Photos by the NYC Mayor's Office and City Limits/Adi Talwar
City Limits’ series on behavioral health and NYC’s children is supported by the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York. City Limits is solely responsible for the content and editorial direction.
The de Blasio administration has proposed an increase in spending for student mental health initiatives, but advocates and council members are pushing for more.
‘Unless New York’s next mayor steps up to address the barrage of crises facing New York’s children, an already untenable situation is on track to become much, much worse.’
Last week, a group of organizations demanding a more culturally diverse curriculum in New York City public schools took to the Department of Education’s (DOE) Lower Manhattan headquarters seeking to remind the authorities of the debt they have with the city to expand culturally responsive projects in schools.
‘I don’t know that the diagnostic incidents of OCD has gone up, but the symptom occurrence and the severity has exacerbated with the pandemic,’ says Theresa Hsu-Walklet, a psychologist and the assistant director of the Pediatric Behavioral Health Integration Program at Montefiore Medical Center.
Data released recently by the Department of Education for January shows students living in the shelter system saw the most absences, with a monthly attendance rate of 75.7 percent compared to the citywide rate for all students, which was 89.2 percent.
‘During the height of the pandemic, there was an 82 percent decline in Early Intervention referrals compared to prior years, meaning that an estimated 3,000-6,000 young children in New York City with potential disabilities were never even assessed.’
The state urged local school districts last year to allow students to continue their studies even after they turn 21, to make up for academic losses during the pandemic. The same policy should be made for this year’s students ‘aging’ out, advocates say.
‘Cuomo is proposing cuts to two vital funding streams that have worked for years to keep New York’s children safe…It is irresponsible and immoral.’
Child welfare advocates say the Fair Futures program, which funds coaches and tutors for kids in foster care, is more vital than ever in the face of the pandemic’s impact on young people.
At the start of the pandemic, New York lifted restrictions on the use of telehealth for Medicaid recipients. The change has meant better access to mental health services for families involved in the state’s child welfare system, including youth in foster care, a new survey found.
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