Health/Mental Health Services

Health and Mental Health Services achieved an Excellent rating of 91% in the fifth Annual Evaluation of the Administration for Children's Services Contracted Foster Boarding Home Program. Health Services had 38 perfect records.

The Health and Mental Health Services Department continues our commitment to provide quality care to the Families and Children that we serve. Our qualified staff embraces Commissioner Mattingly's System Plan for Rightsizing, Reinvesting and Realigning the New York City Child Welfare System. In the face of ever shrinking resources and the mandates to perform quality health and mental health services which are affordable, accessible and neighborhood based, we have had to become very creative in our approach to health care delivery. By participating in community health fairs, attending community based health care forums and symposiums, and by hosting health and mental health workshops with staff and caregivers, we have increased our visibility as well as our community relationships with the NYU Child Study Center, Harlem Family Institute and Hunter School of Social Work Independent Living Training Network, to name a few. Being connected to the Community Resources facilitates building Children, Youth and Family Assets.

This year Health Services provided internships for Hunter Bellevue School of Nursing RN pathway students and Masters level Community Health Nursing students. In addition, for the first time we had a Masters of Public Health Student do her internship at EGSCF.

These teaching opportunities bring a vast wealth of resources to our department in the form of program development, grant writing proposals, and health teaching theory that enhance the services we offer to children, adolescents and families. Our own staff is continuing their education as well, expanding their knowledge base so as to better serve our children, adolescents and families. Two members of our support staff are studying to become nurses, one of our LPNs is pursuing an RN while one of our RN's is working on her Master's degree. These educational up-grades will make a great contribution to the building of children and family assets.

Perhaps some of the most important work that the Health Services Team did this past year was to help our former adolescent group home girls transition from congregate care life, to function as part of a family in our foster boarding home program. These young women, who had already experienced so many disruptions in their lives were challenged again to regroup and find a place for themselves in the world. Many of these girls were casualties of failed adoptions and decided not to set themselves up for another rejection. Some of these young women chose to start their own families, become mothers embrace responsibility and try to create a better world for their children. The health services students and nurses provided workshops for this population throughout the year, made frequent contacts and visited the hospital and the foster homes. This was very rewarding work for us - building children and family assets for our teen parents. Perhaps the most rewarding moment was when one young woman who was a former group home resident, then a teen mom in foster care, visited the agency to let us all know that she had enrolled in college. With a huge smile on her face, she waived her college acceptance papers in the air and announced, "I'm going to be a Nurse!"

Health Services' overall support to foster parents, birth parents and children coupled with the bonds we have developed with the foster boarding home staff contributed to this year's impressive Agency Equip score of 90%. Our challenge now is to maintain this high score and continue to improve outcomes for the families and children that we serve. As the Foster Care Re-alignment process moves forward, we will be called upon to function in a more preventive role. As nurses are educated and become experienced in the field of preventive health, we will be committed to reach out to families in need to prevent them from coming into foster care. Commissioner Mattingly’s Foster Care Realignment plan mirrors the tenets of the best community health nursing practice. The Health and Mental Health staff is in full support of this vision of caring for families and communities. Health and Mental Health Services desires to be on the cutting edge of the Foster Care Re-alignment Process and to be successful in building children and family assets. We are confident that as a team, we can continue to make it happen.