The Dammann Fund, Inc. has awarded North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center with a grant of $10,000 to support its Good Beginnings for Babies (GBB) program, a service that operates out of the Guidance Center’s Leeds Place in Westbury and offers support for pregnant and parenting teens.
According to Guidance Center CEO Andrew Malekoff, “GBB promotes the healthy development of children by ensuring access to prenatal care and promoting preventive care for parents and their children. We aim to help the moms reach full-term pregnancies, deliver healthy birth weight babies and build strong attachments with their newborns. Good attachments are the cornerstone of healthy emotional development.”
GBB Program Director, Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust added, “In GBB we work with families to develop and promote a community of support. The goal is to reduce isolation of young parents in the early years of their child’s development and increase the community’s sense of responsibility for young families, by building a community of young parents who support one other.” Dr. Taylor-Walthrust added, “We also carefully screen for maternal depression and other perinatal mood disorders and provide treatment or referrals for mental health care, as indicated.”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is the pre-eminent children’s mental health agency on Long Island. The Guidance Center is dedicated to strengthening the emotional well-being of children and families, and leads the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, and advocacy.
The Guidance Center helps families to raise healthy children and works with kids (ages 0-24) who are troubled, in trouble, or causing trouble and parents who need help in these stressful times. Difficulties range from depression and anxiety, developmental delays and school failure, from substance abuse to family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma, and divorce. We offer outpatient mental health counseling and teen drug abuse and prevention services.
Our highly-qualified multi-cultural and bi-lingual staff consists of teams of caring psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, drug & alcohol counselors, mental health counselors, and family advocates, with expertise in working with children.
To learn more about the Guidance Center, visit our website: www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516 626 1971.
