton chain of Newspapers, Long Island, New York in October 2008

GORDIE AND 100 COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

2008-10-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

GORDIE AND 100 COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

By Andrew Malekoff©

On September 17, 2004, Gordie Bailey, then an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado, died of alcohol poisoning as a result of a fraternity initiation for pledges.
Now is the time of year that fraternities begin “rushing” or recruiting pledges. This begins with a phase of goodwill and backslapping. As each desirable prospect that is offered, accepts a formal invitation to become a part of a pledge class, a new group is formed that then enters a stage of initiation. I went through this as an undergraduate student at Rutgers College.

Fraternity Initiation and Hazing

Initiation activities and ceremonies in fraternities differ from fraternity house to fraternity house. They include a combination of learning about fraternity tradition, performing community service and, in some cases, being subjected to ritualistic harassment, abuse, or persecution, also known as hazing. Sometimes the latter involves excessive and binge drinking.

I was subjected to fairly benign and sophomoric hazing and mild humiliation such as standing on my head while pancake syrup was poured down my pant leg. I was ordered to do pushups when couldn’t recall a fraternity brother’s hometown or if I flubbed a fraternity song.
No one ever demanded that I consume any amount of alcohol as a part of the initiation ceremony. I am not sure what I would have done, had this been demanded of me. At the time the drinking age in New Jersey was 18, so legal implications were not a consideration.

One Hundred College Presidents

Just weeks before the fourth anniversary of Gordie’s death, a news report stated that over 100 presidents and chancellors from some of the nation’s leading universities are advocating for a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to 18, believing that this will reduce binge drinking. Not all agree.
University of Miami (Ohio) president David Hodge refused to sign on with this group, known as the Amethyst Initiative (www.amethystinitiative.org). In a September 5, 2008 interview with his school’s newspaper, President Hodge repudiated his colleagues asserting that more than half of the students entering college have already begun drinking illegally and he fears that lowering the drinking age to 18 would increase alcohol abuse in high schools.

Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, states that “Every year on college campuses 700,000 students are injured due to alcohol abuse, 1700 die as a result of alcohol abuse, and 22% meet the medical diagnostic criteria for alcohol or drug abuse or addiction.” What this means is that we have a major public health crisis on college campuses across the nation.
Is the answer to reduce the drinking age? I think not.

Missing the Boat

The one hundred-plus leaders of higher education who subscribe to the Amethyst Initiative are missing the boat. It is simply not enough for them to recite the hackneyed logic found on their website that says that if “adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military [they should be entitled] to have a beer.” This level of analysis will only contribute to increased profits for the alcohol industry at the expense of young people’s well being.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has analyzed numerous studies in states where the drinking age was boosted from 18 to 21 and found that increasing the drinking age significantly lessened harm and death among young people.

The Gordie Foundation

Since Gordie Bailey’s death, his family created the Gordie Foundation to provide young people with the skills to navigate the dangers of alcohol, binge drinking, peer pressure and hazing. The foundation’s website (http://www.gordie.org/) contains a video trailer for a motion picture entitled HAZE that is intended to confront this national health crisis that affects just about every campus in America.

If you have a child in college and particularly one who is a fraternity member or prospective pledge, tell them to go to this website and to watch the trailer, after you have viewed it yourself. It will only take five minutes. If you are a guidance counselor, preparing students for college, take a look. Then talk it over.

And, while you’re at it, drop an email or letter to the president or chancellor of your child’s school and send them the link.

This column was originally published in the Anton chain of Long Island, New York newspapers in September 2008

"SINCE YOUR NEW BABY WAS BORN, HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU FELT HOPELESS"

2008-08-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

“Since your new baby was born, how often have you felt hopeless?”

By Andrew Malekoff©

Care to venture a guess as to what grade level of student has the highest rate of expulsion from school because of problematic behavior? Let’s see how you did.

According to a research study at Yale University, led by Dr. Walter Gilliam, the rate of expulsion in pre-kindergarten programs serving three- and four-year-olds is more than three times that of children in grades K through 12. According to Dr. Gilliam the study did not explore reasons why the children were expelled, "We weren't measuring behavioral problems, we were measuring the decisions teachers make." So, we are left to speculate and to study the risks that pre-school children face that contribute to this astounding statistic.

Early childhood mental health expert Jane Knitzer offers a clue when she tells us that “research indicates that babies whose mothers are depressed…may ‘act out’ in early childhood programs, and sometimes be ejected from them.” At the Marks Family Right from the Start 0-3+ Center (RFTS), a division of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, we know that the emotional health of a parent influences a child’s development. In a survey we found that over 60% of families of 147 recent admissions reported serious behavior problems in children as young as 2 years of age. A review of the histories of these families found between 50 and 75% of the children were living with a depressed parent, most often a mom with a history of depression.

Sandra Radzanower Wolkoff, RFTS director, advises that we need to pay attention not only to maternal depression, but to the mood disorders that accompany childbirth and that are often an unexpected complication of pregnancy. Although we are not always sure of the causes for onset, what we do know according Wolkoff, is that “danger lies in how they incapacitate mothers, frighten fathers, and embroil infants.”

One young mother who is recovering from post-partum depression at RFTS recently told a rapt audience at a North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center event at the Glen Head Country Club, about how she could barely lift her head off of her pillow, let alone lift and hold and cuddle and care for her baby.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that postpartum depression affects up to 20% of mothers within the first year after giving birth. The rate of depression for mothers living in poverty is close to a staggering 50%. 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 key to young children’s healthy development and later success in school and beyond. Maternal depression, left untreated, may be a key factor leading to the expulsion of pre-schoolers.

According to Wolkoff, “Depressed mothers tend to perceive their children as being more difficult, frequently viewing their children more negatively. Mothers who are suffering from depression can respond with too little emotion or energy, or overreact with aggression and irritability. The origin of this inconsistency in parenting is not a lack of desire. Rather, it is consequence of utter exhaustion.”

The Center on Disease Control in Atlanta administered a surveillance project aimed at identifying maternal depression early on. Two questions that they asked moms are: 1) Since your new baby was born, how often have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless? and 2) Since your new baby was born, how often have you had little interest or little pleasure in doing things? The women who answered "often" or "always" to either question were classified as experiencing self-reported post-partum depressive symptoms. Detecting the problem is the first step in getting moms and their families the help they need.

We must encourage primary care physicians and other health professionals to incorporate these questions into their encounters with pregnant women and mothers of infants. If you are reading this clip it, highlight these two questions and pass it along it to your local pediatrician, obstetrician and gynecologist or pediatric hospital unit. Add a personal note. Who knows, maybe it will keep one more child from being expelled.

Children grow best when they feel safe and are safe. Healthy attachments are not about children getting what they want, but getting what they need—the assurance that an adult caregiver is by their side, looking out for them, teaching them how to manage their own feelings, and learning about the give and take of relationships. All children deserve this. Let’s take a small step to make sure they get it.

Originally published in the Anton Newspapers, Long Island, New York, July 2008

KATIE'S LAW AND NEIL'S VOICE

2008-06-24T03:25:00.000-07:00

Katie's Law and Neil's Voice

by Andrew Malekoff©

Sitting on my desk in my home in Long Beach since early March 2007 are published excerpts of the impact statements made by seven-year-old Katie Flynn’s family before the sentencing of a 25-year-old drunken driver who was convicted of killing her and Stanley Rabinowitz in July 2005. Time and time again I find myself going back to the statement of Katie’s dad, Neil Flynn.

"I have learned that fatherhood is the greatest endeavor a man can undertake. My children are the central focus of my existence. They justify my life. Without them I would be nothing."

On June 21, 2007 the New York State Assembly unanimously passed a bill that was co-sponsored by state Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg and state Senator Charles Fuschillo that makes aggravated vehicular homicide a crime. This crime may be charged when a death is caused by a drunken driver and that includes additional death or serious injury, a previous conviction of driving under the influence, a blood-alcohol content of 0.18 or more and driving with a suspended license.

"From my first waking moments my thoughts are dominated by sadness, grief and anxiety. At least three times a day I am overwhelmed by grief and break down in tears despite the fact that I am on two powerful anti-depressants. I frequently cry in front of my children, which is extremely painful to me and damaging to them."

The first thing I did after reading about the law was to talk to my two sons, ages 18 and 22. I told them, “Boys, we have had this discussion before, but please make sure that under no circumstances do you drink and drive. Not after a party or if you go to a wedding or affair of any kind as you get older. Just don't do it! It is not worth it. I am sorry to lecture you and to be so serious, but I love you and want you to be safe and not make a fatal and life changing mistake. The new law won't stop everybody from drinking and driving, but it could prevent many everyday people who make this mistake from killing someone and then getting sentenced to long and hard years in prison.”

"My sleep is punctuated by nightmares and I wake often. I rarely dream of Katie alive. I have done so only three times since her death. Although waking from these dreams is incredibly painful, I wish I had them more often. I wake after three or four hours and stare aimlessly at pointless television shows. I drift back to sleep in the early morning for a few more fitful hours before starting the cycle again."

Once this column is printed I will give it to my sons. I want them to put my “lecture” into context and to know that beyond the severe penalties that the new law brings that there is a father’s anguish. I want them to hear Neil Flynn.

"I do not know joy. I have no hope for a better future here on earth…I cannot overcome my sadness. I am desolate."

I hope that the new law will serve as a deterrent for my sons. More than that, though, I want them to think not only of Katie’s Law but to also hear Neil’s Voice.

And, although we have never met I want Neil Flynn to know, father to father, how sorry I am for his devastating loss and how thankful I am to him for opening his soul so that others may be saved.

Originally published in Long Island, New York's Anton Newspapers

FOR LOVE OR FOR MONEY

2008-06-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

For Love or for Money

by Andrew Malekoff©

Although I must admit that I am not the rabid fan that I once was, the lazy days of summer always draw me back to my early love of baseball. I was a Dodgers fan and much too young to understand and appreciate the devastating impact that their move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles had on so many within arms length of Ebbets Field.

My ritual in the summer months of my childhood was to wake up, throw on my shorts, t-shirt and sneakers and ride my bike to the nearby candy store to buy the newspaper. I headed right for the sports section and scanned the box scores. If my childhood idol Sandy Koufax had pitched the night before, my heart pounded in anticipation of the outcome and details.
Sometimes after I returned home I clipped the box scores and articles about the games, especially on the few special occasions when Sandy pitched no-hitters. Later I created a scrapbook of my clippings, spending hours with scissors, paper, and Elmer’s glue.

One day in the early fall of 1963 my father told me that he had four tickets to the World Series. We were going to the World Series! The Yankees were playing the Dodgers. I did not get to see Sandy pitch; he pitched and won games one and four in what turned out to be a surprising sweep of the Yankees. But I wasn’t disappointed. I got to see the great Johnny Podres pitch. He won game two by a 4-1 score, giving the Dodgers a 2-0 series lead. The excitement of being at the game and seeing my team triumphant was soon to be eclipsed.

As we exited Yankee Stadium and walked to the car, we passed an open garage on the side of Yankee Stadium. I looked inside and spotted a bus. I stopped for a moment as my family – mom, dad and younger brother Bobby - continued ahead. As the metal garage door started its slow descent I knew that I had to think and act quickly. When the garage door was about three feet from the concrete I hit the ground, World Series program and pen in hand, and rolled my way inside. If my calculations were correct, I thought, this was a players’ bus. I knew that there was a 50-50 chance that it was the Dodgers’ bus.

I walked to the back of the bus and I spotted a door that I hoped led to the Dodgers’ dressing room. I waited. As the door opened, the first one through was Don Drysdale, who would go on to pitch a shutout in game three. Johnny Podres followed him through the door. And then came another favorite of mine Maury Wills, the base stealing demon of the early sixties.

I could feel my heartbeat grow louder as I got one autograph after another. They signed the back of my program over a full page ad for Sinclair Dino Supreme gasoline. Dino the Dinosaur was the logo. The ad said, “Try a tankful today. Your satisfaction guaranteed – or your money back.” But where was Sandy?

I learned later that my parents were frantically searching for me on the other side of the metal garage door. Someone told them that they saw some kids slip under the door. There were a few city kids on the inside with me.
It never occurred to me that the signatures might be worth anything. In those days an autograph meant more than money. And, if I could get Sandy’s autograph, it would be like gold to me.

Finally, Sandy came through the door, although I did not get to him, try as I did, before he boarded the bus. I was crestfallen.

Faced with another decision, I set aside all inhibition and I climbed up the stairs onto that bus. My program found its way to Sandy and he signed his name for me. It was the most exciting moment of my childhood. I was soon escorted out of the garage to my parents’ great relief. Autographed program in hand, I felt like I was floating on air. The glow lasted for days.

I sometimes wonder today what that day and those precious moments and split second decisions would have felt like if I wasn’t out for love but for money. I am so grateful for having had a day like that when I was a boy, and for not knowing that an autograph could be worth anything more than a wonderful moment preserved forever.

To be published in the Anton Newspapers, Long Island, NY, July 2007

TRAUMATIZED TEENS NEED HELP

2008-04-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

Truamatized Teens Need Help
by Andrew Malekoff©

Reports of teens murdering their parents have a way of getting reactions from the public that tell us a lot about ourselves. The first question many people raise is: Should these kids be tried as adults or subject to a more humane and child-friendly legal standard? But this doesn't address the problem of prevention. How do we stop them from killing in the first place?

In a culture that often glorifies violence increasing numbers of young people, when they reach a boiling point of anger or actual mental illness, might literally do anything to satisfy their frustrations or to gain attention. Bravado, especially for teenagers, is everything, and for any action that seems the slightest bit threatening - a put-down, a disagreement, a dirty look - they often will seek immediate retaliation.

The recent cases of a 12-year-old girl accused of strangling her mother in Freeport and a 17-year-old boy charged with choking his father in Wyandanch represent extreme outcomes, of course. But their origins are common: Children are caught in an escalating situation, usually with people they know, from which they cannot disengage, and they lack skills, aside from violence, for defusing it.

When the result is murder, the story gets into the news. But those of us who work with teenagers for a living are seeing an unpublicized increase in the kinds of cases that can lead to this sorry end: children and teens with serious emotional disturbances who are victims of childhood trauma or have witnessed domestic violence, and who are exhibiting unmanageable behavior.

When a child wakes up each morning with a sense of dread and fear, he approaches the day in a state of arousal and anxiety. He is likely to cope by lashing out and moving from impulse to action without pausing to reflect. Or, absent a capacity to soothe himself, he will turn his feelings inward, fueling depression, and suicidal and other self-destructive behaviors.

Society expects parents to do everything that's needed to solve this problem: to counter violent messages in the media, teach children problem-solving skills, and then keep them physically and emotionally safe. These are unrealistic expectations. Too many parents lack the information and wherewithal to accomplish this on their own, and many are themselves emotionally troubled. Parents need a system of support.

And children need order and consistency in their lives. They need safe places to go, with worthwhile things to do and opportunities for belonging. And they need relationships with competent adults who understand and care about them.If a young person can get all of this naturally within the family and from neighbors, a highly structured support program may not be necessary. The problem is that supportive communities and social structures have largely disappeared, especially in widely dispersed suburban communities like those on Long Island, where the first feature one notices are garages that are easy to slip into without interacting with or even seeing a neighbor.

Just weeks after the Columbine High School shootings, I met with a group of about 25 teens and adults from Long Island who gathered to address the impact of a distant horror that had hit so close to home. To the surprise of most of the adults, the teenagers said that what they really needed and wanted was closer relationships with adults - at home, at school and in the community. They were starving for someone to pay attention to them.Yet, they admitted that they also push grown-ups away. "Is this what you really want to happen?" I asked. The overwhelming response was an emphatic "No."This is a paradoxical aspect of young people's psychology that often confounds adults. They have a strong need for adult contact, coexisting with the need to be separate, expressed as "Understand me, but leave me alone."

This suggests that teenagers want adult support but are unlikely to go out of their way to seek it out. On Long Island there has been steady progress in the human services community toward programs that are based on partnerships with parents, schools, government agencies and community-based organizations that bring adult support out of private offices to where the teenage action is.

A prime example is the Intensive Support Program, a school-based mental health partnership between Nassau BOCES' Department of Special Education and my agency, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center. The program targets children and youth aged 5 to 21 with serious emotional disturbances, aiming to improve their social, emotional and academic development and prevent costly long-term placements in residential institutions by keeping them at home.

An effort intended to steer children away from violent activity and gang involvement by offering such services as conflict resolution, cultural activities and tutoring is occurring in the Westbury and Port Washington schools in the Helping Each Other Program for Latino youth. This collaboration with The Place Adolescent Services Center, which is also affiliated with the North Shore guidance center, matches trained high school mentors of Hispanic heritage with younger students.

The cutting edge of youth service work in the suburbs is to be where the kids are. Of course, there is a cost. But it's just a fraction of the cost to house troubled teenagers in a mental-health or juvenile justice institution.If legislators and government officials can get past the cost-cutting ploy of referring to such services as "discretionary," we will see much less youth violence, and certainly fewer murders, in the long run. These are essential human services that require a significant investment now, before it is too late.

Originally published in Newsday, July 2005.

"24-HOUR-A-DAY-GUARD-DUTY"

2008-04-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

24-hour-a-day-guard-duty
by Andrew Malekoff© 2008

As winters in February go, this year’s was a mild one. Nevertheless, it was brutal month that brought the inexplicable murders of three young children in New Cassel and the execution-style killing of a teenage boy outside Don Juan’s restaurant in Westbury.

A legion of children and teens (and others) left in the wake of these deaths are the collateral damage that bloodshed brings. They include family, friends, and neighbors of the four young victims. Many of them now face the emptiness, frustration, fear and rage of incomprehensible death. They are at risk for suffering traumatic stress that impacts deeply on their lives, interfering with normal social growth and destroying their basic assumptions about the safety of the world. A single line of graffiti on a concrete wall, composed by a young trauma survivor, says it best: “I don’t like being a child, its 24-hour-a-day guard duty.”

What we know is that society expects parents to do everything—to counter the violent messages in the media, to teach children problem-solving skills, and then to keep them physically and emotionally safe. These are unrealistic expectations. Too many parents lack the information and wherewithal to accomplish this alone. Parents need our help.

At North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center we have a long history in the New Cassel community. Consequently, we were invited to meet with groups of parents, faculty and others in Park Avenue Elementary School, where one of the young victims attended. Being a community-based agency with deep roots in the neighborhood made all the difference. Meeting in groups is essential to rebuilding social connections that traumatic situations destroy.

A first step is to encourage parents and other caring adults to address their own feelings. This is necessary to free them to help their children to cope. Trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk advises that, “successful coping in the aftermath of traumatic events must protect four vital functions: the ability to continue task-oriented activity, the ability to regulate emotion, the ability to sustain positive self value, and the capacity to maintain and enjoy rewarding interpersonal contacts.”

A second step is to identify and emphasize community strengths and resources that sustain hope and reduce shame and isolation. Restoring a sense of community is critical for transcending the emotional impact of deadly violence.

I feel confident that as the bright lights and unforgiving glare of the media fade, and then flicker on again with every new legal development and political promise, the good people of New Cassel will heal and will rise up as those before them have risen up.

The good people of New Cassel will heal, with a little help from their true friends, and will let the world know that although Jewell Ward, Michael Demesyeux, Innocent Demesyeux, and Edwin Yovani Mejia are gone, they will never be forgotten.

As for the rest of us, we are faced with the daunting challenge of ensuring that no child’s life will be what it is becoming for too many today - 24-hour-a-day guard duty.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY in March 2008.

HATEFUL MESSAGES ADD TO SORROW

2008-03-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

Hateful messages add to sorrow: Three children die – and some readers’ depraved responses to the tragedy create and evil all their own

BY ANDREW MALEKOFF

March 4, 2008

I made a disturbing discovery the Sunday afternoon of Feb. 24 when the murder of three innocent children, the youngest named Innocent, allegedly at the hands of their profoundly troubled mother, was first reported on Newsday's Web site. Few details were available at the time. The headline on the Web site read: "Sources: Mom Kills Three Kids in New Cassel." My stomach dropped. I couldn't recall a story quite like this since I moved to Long Island in the late 1970s.

When I scrolled to the end of the story, there was a place to click to "Read all 40 comments." This link, which appears in many online stories in Newsday and other newspapers, takes you to a "Forum," a place for the public to comment.

I clicked into the forum, and amid readers' expressions of shock, dismay, sadness and sympathy, I found a significant stream of depravity. The forum, for the most part, consists of anonymous writers who tag their reflections with a range of nicknames. Here is a sample, exactly as the notes appeared:

Typical wrote: "The savages at it again ... "

The Pusher wrote: "New Cassel should be nuked."

Shoot Me Twice wrote: "The kids didn't put on a convincing performance at the Department of Social Services for mommy to get more free goodies. Maybe Tom Suozzi (County Executive) can use them as extra help at his mansion on the North Shore.

"Senseless wrote: "Where O Where could my Daddy be? In jail most probably . . . planning to get out and commit the next robbery.

"Booker wrote: ". . . These are unstable people with weak genes, she did society a favor. Animals kill their young when they know they are too weak to make a go of it, why are we so different?"

Comments like these continued throughout the week. On Feb. 27 someone identifying himself as Bruce wrote of the murdered children: "three less drains on society. good riddance."

Sprinkled in were a number of counter-responses like this one by Disgusted, "I am sickened by this sad story and sickened again by all of these disgusting comments ... it's really pathetic that some of you have nothing to do but spew hatred."

Sometimes one response would specifically engage another. Right after the children's funerals, I found: Tookie (Huntington Station): "da lil nappi headed **** are in heaven now!"

To which SadSadness AOL responded: ". . . heartless cold person, 3 innocent children were killed regardless of race. If your not feeling sad over this your an evil person. those children did nothing wrong and def did not deserve that, May they Rest in peace respectfully."

It's one of the great benefits of the Internet to offer instant access to news, along with a chance for the audience to instantly share comments about it. But in this situation, even with certain incendiary remarks slapped right down, this seemed like a mixed blessing.

Newsday, like many media sites, has guidelines to try to keep the online conversation civil and constructive.

Yet, after reading messages on the murder of three small children, I am discovering feelings of sorrow that I did not think I would ever experience for the mother who is alleged to have carried out the horror of all horrors, killing her own. Strangely, and I am sure unforgivably to some, I find myself feeling more of a human connection to Leatrice Brewer than to Typical, The Pusher, Booker, Shoot Me Twice, Senseless and their gang.

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.

A SACRED SPACE

2008-02-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

A SACRED SPACE

by Andy Malekoff© 2008

I live in a high ranch in a part of town where the houses sit very closely together. The house behind ours is just yards away. One late summer afternoon the neighbors that live behind us lit up their fireplace. Yes, I did say summer. In no time our house was filled with smoke. Taking the least confrontational approach, the next morning my pregnant wife appealed to the lady of the house. She responded, “Oh, my husband just loves his fireplace. I will have to ask him.” That evening we were invaded once more by smoke from their crackling fireplace.

Next, I approached the man of the house and asked him if he would hold off on lighting a fire for a month or so, when our windows are not wide open all day long. I said, “You know my wife is six months pregnant and we have a young child. I really don’t want them breathing in fumes from your fireplace.” He was pleasant enough. He smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. I will take care of it.” We shook hands.

Same time, next day, same thing. They did not seem to appreciate that their pleasure was our pain. Consequently, I decided to return the favor (sort of) and within one day environmental watchdogs were crawling and sniffing all over their property. The fireplace problem was soon solved.

Some years after the fireplace fiasco, I was out for an early morning bike ride when I was run down by a car whose driver subscribed to the now popular practice of turning right on red without coming to a stop. The irate driver exited his car, pointed up and hollered at me, “I had green!” He backed off when I corrected him, loudly, from my prone position underneath my mangled bicycle. I survived with a few bumps and bruises. He threw a fifty dollar bill at me and said, “This is for your bike.”

Most people that I talk with agree that civility is on the decline. Everyone seems to have their own horror story, whether it is inconsiderate neighbors or co-workers, aggressive driving, or just plain rudeness. There are books written on the subject. The titles include, “The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct,” “Etiquette for Dummies,” and “A Short History of Rudeness.” Among them is “The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour.” Ah yes, those were the days.

We have become all too familiar with the epidemic of f-bombs that pepper civic discourse; pervasive public cell phone calls; pregnant women and elderly people standing on buses without being offered a seat; and drunkenness by people of all ages at sporting events and other communal gatherings. Can you believe that we live in a time when every movie theater begins each show with a film that offers ground rules about being considerate? Can anyone remember a time when people of all ages simply knew movie theater etiquette? In some cities mobs of adults and youth rock and tip over cars and start fires in trash cans to celebrate sports victories – “Hooray…We’re number one!”

Highways and byways have become the Wild West. Hardly anyone comes to a complete stop for a stop sign. The yellow traffic light has evolved from its original meaning: slow down, to its more contemporary meaning: speed up. And then there is tailgating, middle finger salutes, and road rage. All of this reminds me of an old joke: One guy asks another, “What do you think of Western Civilization?” And the other one replies, “It sounds like a good idea.”

Today there is so much talk about putting an end to bullying in schools. Yet, we live in a world of grown up people of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, male and female, who don’t think twice about trampling personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.

It never fails to catch me by surprise, when I go someplace in the United States where drivers stop for pedestrians and people of all ages say, “Good morning,” “Please” and “Thank you” and genuinely seem to mean it. Young people too. Old fashioned kids, I call them.

If we cannot turn back the hands of time, we can at least slow down time and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a reflective pause between impulse and action. Perhaps it is somewhere inside of that sacred space, one family at a time, that we can find our way back to a civil society.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.

BREAKING THE SILENCE

2008-01-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

BREAKING THE SILENCE
By Andy Malekoff© 2007

As a student athlete who played competitive contact sports, I learned at an early age not to grumble about aches and pains or even more serious injuries. I learned to “play hurt,” a price that I was willing to pay and that promised me the dual advantage of advancing my standing on the team and garnering the respect of my coaches and teammates. Consequently, I played with broken bones, severe sprains, bruised ribs, painful contusions known as “hip pointers” and concussions. All but the latter could be detected by the naked eye.

I never once told a coach that I was injured. It was their job to figure it out, to observe me in action and then decide whether or not I should be pulled off the field. Keeping quiet and playing hurt were learned behaviors and important values on the field of play – a badge of honor.

Once when watching game films, my high school football coach chewed me out after a kick off when I appeared to be dogging it. “Malekoff, What are you doing, picking daisies?,” he hollered to the delight of my teammates who convulsed in laughter as he played the film clip over and over again. What did not make it into the frame was the knee applied to my head during a full speed collision with an opponent just moments before my screen debut. Only I knew about the collision that left me seeing stars and staggering about trying to maintain my balance. The truth is that I was out cold on my feet. I stayed on the field, continued to play and never told a soul. This was a scene that was repeated over the years.

I recently learned from reading a compelling series of New York Times articles by Alan Schwartz, that concussions in sports have reached epidemic proportions. Schwartz referred to this as a silent epidemic and a public health issue, fueled by a gladiator culture.

According to Schwartz, “At least 50 high school or younger football players in more than 20 states since 1997 have been killed or have sustained serious head injuries on the field.” He goes on to say that the sad truth is that these could have been prevented through better awareness and respect for the severity of a head injury.

He found that girls are even more vulnerable to concussions than boys in the sports that both play, such as soccer and basketball. I doubt that early advocates of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational institutions, anticipated that as young women and girls exploded onto the sports scene, that they would one day adopt a men’s code of silence. Apparently some have.

What can we do as parents to help to break the silence? If this is a public health issue we must insist that all children and teenagers and their parents be educated early on about the risks, consequences, signs and symptoms of head injury. In addition, young people who are planning to play contact sports require values education that puts the gladiator-play-at-any-cost-culture up for inspection. Adults who care about kids need to offer alternative views and models for demonstrating courage and heart. We must provide a counterforce to the dangerous and false belief that putting one’s well being or life in jeopardy when playing a game is noble.

Competitive sports involves sacrifice, perseverance, loyalty, honor, and courage, all values that will serve one well throughout life. They have served me well. However, maintaining a code of silence about a serious injury that can lead to lifelong consequences is another thing altogether.

Keeping quiet about a head injury is not honorable or courageous. On the contrary, it is ignorant and it is a betrayal of one’s body and mind, and of one’s loved ones.

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 break the silence.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.

WHEN GOVERNMENT LIES, DEMOCRACY DIES

2008-01-06T07:08:00.000-08:00

Weitzman blasted by Guidance Center

By Andy Malekoff and Jo-Ellen Hazan

First published in the Long Island Business News: Friday, December 28, 2007

For more than 50 years, the North Shore Family and Child Guidance Center has served children with serious emotional and social problems and their families.

Putting modesty aside just briefly, we do a spectacular job, often on a shoestring budget, and almost always under difficult circumstances. That is what we do.

Now, we find ourselves the victim of Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman’s thinly veiled campaign to inflate his reputation, with no regard for the truth or for the people he might harm.

Here are the facts:

Four years ago, two employees in our accounting department conspired to steal $70,000 from us. Within weeks, we discovered the theft and called in the police. The employees were led out in handcuffs. They were convicted and punished. And every penny was returned. This is an unfortunate reality of doing business today, and it happens in the best of organizations – like ours.

More than two years later, in an audit by Nassau County, this incident was noted. By then, this was a non-issue, because we had resolved it ourselves, along with other concerns issued in the report. Yet Comptroller Howard Weitzman seized upon it and issued a press release, claiming credit for uncovering fraud, theft and lack of oversight at our agency. In fact, he did not uncover a thing.

The release was painstakingly worded to extract every bit of drama and to earn every nugget of credit for Mr. Weitzman, where he was entitled to none. He held a press conference to trumpet his accomplishments. He compared us to the Roslyn School District. And he issued a “blast” e-mail of the press release to his friends, donors and supporters, obviously to demonstrate that he was right on the case.

We had provided Mr. Weitzman with all of the ingredients for a juicy story – money, kids and theft. And he told the story – and a story is all it was – very well. To compare us to Roslyn is just pandering.

Mr. Weitzman may have done great damage to our organization and, ultimately, to the children and families we have been serving and advocating for every day for more than 50 years.

Unlike Mr. Weitzman, we don’t have a good publicity machine. For the most part, the people who know us are our donors and the people we help. Unlike Mr. Weitzman, we do not blare our accomplishments and we do not exaggerate them. And, also unlike Mr. Weitzman, we would not try to inflate our own image by harming others. Especially kids.

Shame on you, Howard Weitzman.

Andrew Malekoff, executive director; Jo-Ellen Hazan, president, North Shore Family & Guidance Center

LET THEM EAT CAKE

2007-12-23T04:05:00.000-08:00

LET THEM EAT CAKE

By Andy Malekoff © 2007

I recently learned that some schools have banned parents from bringing cupcakes into school for their children’s birthdays in an effort to decrease childhood obesity. Some parents agree and some object. Those who agree are encouraged by reports that the children don’t miss the sweet treats when they are replaced with healthy snacks and fun activities. Those who object to substitute foods and activities see an end to an age old childhood ritual.

What’s the big deal anyway? Cupcakes can be replaced with healthy snacks like rice cakes. I tried to stick a candle into a rice cake and the rice cake split in half. I tried it again and the candle wouldn’t hold. So I bought a container of low fat Jell-O, scooped it out and put it on top of the rice cake. I stuck the candle into the Jell-O and it stayed, although it did jiggle.

Some think that fun activities are good alternatives to cupcakes. I would steer clear of pin the tail on the donkey and bashing a piñata with stick, particularly if the piñata is an animal figure. I think pin the tail on the eggplant might work. Just think how things might have turned out for Michael Vick if he pinned the tail on an eggplant when he was a child.

I am in favor of anything that will help children to grow up healthy, physically and emotionally; anything that will help them to fit in socially and gain a real sense of belonging. Some call this latest movement to reduce childhood obesity “culinary correctness.” It is fun to joke around about this, just as it was fun when Ronald Reagan declared ketchup a vegetable some years ago when he and his budget director David Stockman took on school lunches during Reagan’s budget cutting days in the early 1980’s.

If depriving kids a couple trays of cupcakes each year will really help to keep them fit and trim I am all for it. And, of course I know that this is just one part of a grander plan for improving kids’ healthy development and an easy target to poke fun at. The reality, according to national studies is that between 5-25 percent of children and teenagers in the United States are obese and, according to some reports, on the increase.

According to experts, obesity is easier to prevent than to treat. Prevention focuses in large part on parent education that includes encouraging proper nutrition, selection of low-fat snacks, good exercise/activity habits, and monitoring of television viewing.

Specialists at the Mayo Clinic advise parents to, “Keep in mind that many overweight children grow into their extra pounds as they get taller. Realize, too, that an intense focus on your child's eating habits and weight can easily backfire, leading a child to overeat even more, or possibly making him or her more prone to developing an eating disorder.”

In the final analysis and if I had to take a stand, I say give the kids an extra lap or two during gym class on birthdays. And, let them eat cake.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.

HEADLINE HATCHET JOB

2007-12-22T06:31:00.000-08:00

Headline Hatchet Job
By Andy Malekoff © 2007

Early in December, 2007 there were several news stories about a man with a long history of mental illness who took hostages in Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in New Hampshire. A headline on the front pages of the New York Post read: LOONY SEIZES HOSTAGES IN HILLARY’S OFFICE. For two consecutive days the New York Daily News printed headlines that read: WACKO BOMBS AT HILL’S OFFICE and NUT’S LIFE FROM HELL.

By now you know that the headlines were referring to an individual with a known history of serious mental illness. Had there been no such history then the derisive terms “loony,” “wacko,” and “nut” would have been a way of highlighting the lunacy of a desperate criminal act versus employing insulting stereotypes to label an individual with a mental illness. Although these headlines are about one man’s criminal act, the effect of the language in the headlines is to discredit all individuals with mental illness.

So, you may be wondering, what is the big deal? Or, you may be thinking that you are reading another tired diatribe promoting political correctness. After all, the man did do something undeniably crazy. Nevertheless, although juicy headlines sell newspapers, there is collateral damage when stigmatizing language about individuals with mental illness is used. The headline writers cannot hide behind the crime. Language that appears in the headlines of popular newspapers does influence people’s perceptions, attitudes and behavior. In this case they promote an undesirable stereotype and reinforce discrimination. The headline writers who write such headlines are the equivalent of schoolyard bullies except, in this case, the schoolyard is the entire New York metropolitan area and beyond, and the headline writers are more sinister and have more sway than the typical schoolyard bully.

Stigma experts Bruce Link and Jo C. Phelan from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, offer insights on how stigma evolves. First, human differences are labeled and assigned undesirable characteristics that lead to negative stereotypes. Labeled persons are then put in distinct categories in order to separate “us” from “them.” Finally, labeled persons lose status, and experience discrimination that leads to unequal outcomes.

Many individuals suffering with mental illnesses - children, teenagers and adults alike - have long histories of being at the butt end of cruel and stigmatizing taunts and jokes. Most people with physical illnesses, on the other hand, are beneficiaries of widespread understanding, sympathy and support. This is the reality despite the fact that neuro-imaging studies show physical changes in the brain are associated to mental disorders. Headlines that use terms like “loony” and “wacko” reinforce the notion that mental Illness is a sure sign of dangerous and irrational behavior, versus a disease with a biological basis. Headlines that employ such language also reinforce the idea that mental illness is something that is “all in one’s head” and can be controlled only if one has the moral fiber to do so.

It is shameful that the editors of major metropolitan newspapers choose to exploit isolated criminal acts to promote negative stereotypes and reinforce stigma in people with mental illness. Clearly, simply telling the truth and informing readers about a desperate criminal act is less important to them than taking the opportunity to exploit and discredit people suffering with mental illness, through malicious name calling that reinforces fear, mistrust and stigma.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

2007-11-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

WORKS IN PROGRESS

By Andrew Malekoff©2007

In 1964 movie producer Michael Apted conducted and filmed interviews with fourteen seven-year-old children from diverse backgrounds living all across the United Kingdom. Seven Up is the first in a series of films that have been produced in seven year intervals over the past four decades. I recently watched the latest installment - 49 Up.

Imagine having your life portrayed on film for public consumption at regular intervals for as long as you live; facing questions about your work and family, your successes and failures, your joys and disappointments. Imagine having to dig deep to consider and then share with the world whether or not your hopes and dreams have been fulfilled.

In the beginning of the early episodes the film presents viewers with a maxim attributed to Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” In an interview Apted says that he believes that there is a core personality at seven years old that doesn't dissapear. Some of the children he interviewed were raised in privileged surroundings and boarding schools and others in poverty and group care. Yet their early socioeconomic status did not necessarily predict stability or happiness in later life.

Following Seven Up, each successive film includes interspersed clips from previous ones, enabling viewers to see the individuals mature from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood and beyond. Many, but not all, get married and become parents. Some separate, some divorce and some remarry. Many speak to the challenges of marriage. Their physical maturation is presented before our eyes in a sort of time-lapse photography style, accompanied by the music of childhood dreams, adolescent angst and adult realities. Older age awaits them (and us) and is only a few multiples of seven ahead. Having lost contemporaries of my own by their age, I found it remarkable that this random sample of fourteen people were all still living at 49, although we are just now beginning to see signs and symptoms of ailing health among the group.

I was also surprised to learn that only one person dropped out (after 21 Up) and especially after hearing several reflect on how painful it is to be a part of the series. They talked about the difficulty of having their lives (and families) intruded upon, being placed under a public microscope and, to add insult to injury, being subjected to random (mis)interpretations and judgments by strangers based on edited celluloid snippets of their lives.

Some of them recognize the contribution and importance of their ongoing participation in the project. I think that their sacrifice is a gift to the rest of us. Their lives portrayed at seven year intervals over forty-two years and counting, offer us a message of hope. By laying their lives on the line they demonstrate, in graphic terms, just how resilient human beings are and how powerful family life is.

What about Saint Francis Xavier? Is his contention correct? : “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man [or woman].” At first glance, when I look back at myself at seven, I find little to predict what has become of me today. I cannot quite remember myself at seven. There is no filmed documentary available of anyone asking me questions about my life and my future in 1958. The best I could do was to dig up old report cards. In one of them my first grade teacher Mrs. Finkel wrote, “Andrew tends to go to extremes lately. He is either the best boy in the class, or he creates mischief by loud laughter.” In her next report she upgraded me and wrote, “Splendid worker.”

If I look closely at myself at seven and fourteen and twenty-one I can find some clues that lead me to where I am today. But the clues don’t appear to me in a straight line. The path is a crooked one with many twists and turns and detours. When I look at my own sons, now 18 and 22, it is good for me to remember this, to remember that like me and the Seven Up kids they are and will continue to be forever works in progress.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.