Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hudson Valley This Morning with Ed Kowalski is the new
Voice in the Hudson Valley.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, this is Ed. I am so grateful for the
support you've already given us. We are creating a platform
that gives you our listeners of voice. Together we can
build the best local community talk program in the Hudson Valley.
Hudson Valley this Morning with Ed Kowalsky. Uncle Mike is
in the studio and we are pleased once again to
welcome Leah Feldman, who is the CEO of Family Services,
(00:27):
to our studio to talk a little bit more about
her programs over at Family Services, to talk about upcoming events,
and we're going to be doing this in our podcasting
format to give us a little bit more time to
break into all of the issues and all the good
work that Family Services it's currently is doing and will
continue to be able to do. Leah, you brought a
guest with you can tell us who's here.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I sure did. I brought with me today, Carmen. Carmen
is works in our development and marketing department at Family
Services and she started with us just about a year ago, right, Yeah,
it's been about a year and has brought a great
skill set to our marketing, our branding, how we tell
(01:12):
our story, if you will, which is so important right
for a nonprofit, for people to be able to understand
what we do for the purpose of receiving support from us,
right if they're in need of support, but also being
able to tell our stories so that people understand how
important we are to the community and want to be
part of what we do philanthropically working for us, volunteering
(01:35):
for us. So yeah, that's why I brought Current today.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
That's an interesting position you have now off air, we
were talking about your background and we're talking about you know,
you went to Boston College, which is near and dear
to my heart, and you also you studied political science,
so you're doing something very different than what you study.
Tell us a little bit about that, Carmen.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Yes, absolutely, I think that in terms of political I
originally saw myself going into kind of a law background.
Definitely not a politician background by any means. But I've
always wanted to do kind of mission driven work, and
that's why I ended up at Family Services. I mean,
my mom worked in social work for a very long time.
(02:17):
She's a therapist.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Now, Okay, so you had a little bit of an
exposure to what mom did and so on and so forth.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Absolutely, So I think I saw this job posting for
Family Services and it just resonated so much. Being able
to do to use my skill set in terms of design, graphic, design, communications,
that's so that's been a goal of mine.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
So that's my So you're putting it all together to
be able to tell Family Services communities without limits story. Yeah, terrific, terrific.
How many employees do you have, leah Old Family Services now?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Around two hundred and twenty really, yeah, yep. And we
have fourteen sites across the Hudson Valley, So we are
in Dutchess, Ulter and Orange cam and we serve The
numbers for twenty twenty four have just come together. Nearly
nineteen thousand people children, adults and families in the Hudson
(03:13):
Valley received our support in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Now, again, because we're doing this outside of our normal
broadcasting day, you know, where we sort of compress a
lot of good information into a sort of compressed period
of time, we have a little bit more time to
talk a little bit more about the nuances and the
different types of programs that Family Services currently offers. Can
(03:38):
you just very quickly, as best as you can, just
give us an overview and what I'd like to do
Leah as we bring you back, hopefully in this format,
to talk a little bit more on a deeper level
about each one of these programs so our listeners can
really understand how broad Family Services programs are. So can
we do that from a thirty thousand foot overview?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
And then we'll drill Yeah, I'll try my best. I
always say, you know, time, mate, because I try to
do this as briefly as I can, But there's really
a lot to it.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So there is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
At Family Services, we like to say we exist to
support everyone's right to thrive, and that is because the
work that we do is really around supporting basic and
fundamental human rights, the right to safety, the right to
mental well being, and the right to boundless opportunities to
grow and to thrive in life. And we do that
(04:31):
through seven different program areas. So our largest program are
our Behavioral health services and that's basically mental health services.
So we have eight clinic like setting buildings where we
do mental health services for adults, and come this summer
we will be starting to serve children. So we will
(04:51):
be serving from age three up through the lifespan.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, if I could just stop you there, because the
last time.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I'm never going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
No, no, no, a little bit of but I want to
be able to just sort of augment that because the
last time you were in with Uncle Mike and I,
we spoke specifically about that program, and we spoke more
importantly about the need for that program because pediatric psychiatry
is somewhat that's it doesn't really fully exist in Dutchess County.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, so we you know, we were getting a report
from community members that needed support for their children that
you know, they were waiting upwards of eighteen months to
receive psychiatric evaluations and support for their children. I spoke
to one mother who had a five year old who
you know, was exhibiting some signs of you know, significant
(05:40):
anxiety and eighteen month waiting list, you know, and she,
you know, basically said to me, it's going to be
too late. You know, by the time you know, I get,
he's going to be a different child and it might
be too late by then. And you know, couple that
with you know, the reason why there is a shortage
is because there is such an increased demand. So the
mental health of young people in America has been on
(06:03):
the decline. In fact, they actually there are studies that
show with the increase in sale and the iPhone, there's
an increase in suicide among young people. So you know,
the anxieties, and you know, maybe that you know, we
can talk more about that, you know, in relation to
our upcoming event, but you know, increased anxiety, suicide attempts
(06:26):
and completed suicide and just a real isolation of young
people in America and the and a large social emotional
gap that persists post COVID. And so that's where we
decided to expand our service provision. And I just want
to mention our mental health services are in Poughkeepsie, Beacon,
(06:47):
rhinebecked Dover, Millbrook, Ellenville, Kingston and Highland. People don't realize
that we actually have so many rural clinic settings and
and that's really important because we reach a very areas
of the counties where there might not be access to support.
A good example is in our Rhinebeck site. We're actually
(07:08):
moving our Rhinebeck site to a larger location later this
year because there's been such a demand for services in
Northern Duchess and we can't fit enough people in our doors,
so we're moving to a larger space. We will also
be serving children out of that setting, and yeah, so
we're looking forward to being able to increase our presence
there and that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Program is slated to open and be fully functional in
you said May.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The children's services will be functioning by in the summer
at some point in Poughkeepsie, Kingston and Ellenville, and then
with Rhinebeck because we're moving our site, that'll be later
in the year once we have to do construction.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So that's one example and a one practice area. Can
you give us a little bit of the other ones?
Give us a sharecome real?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah? So our second largest program is our Victim Services program,
and that's where we provide twenty four hour, seven day
week support to victims of crime. The largest population we
serve our domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. And
so that's where we have a two twenty four hour
crisis line, so a twenty four hour domestic violence hot
line and a twenty four hour rape crisis crime victims
(08:17):
hot line. If I could just provide those numbers for
the listeners, Our twenty four hour domestic Violence hot line
is eight four five four eight five five five five zero.
That's eight four five four eight five five five five zero.
And our twenty four hour crime Victim Rape Crisis Line
is eight four five four five two seven two seven two.
(08:40):
That's eight four five four five two seven two seven two.
I hope folks wrote those numbers down because they can
really save someone's life, your own, or a friend or
a loved one, someone in need. That those lines are
staffed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week
with people who are highly trained and skilled in working
with people through me crisis as it relates to a
(09:02):
crime or a victimization, or connecting people with services so
it's not always an immediate crisis. We work very closely
with local law enforcement. We work very closely with the
court systems, the medical systems in the county. We really
are responsible for creating policy for all the first responding
entities to ensure that there is what's called a victim
(09:23):
center and trauma formed response right that if you go
to any police department in this county, you are met
with the same response and it's a victim centered truma
inform response.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
UNCLE Mike, any of those phone numbers you gave, if
they go to your website, they're on the website.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Correct, they sure are. And that website is Family Services
and why dot org. That's Family Services and why dot Org.
On the website. You also have access to a chat function,
so you know, like everyone likes to chat or text,
I should say, on their phones, you can pull up
a text and text one of these individuals. Same people
(09:59):
that answer the phone would answ.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You know. It's interesting too when when when I'm on
your website right now, and one of the one of
the things that that struck me is that you have
an escape button on the top of it, and I,
you know, when I first looked at it was like, well,
I wonder what that's there for, and then of course
adorned on me. Someone may be accessing this site either
at home or at work or in a group setting,
(10:24):
and or someone may want to walk in and say, ed,
why are you in the Family Services website? What are
you looking for? It allows someone to quickly tag right
out of that site.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
It's really best practice for any any program that's providing support,
particularly to domestic violence survivors, because technology abuse and technology
stalking is is a huge part of how individuals are
stalked and tracked by their abusive partners, and so if
you're looking for support and someone comes over your shoulder,
(10:53):
you should be able to click out of it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Now, now that program is your second largest program.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yes, yeah, So we have around thirty staff that work
in that building and then we are out. We have
staff co located at the local law enforcement entities. So
in the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department, City Poughkeepsie Police Department,
City of Beacon Police Department, Town of Hyde Park Police Department,
and the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office. Our staff actually sit
(11:22):
there and provide direct support to the officers and to
individuals as they walk in to report crimes.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, it's interesting because and you know you're right, you
warn me, you know, once you get going. We can
talk like this for seven hours on each of these programs.
But there was a New York State Court appellate decision
that was reached specific to domestic violence victims, and really
the genesis of it is the lawsuit was brought by
(11:48):
a woman whose live in boyfriend was abusing her and
they had a child in the house. Okay, it was
her child, it wasn't his child. They had a child
in the house and child protective services. After the abuser
was removed from the house, child Protective Services continued to
(12:09):
do welfare checks on the kid, and the woman raised
the lawsuit to say, well, I wasn't abusing the child.
The person who was removed from the house was abusing
the child. And it went all the way and the
appellate court supported her position on that. And it's interesting
there's some give and take on both sides of the
equation on that, you know, in terms of is that
(12:32):
the right thing to do? Is that not the right
thing to do. I'm going to unpack that at a
later date. Yes, with a little bit with a little
bit more input from you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Not uncommon a situation that we see, you know, in
terms of you know, survivors having to weigh, you know,
what to do in a situation.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But it's funnily, when I read the decision, I was,
you know again, because you know, one of the great
things about being able to be friends with you, to
be able to understand the program is is my own
education in terms of what you what you're doing and
so on? And so forth. That's why I wanted That's
why Mike and I are trying to be able to
just highlight what you're doing, because I when I read
the decision, I said, well that makes sense, you know,
(13:12):
And then I said to myself, well does it make sense?
And I'm going back and forth on it. So I'm
going to need your help and unpacking that.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
So what you and Uncle Mike really said was what
would Leah say?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I said, I looked at In fact, I have, I
have the summary and I'm going to send it to you.
I'm going to send you the court decision.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
What would family services do?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Would so anyway?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
So okay, so we can tell you what Lee is
going to err on the side of safety.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Is what she's going to do. There's no question there
is is a logical thing to do. You're right, but
but Wayne law is always logical. Well don't we know that?
And and and at the end of the day, not
that I want to derail, if you will, the conversations
about family services. You're right to to weighing in on
the side of safety for the kid that's left in
the house, I understand, But is that a interference with
(13:58):
the woman's rights because she was never abuser. She was
never the abuser. That's a whole well, and you know what,
that's the subject of another show. You and I talk
a little bit more about that life. So yes, so again,
so after that next that program, the Family Services program.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
So and so speaking of children in safety, our family
programs work with families who are at risk of having
their children removed from the home by Child Protective Services.
And what we do is we actually get referrals from
child Protective Services or from the counties for families that
(14:35):
you know, are in need of some support to bring
some safety and stability to the family. The goal is
for families to stay together if they can safely, because
we know that removing a child from a home is
is it very traumatic and if and sometimes families really
just need a little bit of support.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
We operate off the premise that parents love their children,
but parenting is really difficult, right and sometimes especially if
you weren't parented in a way that allows you to
you know, generationally pass that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
On Tom, how you were raised.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, So we work with parents to learn nurturing skills,
parenting education, to deep dive into how they were raised
and how that's coming out in their homes. And we
actually just this past year of all the families we
worked with across three counties Dutchess also Orange Counties, ninety
five percent of the families we worked with were able
(15:29):
to stay together safely. And this is intensive home based
eight months to a years to a year working with families.
So we're really proud of that statistic. Any questions on
that one now.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
But once but once again, though, we could do two
hours just from back and forth. What we're talking about,
am so with your organization all over.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
The next program area is our prevention work. So you know,
the best way to respond to crisis right is to
prevent it before it happens. So we prevention programming to
support the right of children to build their knowledge and skills,
and so we do the substance use prevention work in
the Ulster County schools. We work with all the all
(16:14):
nine school districts in Ulster County. We do like a
twelve week too Good for Drugs curriculum in the middle
school and we also do some gun violence prevention work
as well. Speaking of working with kids, we also do
teen programming. So at the Family Partnership Center, we have.
We for many years ran what was called the Teen
(16:35):
Resource Activity Center, or TRACK, but as the needs of
youth have evolved, we are also evolving our program. So
this year our TRACK program will sort of be sun
setting and our new program will be infusing mental health
supports into our teen programming at the Family Partnership Center.
So this is a program mainly serving middle and high
(16:57):
school youth from the city of Poughkeepsie. And we're going
to be hiring a social worker and the social worker
is going to be working towards repairing that social emotional
gap that youth are experiencing post COVID, So we're really
excited for that and the Family Partnership Center. The Family
Partnership Center is one of our premier programs. It's the
(17:21):
large old Lord's School building at twenty nine North Hamilton
Street and Family Services owns the building and we act
as the landlord to between eighteen and twenty other nonprofits
and related entities that are housed with us in the building.
So together with our partners, we provide a place of access.
We call it the Beacon of Hope in a place
(17:43):
where people can come have a number of needs met healthcare,
mental health care, after school programs, food, pantry, enrichment programs, clothing,
chiropractic care, educational services. I mean, we have Dutchess Outreach
that have the you know, provides food. We worked on
food and security. We have Duchess Community College doing English
(18:06):
as a second language and GED courses. We have a
bank Heritage Financial Credit Union that does financial literacy courses.
So we just you could walk in the building. It's
really a magical place to be and you can have
any number of services.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Meant. Yeah, And it's funny that you say that because
Uncle Mike and I were there not that long ago
for the naturalization ceremony. Oh you were there. We were there, Yeah,
we were there. I was there. Uncle Mike was there.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I saw Uncle Mike. I didn't get a chance to
see it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I was hanging out in the background.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
It was a beautiful, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It was a wonderful ceremony, And as I said, I
took the opportunity of sort of walking around and I
was just sort of just absorbing all of the entities
that are there, and I was like, wow, yeah, that's
really cool. It was almost overwhelming to me. So that's
why I'm glad we're doing this, Yeah, to break out.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
All of those services that are available, because I think
it's a very very fair statement that I think a
lot of our listeners don't really fully understand what's there
and what's available.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, and you understand why, because there's so much.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
To it that I understand. But I mean, but it's
amazing to think about that in our own community, you know,
I mean, you know, it's funny even you know, the
last time you were in, we were talking about the
whole issue of children needing help and that that that
was prompted by me meeting a woman who gave a
very very interesting presentation to the Dutchess County Legislature about
(19:26):
you know, this is there's a real problem here, and
all of a sudden, you know, you know, you know,
we spoke to her and you guys came in and
it was very interesting to say that there's a there's
a resource that's under development and will be available soon
to be able to address this issue.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, for sure. And there's one last Programmerrea, I want
to mention, and that is our community safety program. So
we run what's called the SNUG program. Snug is guns
spelled backwards, and we are one of fourteen sites across
the state that has been identified by the New York
State Division of Criminal Justice Services as an area with
(20:01):
a high concentration of gun violence. This is particularly to
the city of Pikeepsie. And so the SNUG program is
one where we hire people that are considered credible messengers
in the community and they mediate potential instances of gun
violence with the goal of stopping gun violence. So they
(20:22):
work with individuals who at the highest risk of being
shot or shooting someone. And they for example, last year
in twenty twenty four, they spent over one thousand hours
out on the streets in Poughkeepsie doing outreach and they
mediated over one hundred conflicts that you know, otherwise would
have could have had deadly consequences. So they're doing an
(20:45):
incredible work. Incredible work.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So to highlight her program that's coming up the Report
to the to the Public, Report to the Community, Part
to the Community. Last year, lady, you highlighted the SNUG
program at I was there for the last year report
and you highlighted that program during the report.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
It was very interesting to watch.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, they they do such great work. They're so they're
so easy to highlight because they're they're just doing such
wonderful work. And you know, this year in twenty twenty four,
in a matter of two months in the summer, there
were twelve shooting victims in Poughkeepsie. So do the math.
They respond to every single one of those shootings, so
(21:26):
you can imagine, you know, how how hard they're working.
In all of twenty twenty four, there were sixteen shooting victims,
six of them were teenagers, So they're doing you know,
so we actually this year added a specific youth case
manager youth outreach worker onto our team so that we
could really be doing a lot of work with the teens.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
In the It's pretty safe to say, Lee, that number
would have been a lot higher without the program.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
It's hard to prove, but I do believe that, Uncle
Bry for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I think so, just based on you know, in a
presentation that your people. It was something that most people
are not familiar with whatsoever, but they're around it all
the time and they don't realize it. So it was
a great program and I think it raised a lot
of awareness.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah, and thank you for mentioning our report to the community.
So that's coming up here on March twentieth at the
Grand View. So it is a buffet lunch. It's gonna
be y as the grand View always does wonderful. Everyone knows.
It's at eleven thirty. Tickets are on sale on our website,
which is Family Services and Why dot Org. That's Family
(22:31):
Services and Why dot Org to get your tickets. We
have a fabulous keynote speaker this year, Catherine Martinko. She
is a author, nationally renowned author. She wrote the book
Childhood Unplugged. She's also a speaker for the Anxious Generation.
If you have not read the book The Anxious Generation
or listen to the podcast, you have to. It'll change
(22:53):
your life, especially if you are around young people, you
care about a young person, you have a teenager in
your life, Listen to that podcast or that read that book.
It's really about the impact of digital technology on childhood,
reshaping childhood and what it's doing to youth in their
mental health.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And Leah, I am so glad and happy and very
interested in going to this event to listen to her,
not only to listen to all the wonderful things that
your program is going to report to the community, but
specifically to listen to this author because coincidentally, this past
couple of weeks, the Wall Street Journal has run in
their technology sections the latest you know, soup de jour
(23:38):
in technology, which is highlighting various applications that are generating
or that are that have been created specifically for the
teenage population to specifically deal with like counseling situations. In
other words, if your kids having a problem, stick them
in front of a phone and they could talk to
(23:59):
an AI chat therapist. As crazy as that sounds, I'm
not taking this.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's interesting because I also just read an article about
how AI is going to eliminate most people's jobs, and
now I'm worried about our own.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, I mean, I mean, Uncle Mike and I are
just AI robots here.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean really, wow, I'm about as far from a
robot as you could get.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Well, so listen to me. It's I was raised in
a generation where I you know, social media came into
my life when I was you know, in lighteen years right, Carmen,
you were raised in a generation were you at social
media from birth?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Right?
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Not from birth, but since I was about eleven or
ten years old?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
But let me, I'm sorry, Carmen. I don't mean to interrupt.
How old were you when you got your first cell phone?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I had a flip phone when I was about seven
years old, but I didn't get my first smartphone until
probably twelve years old. And before that I had an iPad,
so I had Instagram.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
When when did you get your first social media accounts?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Eleven?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah? Wow, I was twelve. I had a tin can
with a string. I didn't even still.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Have a tin can with a string. That's how I'm
keeping it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
No, I mean, I don't want to get sidetracked here,
because this is a whole other story that we can
end up doing. But that's why I'm very anxious, and
I think a lot of our listeners would be very
very particularly parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. This is a big issue.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is
a grandfather. Okay, I'm getting to the point now. We're
a lot of guys I went to high school with
(25:28):
my now grandfathers, Like, oh my gosh, I'm getting this old.
I mean to make a long story short. He was
talking about his son giving his granddaughter, who is three,
a cell phone. Well I'm not kidding.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I mean, that is wild. Carmen.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Yeah, it is really a challenge for parents of the
upcoming generations to manage the cell phone use. I know
for my own parents, my mom was pretty good at
limiting me when I was young, but as I got older,
I kind of went on my own path and decided
to use my phone a lot more than I had
been using it. But yeah, there's no precedent for this.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
So I said to my friend, I said, so, what
did you tell your son to do? And he goes, well,
I asked my son, why did you do that? And
the answer he got back was, well, because she asked
for it. She's three.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Good thing she did ask for a car.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I guess that's next week, Mike, that's next week.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
You know, it's interesting when you think about how safety
has evolved for young people and for families like you know,
when I was young, you know, my parents say we're
out of the house. Lock the door, make sure you
locked the door. Don't let strangers in. Right, it was
always about like strangers not being able to physically get
into your home. Well, now we just allow strangers in
(26:50):
our home all the time, all the time. By giving
a phone to a child, and children are at great
risk of being taken advantage of monitoring wise, you know,
photos anything. You know, once something's on the internet's on
there forever, and there's a lot there's a lot of
I have a lot of fear for young young people,
(27:12):
young women in particular, young girls, that are subject to
some some real dangers right over social media.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I think to that point, like I will say, my generation,
we weren't taught how to use these platforms safely at all.
We were not taught how to navigate these things or
the content that we were seeing stuff that other generations
did not have to see at such early ages, whether
that's violence or sexual content, et cetera. And you know
(27:42):
that definitely takes a toll on your mental health. It
definitely impacts how you view yourself, how you view yourself
in relation to other people. You know, there's this whole
highlight reel. Yeah, the highlight reel, this projection of a
life that may not even be a realistic or even
real life.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And you know, when you think about it, you know,
when you're talking to about a young person, and I
can and I can go back to when I was
fifteen and sixteen, and Mike and I have spoken about
this there's no question, and I'm absolutely one hundred percent
certain this is a true comment. If I had access
to the technology that a fourteen year old has now
(28:21):
back when I was in high school, I wouldn't really
be in a lot of trouble because I didn't know better.
I would be doing stupid things. And I think you
stumble into these things and you can't get yourself out
of them. There's almost like a snowballing effect that occurs,
right well.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, absolutely. There's actually like a quote by Jonathan Hate
or it's actually not by him, but I think I
watched a podcast that he was on and he said this.
It's basically like you don't want to drink the poison,
but you feel like you have to write. And that's
kind of how a lot of us feel. I mean,
I think of any generation about social media. We are
so used to it now and so many things have
(28:57):
shifted online and onto social media platforms that it's really
hard to extract.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And to the point that you just made specifically about
young girls, I mean again, this is again. I've got
a little bit of gray in my hair, as you
can tell, but I can remember how nervous I would
be if I wanted to call a girl that I
wanted to take to a movie or to a dance,
and invariably you would call their home and a lot
of times you'd end up speaking to her dad, and
(29:24):
I can remember, oh my god, I'm hanging up at
your father as your father just answered it. So but
now that that whole process is circumvented, because if you
have someone's cell phone number, you've got a direct path
to them, you know, at any time unless a parent
puts in, as you say, the guardrails in terms of
what's going on. So it's very very interesting, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
It's fascinating as I listened to the three of you
discussing this in there. You know, it used to be
if you lived in a town and a threat came
into the town, law enforcement was aware of it, and
everybody was aware. They would lock their windows and lock
their doors. Now the threat is global. It can be
coming from anywhere. A lot of these scams and these
(30:03):
schemes are coming from overseas where they can't even identify
who they are, and they're getting into your child's phone
and maybe convincing them to do things that they shouldn't
be doing from from Poland, or from Czechoslovakia, from anywhere.
But I think the key to the whole conversation here
is and Lee and I have talked about this a lot,
that we went through such a period of mental health
(30:26):
facilities and services just disappearing from all the communities, the
fact that family services have stepped up the way they have.
I mean, and there's a lot of situations, Lee, where
you are the only game in town when it comes
to some of these horrific things that are going on,
and you obviously are overwhelmed because you've got such a large,
(30:47):
you know, a large group of people that rely on
you now growing every day, and it still doesn't seem
to me like the rest of the world is coming
back on board. I mean, you guys are leading the way,
but you know, you've got you, and you've got MHA
and some organizations that are trying, but it seems like
almost overwhelming nom am I not looking at it clearly.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Well, it's a difficult time to be a nonprofit right now,
you know. I mean, I don't mean this as a
political statement, but you know, we are organizations that rely
on government support, and we're also organizations that people who
are impacted by large, policy changes rely on to support them, right,
so you know it's a very difficult time to be
(31:27):
a nonprofit. I just want to read you a quote.
This quote is from Glennon Doyle from the book Untamed,
and it says, I find myself worrying most that when
we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them.
As a result, we are raising a generation of writers
who will never start writing, Artists who will never start doodling,
(31:50):
chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen,
athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall,
musicians who will never pick up their ant's guitar and
start strumming. That quote, I keep going. It makes me
so sad. I go back to that all the time.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I think you shared that with me the other day,
and I found myself reading it as well. I mean,
you know, exaccurate, though, there's no question. One of my
other favorite quotes is, you know, Ernest Hemingway, when Ernest
Hemingway was fourteen years old, he didn't know he was
Ernest Hemingway until he started doing what he did. You know,
Pat Conroy, my favorite author as well, didn't know he
was Pat Conroy when he was thirteen years old, and
(32:27):
to that point because of boredom, because they understood that
they had this innate talent, they had that drive that
they needed to pick up a guitar and they found that, Wow,
I'm good at this. You know, when you give him
a phone, you sort of take that exploration process away,
which is sad. And it's a great quote, Lea, it's
a great, great quote. You know, Family Services has been
(32:48):
around and our listeners don't know this since eighteen seventy nine. Yep,
over one and forty years, I mean seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I think we spoke about it.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Uncle Mike is excited because our one hundred and fifty
anniversaries coming soon, and he thinks that that year we
should all run one hundred and fifty miles and raise
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for Family Service and we're.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Going to help you do that. But do you I
think I asked you this question before because I'm sort
of like an old history buff as well, but particularly
with organizations that have been around as long as yours have,
do you have archives and stuff in terms of what
people were, you know, doing and dealing with way back.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
When they've got to exists somewhere not not readily accessible.
But we do have a very lengthy history page on
our website. Yes, somebody did a whole write up for
us around the history of the organization. We actually, during
COVID dug up some history that our staff had been
(33:47):
assisting in the influenza outbreaks, you know, many many many
years ago, so you know, it was sort of like
coming full circle that we were, you know, working during
the other pandemic.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So if I go, well again, and your website is
very well put together, and I'm looking at all the
jobs that you're currently looking to be able to place,
and I think ultimately, at the end of the day
what you're saying, and I think what you're really looking for,
and everyone that I've met over at Family Services shares this.
You know, you were seeking dedicated individuals who share our
values and want to get involved with strengthening their community.
(34:23):
And I think that very much says it says, it
certainly describes you.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, well, that's you know, like Carmen was saying, that's
how she found us, right that she you know, left
college and wanted to make an impact on the community.
And that's my same story too. Fifteen years ago, right,
I left college and I wanted to make an impact
on the community, and Family Services is truly the best
place to do that. And you know, Carmen is not
in a role where she's working providing direct service, but
(34:47):
her work just as importantly impacts you know, the direct
service work, right, No.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
I was just saying the ability to provide those services.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Well.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
The other thing too, that you're always looking for is
you're always trying to see out people who want to volunteer. There.
I've got an idea. Can I talk to you about
this idea? And what about this? I mean, you're not
going to turn those people away. You're more than ready
to talk to individuals. We have an idea for a
program more. Have you thought about this? Talk about your
(35:16):
volunteer People want to volunteer for your organization? How do
think about doing that?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (35:21):
On our website in our career section, you can see
the volunteer opportunities. You know, we have a number of
volunteer opportunities from working in specific programs to you know,
helping people navigate the Family Partnership Center and a lot
of organizations will do things like food drives to help
fill our food pantry or other basic needs. Our Center
(35:42):
for Victim Safety and Support, you know, keeps an emergency
stock of items for families that are in need. And
you know, that's a really good opportunity to get involved.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Now, you also didn't you also say that Family Services
Now has a billboard somewhere and in terms of tell.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Us about that, tell us about our billboards.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Correct? Is that your is that development department? It is Sverment.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
It's not my design, but I work with Drake Creative.
They're a really great marketing and a brand consulting company. Yeah,
we basically have this campaign that we started back when
we were doing our fifty two End Stigma campaign where
Leah ran her fifty two plus miles and yeah, we
had this really great messaging and all these really amazing
(36:24):
graphics that we're all about connecting with other people and
you know, just taking that step of asking someone if
they're okay, asking someone, you know, how they're doing, just
checking in and so that's what we've done. Now we
have three buillboards on all three of the mid Hudson
Valley bridges. So it's the Newburg Beacon, the Kicks and
Rhinecliff and the Poughkeepsie to Highland one. So yeah, they're
(36:48):
really really beautiful, vibrant, eye catching. It's a really exciting
development and it's great to get our name out there
a little bit more, especially in connection with our mental
health service Carmen.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
You represent is a perfect example of someone who I mean,
you're not an MSWU, you're not a therapist or anything,
but you're somebody who has got skills right now that
are very applicable to what Family Services needs, you know.
And that's a really nice thing about being able to
I think because a lot of times people are saying, gee,
I'd love to be able to help, but I'm not
(37:20):
a counselor, or I'm not a therapist, or I don't
know how to be able to do that. You know,
given the variety of the programs that are currently offered,
you know over at Family Services, there's a whole need
for a whole lot of people to come in and
apply their talents like you in this organization. And one
of the things that I've always said, when you're involved
with people in the not for profit world as opposed
(37:42):
to the for profit world. In the not for profit world,
I have always found that you're dealing with people with
the live heads and the live hearts. And that's why
I love being able to have you guys come in
and talk about it. And you're right, we could go
seven more hours talking about these kinds of things, because
it's like peeling an onion. Oh have you ever considered this?
Or what about that? Or Hey, what's going on here?
You know, it's a fascinating conversation. And Family Services Communities
(38:06):
Without Limits is a jewel in the Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County
area and it's only getting better. And and our mission
here on wk i P is to highlight what you
guys do and to be able to make sure people
understand that there are resources available to them through your programs.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yeah, listen, we have a whole bunch of people that
work for us and never thought that they went to
school to work for a nonprofit. Right account ands, folks,
and maintenance and security, right to development, you know, marketing.
There's there's something for everyone, right and and people find
their way towards us, and then they realize how different
it is doing HR or marketing for an organization that
(38:47):
has such a tremendous impact on the community versus you know,
a factory making widgets. Maybe you know it's just totally different.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
No question, no, no question. So now tell us about
the event that coming up in your report to the community.
I want to make sure that people have the opportunity
of understanding what's happening and when that event is going
to take place.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
You want to tell everyone, Yeah, I'm happy, come on
com Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
Our Annual Report to the Community is something we put
on every year to kind of inform anyone from the community,
whether that's business owners, government stakeholders, of the work that
we're doing and the work that we plan to do
in the future. As we've mentioned before, we're constantly adapting
and expanding our services and we want to be able
to celebrate that and highlight that for the people that
(39:33):
we're working with, the people that we serve. Yeah, and
this year we have a really great keynote speaker. Her
name is Catherine Martinko. She's the author of Childhood Unplugged.
She is fabulous. She talks all about digital minimalism, which
is basically being able to unplug detach yourself emotionally, mentally,
(39:54):
from your phone and from social media. So she's going
to come in and talk a little bit about that
in relation to children's mental health, youth mental health, and
that's definitely very topical considering we're expanding into children's mental
health day.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, we we're really excited. I've spoken with Catherine a
number of times. She's she's got got a great message.
You know, she's not anti technology, right, she has three
kids spanning you know, different ages herself, so she's experiencing
this as a parent as well. But it's really just
about reclaiming childhood, right, how do you make sure children
still have a childhood while also contending with you know,
(40:31):
the pressures of a digital world.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Society has stolen childhood, childhoods from children. I really believe
that in many respects, and it's very very hard to get.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
It past age old, the age old saying youth is
wasted on the young. Well, unfortunately it's true, it is true.
But we need to be able to let kids be kids,
and we need to be able.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
To exactly what that's saying exactly our kids. You know.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
You know, there's a big movement in New York to
move to remove phones from schools because you know we
that is an area where we do have an impact. Right,
there's eight hours of a day that a child is
in school that school administrators have the power to let
them get that break that Carman mentioned right, emotionally and
mentally use their social skills, right, communicate with others. I
(41:16):
have a real concern that phones in schools are really
helped are reducing empathy for children.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
What happens when someone a fight goes breaks out in school,
or something happens in school, they pick up their phones
and they record it as opposed to helping.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yes, this is.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
An entire generation of children not building empathy. You know
that that's a real concern. Why would you think to
take out your phone? You know, listen, I was running
with my baby and a stroller out in a remote
trail and I ran into a bear. You want to
know how many people ask me if I took a
picture of it. I'm like.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
No.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
The last thing I thought about his autographic right, Right,
The last thing I thought about was taking out my phone.
Whoever gets pictures of wild animal encounters? I have no
idea how they did it.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I the last house, How scared were you think?
Speaker 3 (42:07):
The last thing I thought about was taking out my phone.
I turned it and ran right. I had my child
to protect it and myself to protect. But children rite
that like you probably saw it growing up, right, something
you see people, These kids have these horrible I mean,
this is horrible like sexual assault, right, gang rapes that
are on tape? Who was taping this?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (42:28):
As opposed to helping? What kind of world of human
beings are we creating with that's their first thought? And
you probably saw it all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Car.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
It's not just children. I mean we went through that
horrible period down in New York City where the Asian
population was being picked on and being beaten up. And
every time you saw a poor Asian woman getting a beating,
instead of three people jumping in and pulling the guy
off from to your point, they're all getting the video
of it, right, so they can get up on the news.
I don't know if they make money off of that
what it is, but I'm thinking to myself, how can
(42:57):
you stand there and watch this guy beat this woman
and not do anything, and not only not do anything,
film it, right?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
I mean everyone is a what are the people called
that follow famous people with cameras? Paparazzi Yeah, everyone's a
paparazzi right about them.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Leah.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Before you go, I really thank you for coming into
this particular format because it gives us a little bit
of a time, to a little bit of an expanded
time to be able to sort of delve into a
little things a little bit more deeply and what I'd
like to be able to do over the next couple
of weeks and months and so on and so forth,
because you're always a welcome guest here to be able
to do a little bit more deep dives in terms
(43:34):
of your programs, bring your program heads in, bring more
employees in to talk a little bit about what Family
Service is all about, how nice it is to work there,
and so on and so forth. Before you go, can
you just give our listeners the phone numbers again for
your behavioral health centers, your twenty four hour hotlines, and
your chat line.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Okay, so I'm going to give you the twenty four
hour domestic violence hotline line that is eight four five
four eight five five five five zero. That's eight four
five four eight five five five five zero. Our twenty
four hour crime victim rape Crisis hotline that is eight
four five four five two seven two seven two. That's
(44:19):
eight four five four five two seven two seven two.
And our behavioral health line to get an intake, that's
eight four five two seven six four six zero zero.
That's eight four five two seven six four six zero zero.
(44:40):
And I encourage you to access the chat via our website,
so to go on Family Services and hy dot org.
That's Family Services and why dot org. That is also
where you can get information about our employment opportunities, our
volunteer opportunities. You can make a donation, and you can
get tickets to our upcoming report to the community, which
(45:02):
again is on Thursday, March twentieth. It's at eleven thirty.
It's a lovely lunch at the Grand View. It's going
to be a great, great afternoon.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
And WKIP will be there, Uncle Mike and I are
looking forward to it. So we'll be looking to see
you at that event. And anybody who wants to can
join your mailing list for Family Services by going to
your website clicking on join our mailing list. I just
did so I'll be looking forward to getting your periodicals
from time to We.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Promise we don't send too much out. We you see
a lot around events and important stuff and everything we
send out is beautifully designed by Carmen.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And again, if anybody is interested in being able to
continue to support this organization, because it's a difficult time
that we're living in, you know, donations are always always welcome.
Listener support is always needed, and if you do have
the opportunity and you got a couple spare bucks, there's
(45:57):
no better organization than Family Services Communities without limits to
donate that too. So Leah Feldman, always a pleasure, Thank
you so much. I was very lovely meeting you. So
I'm very happy to meeting you, and I think you're
doing a great job based upon what you've said, and
we look forward to continue our conversations with you. Thank you,
Thank you all right, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
We'd love it if you tuned in to Hudson Valley
This Morning with Ed Kowalski from six to nine am
Monday through Friday on fourteen fifteen, thirteen seventy am or
ninety eight five FM WKIP
Hudson Valley This Morning with Ed Kowalski is the new
Voice in the Hudson Valley.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, this is Ed. I am so grateful for the
support you've already given us. We are creating a platform
that gives you our listeners of voice. Together we can
build the best local community talk program in the Hudson Valley.
Hudson Valley this Morning with Ed Kowalsky. Uncle Mike is
in the studio and we are pleased once again to
welcome Leah Feldman, who is the CEO of Family Services,
(00:27):
to our studio to talk a little bit more about
her programs over at Family Services, to talk about upcoming events,
and we're going to be doing this in our podcasting
format to give us a little bit more time to
break into all of the issues and all the good
work that Family Services it's currently is doing and will
continue to be able to do. Leah, you brought a
guest with you can tell us who's here.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I sure did. I brought with me today, Carmen. Carmen
is works in our development and marketing department at Family
Services and she started with us just about a year ago, right, Yeah,
it's been about a year and has brought a great
skill set to our marketing, our branding, how we tell
(01:12):
our story, if you will, which is so important right
for a nonprofit, for people to be able to understand
what we do for the purpose of receiving support from us,
right if they're in need of support, but also being
able to tell our stories so that people understand how
important we are to the community and want to be
part of what we do philanthropically working for us, volunteering
(01:35):
for us. So yeah, that's why I brought Current today.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
That's an interesting position you have now off air, we
were talking about your background and we're talking about you know,
you went to Boston College, which is near and dear
to my heart, and you also you studied political science,
so you're doing something very different than what you study.
Tell us a little bit about that, Carmen.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Yes, absolutely, I think that in terms of political I
originally saw myself going into kind of a law background.
Definitely not a politician background by any means. But I've
always wanted to do kind of mission driven work, and
that's why I ended up at Family Services. I mean,
my mom worked in social work for a very long time.
(02:17):
She's a therapist.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Now, Okay, so you had a little bit of an
exposure to what mom did and so on and so forth.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Absolutely, So I think I saw this job posting for
Family Services and it just resonated so much. Being able
to do to use my skill set in terms of design, graphic, design, communications,
that's so that's been a goal of mine.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
So that's my So you're putting it all together to
be able to tell Family Services communities without limits story. Yeah, terrific, terrific.
How many employees do you have, leah Old Family Services now?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Around two hundred and twenty really, yeah, yep. And we
have fourteen sites across the Hudson Valley, So we are
in Dutchess, Ulter and Orange cam and we serve The
numbers for twenty twenty four have just come together. Nearly
nineteen thousand people children, adults and families in the Hudson
(03:13):
Valley received our support in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Now, again, because we're doing this outside of our normal
broadcasting day, you know, where we sort of compress a
lot of good information into a sort of compressed period
of time, we have a little bit more time to
talk a little bit more about the nuances and the
different types of programs that Family Services currently offers. Can
(03:38):
you just very quickly, as best as you can, just
give us an overview and what I'd like to do
Leah as we bring you back, hopefully in this format,
to talk a little bit more on a deeper level
about each one of these programs so our listeners can
really understand how broad Family Services programs are. So can
we do that from a thirty thousand foot overview?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
And then we'll drill Yeah, I'll try my best. I
always say, you know, time, mate, because I try to
do this as briefly as I can, But there's really
a lot to it.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So there is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
At Family Services, we like to say we exist to
support everyone's right to thrive, and that is because the
work that we do is really around supporting basic and
fundamental human rights, the right to safety, the right to
mental well being, and the right to boundless opportunities to
grow and to thrive in life. And we do that
(04:31):
through seven different program areas. So our largest program are
our Behavioral health services and that's basically mental health services.
So we have eight clinic like setting buildings where we
do mental health services for adults, and come this summer
we will be starting to serve children. So we will
(04:51):
be serving from age three up through the lifespan.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, if I could just stop you there, because the
last time.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I'm never going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
No, no, no, a little bit of but I want to
be able to just sort of augment that because the
last time you were in with Uncle Mike and I,
we spoke specifically about that program, and we spoke more
importantly about the need for that program because pediatric psychiatry
is somewhat that's it doesn't really fully exist in Dutchess County.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, so we you know, we were getting a report
from community members that needed support for their children that
you know, they were waiting upwards of eighteen months to
receive psychiatric evaluations and support for their children. I spoke
to one mother who had a five year old who
you know, was exhibiting some signs of you know, significant
(05:40):
anxiety and eighteen month waiting list, you know, and she,
you know, basically said to me, it's going to be
too late. You know, by the time you know, I get,
he's going to be a different child and it might
be too late by then. And you know, couple that
with you know, the reason why there is a shortage
is because there is such an increased demand. So the
mental health of young people in America has been on
(06:03):
the decline. In fact, they actually there are studies that
show with the increase in sale and the iPhone, there's
an increase in suicide among young people. So you know,
the anxieties, and you know, maybe that you know, we
can talk more about that, you know, in relation to
our upcoming event, but you know, increased anxiety, suicide attempts
(06:26):
and completed suicide and just a real isolation of young
people in America and the and a large social emotional
gap that persists post COVID. And so that's where we
decided to expand our service provision. And I just want
to mention our mental health services are in Poughkeepsie, Beacon,
(06:47):
rhinebecked Dover, Millbrook, Ellenville, Kingston and Highland. People don't realize
that we actually have so many rural clinic settings and
and that's really important because we reach a very areas
of the counties where there might not be access to support.
A good example is in our Rhinebeck site. We're actually
(07:08):
moving our Rhinebeck site to a larger location later this
year because there's been such a demand for services in
Northern Duchess and we can't fit enough people in our doors,
so we're moving to a larger space. We will also
be serving children out of that setting, and yeah, so
we're looking forward to being able to increase our presence
there and that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Program is slated to open and be fully functional in
you said May.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The children's services will be functioning by in the summer
at some point in Poughkeepsie, Kingston and Ellenville, and then
with Rhinebeck because we're moving our site, that'll be later
in the year once we have to do construction.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So that's one example and a one practice area. Can
you give us a little bit of the other ones?
Give us a sharecome real?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah? So our second largest program is our Victim Services program,
and that's where we provide twenty four hour, seven day
week support to victims of crime. The largest population we
serve our domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. And
so that's where we have a two twenty four hour
crisis line, so a twenty four hour domestic violence hot
line and a twenty four hour rape crisis crime victims
(08:17):
hot line. If I could just provide those numbers for
the listeners, Our twenty four hour domestic Violence hot line
is eight four five four eight five five five five zero.
That's eight four five four eight five five five five zero.
And our twenty four hour crime Victim Rape Crisis Line
is eight four five four five two seven two seven two.
(08:40):
That's eight four five four five two seven two seven two.
I hope folks wrote those numbers down because they can
really save someone's life, your own, or a friend or
a loved one, someone in need. That those lines are
staffed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week
with people who are highly trained and skilled in working
with people through me crisis as it relates to a
(09:02):
crime or a victimization, or connecting people with services so
it's not always an immediate crisis. We work very closely
with local law enforcement. We work very closely with the
court systems, the medical systems in the county. We really
are responsible for creating policy for all the first responding
entities to ensure that there is what's called a victim
(09:23):
center and trauma formed response right that if you go
to any police department in this county, you are met
with the same response and it's a victim centered truma
inform response.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
UNCLE Mike, any of those phone numbers you gave, if
they go to your website, they're on the website.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Correct, they sure are. And that website is Family Services
and why dot org. That's Family Services and why dot Org.
On the website. You also have access to a chat function,
so you know, like everyone likes to chat or text,
I should say, on their phones, you can pull up
a text and text one of these individuals. Same people
(09:59):
that answer the phone would answ.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You know. It's interesting too when when when I'm on
your website right now, and one of the one of
the things that that struck me is that you have
an escape button on the top of it, and I,
you know, when I first looked at it was like, well,
I wonder what that's there for, and then of course
adorned on me. Someone may be accessing this site either
at home or at work or in a group setting,
(10:24):
and or someone may want to walk in and say, ed,
why are you in the Family Services website? What are
you looking for? It allows someone to quickly tag right
out of that site.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
It's really best practice for any any program that's providing support,
particularly to domestic violence survivors, because technology abuse and technology
stalking is is a huge part of how individuals are
stalked and tracked by their abusive partners, and so if
you're looking for support and someone comes over your shoulder,
(10:53):
you should be able to click out of it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Now, now that program is your second largest program.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yes, yeah, So we have around thirty staff that work
in that building and then we are out. We have
staff co located at the local law enforcement entities. So
in the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department, City Poughkeepsie Police Department,
City of Beacon Police Department, Town of Hyde Park Police Department,
and the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office. Our staff actually sit
(11:22):
there and provide direct support to the officers and to
individuals as they walk in to report crimes.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, it's interesting because and you know you're right, you
warn me, you know, once you get going. We can
talk like this for seven hours on each of these programs.
But there was a New York State Court appellate decision
that was reached specific to domestic violence victims, and really
the genesis of it is the lawsuit was brought by
(11:48):
a woman whose live in boyfriend was abusing her and
they had a child in the house. Okay, it was
her child, it wasn't his child. They had a child
in the house and child protective services. After the abuser
was removed from the house, child Protective Services continued to
(12:09):
do welfare checks on the kid, and the woman raised
the lawsuit to say, well, I wasn't abusing the child.
The person who was removed from the house was abusing
the child. And it went all the way and the
appellate court supported her position on that. And it's interesting
there's some give and take on both sides of the
equation on that, you know, in terms of is that
(12:32):
the right thing to do? Is that not the right
thing to do. I'm going to unpack that at a
later date. Yes, with a little bit with a little
bit more input from you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Not uncommon a situation that we see, you know, in
terms of you know, survivors having to weigh, you know,
what to do in a situation.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
But it's funnily, when I read the decision, I was,
you know again, because you know, one of the great
things about being able to be friends with you, to
be able to understand the program is is my own
education in terms of what you what you're doing and
so on? And so forth. That's why I wanted That's
why Mike and I are trying to be able to
just highlight what you're doing, because I when I read
the decision, I said, well that makes sense, you know,
(13:12):
And then I said to myself, well does it make sense?
And I'm going back and forth on it. So I'm
going to need your help and unpacking that.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
So what you and Uncle Mike really said was what
would Leah say?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I said, I looked at In fact, I have, I
have the summary and I'm going to send it to you.
I'm going to send you the court decision.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
What would family services do?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Would so anyway?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
So okay, so we can tell you what Lee is
going to err on the side of safety.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Is what she's going to do. There's no question there
is is a logical thing to do. You're right, but
but Wayne law is always logical. Well don't we know that?
And and and at the end of the day, not
that I want to derail, if you will, the conversations
about family services. You're right to to weighing in on
the side of safety for the kid that's left in
the house, I understand, But is that a interference with
(13:58):
the woman's rights because she was never abuser. She was
never the abuser. That's a whole well, and you know what,
that's the subject of another show. You and I talk
a little bit more about that life. So yes, so again,
so after that next that program, the Family Services program.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
So and so speaking of children in safety, our family
programs work with families who are at risk of having
their children removed from the home by Child Protective Services.
And what we do is we actually get referrals from
child Protective Services or from the counties for families that
(14:35):
you know, are in need of some support to bring
some safety and stability to the family. The goal is
for families to stay together if they can safely, because
we know that removing a child from a home is
is it very traumatic and if and sometimes families really
just need a little bit of support.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
We operate off the premise that parents love their children,
but parenting is really difficult, right and sometimes especially if
you weren't parented in a way that allows you to
you know, generationally pass that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
On Tom, how you were raised.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, So we work with parents to learn nurturing skills,
parenting education, to deep dive into how they were raised
and how that's coming out in their homes. And we
actually just this past year of all the families we
worked with across three counties Dutchess also Orange Counties, ninety
five percent of the families we worked with were able
(15:29):
to stay together safely. And this is intensive home based
eight months to a years to a year working with families.
So we're really proud of that statistic. Any questions on
that one now.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
But once but once again, though, we could do two
hours just from back and forth. What we're talking about,
am so with your organization all over.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
The next program area is our prevention work. So you know,
the best way to respond to crisis right is to
prevent it before it happens. So we prevention programming to
support the right of children to build their knowledge and skills,
and so we do the substance use prevention work in
the Ulster County schools. We work with all the all
(16:14):
nine school districts in Ulster County. We do like a
twelve week too Good for Drugs curriculum in the middle
school and we also do some gun violence prevention work
as well. Speaking of working with kids, we also do
teen programming. So at the Family Partnership Center, we have.
We for many years ran what was called the Teen
(16:35):
Resource Activity Center, or TRACK, but as the needs of
youth have evolved, we are also evolving our program. So
this year our TRACK program will sort of be sun
setting and our new program will be infusing mental health
supports into our teen programming at the Family Partnership Center.
So this is a program mainly serving middle and high
(16:57):
school youth from the city of Poughkeepsie. And we're going
to be hiring a social worker and the social worker
is going to be working towards repairing that social emotional
gap that youth are experiencing post COVID, So we're really
excited for that and the Family Partnership Center. The Family
Partnership Center is one of our premier programs. It's the
(17:21):
large old Lord's School building at twenty nine North Hamilton
Street and Family Services owns the building and we act
as the landlord to between eighteen and twenty other nonprofits
and related entities that are housed with us in the building.
So together with our partners, we provide a place of access.
We call it the Beacon of Hope in a place
(17:43):
where people can come have a number of needs met healthcare,
mental health care, after school programs, food, pantry, enrichment programs, clothing,
chiropractic care, educational services. I mean, we have Dutchess Outreach
that have the you know, provides food. We worked on
food and security. We have Duchess Community College doing English
(18:06):
as a second language and GED courses. We have a
bank Heritage Financial Credit Union that does financial literacy courses.
So we just you could walk in the building. It's
really a magical place to be and you can have
any number of services.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Meant. Yeah, And it's funny that you say that because
Uncle Mike and I were there not that long ago
for the naturalization ceremony. Oh you were there. We were there, Yeah,
we were there. I was there. Uncle Mike was there.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I saw Uncle Mike. I didn't get a chance to
see it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I was hanging out in the background.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
It was a beautiful, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It was a wonderful ceremony, And as I said, I
took the opportunity of sort of walking around and I
was just sort of just absorbing all of the entities
that are there, and I was like, wow, yeah, that's
really cool. It was almost overwhelming to me. So that's
why I'm glad we're doing this, Yeah, to break out.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
All of those services that are available, because I think
it's a very very fair statement that I think a
lot of our listeners don't really fully understand what's there
and what's available.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah, and you understand why, because there's so much.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
To it that I understand. But I mean, but it's
amazing to think about that in our own community, you know,
I mean, you know, it's funny even you know, the
last time you were in, we were talking about the
whole issue of children needing help and that that that
was prompted by me meeting a woman who gave a
very very interesting presentation to the Dutchess County Legislature about
(19:26):
you know, this is there's a real problem here, and
all of a sudden, you know, you know, you know,
we spoke to her and you guys came in and
it was very interesting to say that there's a there's
a resource that's under development and will be available soon
to be able to address this issue.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, for sure. And there's one last Programmerrea, I want
to mention, and that is our community safety program. So
we run what's called the SNUG program. Snug is guns
spelled backwards, and we are one of fourteen sites across
the state that has been identified by the New York
State Division of Criminal Justice Services as an area with
(20:01):
a high concentration of gun violence. This is particularly to
the city of Pikeepsie. And so the SNUG program is
one where we hire people that are considered credible messengers
in the community and they mediate potential instances of gun
violence with the goal of stopping gun violence. So they
(20:22):
work with individuals who at the highest risk of being
shot or shooting someone. And they for example, last year
in twenty twenty four, they spent over one thousand hours
out on the streets in Poughkeepsie doing outreach and they
mediated over one hundred conflicts that you know, otherwise would
have could have had deadly consequences. So they're doing an
(20:45):
incredible work. Incredible work.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So to highlight her program that's coming up the Report
to the to the Public, Report to the Community, Part
to the Community. Last year, lady, you highlighted the SNUG
program at I was there for the last year report
and you highlighted that program during the report.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
It was very interesting to watch.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, they they do such great work. They're so they're
so easy to highlight because they're they're just doing such
wonderful work. And you know, this year in twenty twenty four,
in a matter of two months in the summer, there
were twelve shooting victims in Poughkeepsie. So do the math.
They respond to every single one of those shootings, so
(21:26):
you can imagine, you know, how how hard they're working.
In all of twenty twenty four, there were sixteen shooting victims,
six of them were teenagers, So they're doing you know,
so we actually this year added a specific youth case
manager youth outreach worker onto our team so that we
could really be doing a lot of work with the teens.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
In the It's pretty safe to say, Lee, that number
would have been a lot higher without the program.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
It's hard to prove, but I do believe that, Uncle
Bry for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
I think so, just based on you know, in a
presentation that your people. It was something that most people
are not familiar with whatsoever, but they're around it all
the time and they don't realize it. So it was
a great program and I think it raised a lot
of awareness.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah, and thank you for mentioning our report to the community.
So that's coming up here on March twentieth at the
Grand View. So it is a buffet lunch. It's gonna
be y as the grand View always does wonderful. Everyone knows.
It's at eleven thirty. Tickets are on sale on our website,
which is Family Services and Why dot Org. That's Family
(22:31):
Services and Why dot Org to get your tickets. We
have a fabulous keynote speaker this year, Catherine Martinko. She
is a author, nationally renowned author. She wrote the book
Childhood Unplugged. She's also a speaker for the Anxious Generation.
If you have not read the book The Anxious Generation
or listen to the podcast, you have to. It'll change
(22:53):
your life, especially if you are around young people, you
care about a young person, you have a teenager in
your life, Listen to that podcast or that read that book.
It's really about the impact of digital technology on childhood,
reshaping childhood and what it's doing to youth in their
mental health.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And Leah, I am so glad and happy and very
interested in going to this event to listen to her,
not only to listen to all the wonderful things that
your program is going to report to the community, but
specifically to listen to this author because coincidentally, this past
couple of weeks, the Wall Street Journal has run in
their technology sections the latest you know, soup de jour
(23:38):
in technology, which is highlighting various applications that are generating
or that are that have been created specifically for the
teenage population to specifically deal with like counseling situations. In
other words, if your kids having a problem, stick them
in front of a phone and they could talk to
(23:59):
an AI chat therapist. As crazy as that sounds, I'm
not taking this.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's interesting because I also just read an article about
how AI is going to eliminate most people's jobs, and
now I'm worried about our own.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Well, I mean, I mean, Uncle Mike and I are
just AI robots here.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I mean really, wow, I'm about as far from a
robot as you could get.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Well, so listen to me. It's I was raised in
a generation where I you know, social media came into
my life when I was you know, in lighteen years right, Carmen,
you were raised in a generation were you at social
media from birth?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Right?
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Not from birth, but since I was about eleven or
ten years old?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
But let me, I'm sorry, Carmen. I don't mean to interrupt.
How old were you when you got your first cell phone?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I had a flip phone when I was about seven
years old, but I didn't get my first smartphone until
probably twelve years old. And before that I had an iPad,
so I had Instagram.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
When when did you get your first social media accounts?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Eleven?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah? Wow, I was twelve. I had a tin can
with a string. I didn't even still.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Have a tin can with a string. That's how I'm
keeping it.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
No, I mean, I don't want to get sidetracked here,
because this is a whole other story that we can
end up doing. But that's why I'm very anxious, and
I think a lot of our listeners would be very
very particularly parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. This is a big issue.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is
a grandfather. Okay, I'm getting to the point now. We're
a lot of guys I went to high school with
(25:28):
my now grandfathers, Like, oh my gosh, I'm getting this old.
I mean to make a long story short. He was
talking about his son giving his granddaughter, who is three,
a cell phone. Well I'm not kidding.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I mean, that is wild. Carmen.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Yeah, it is really a challenge for parents of the
upcoming generations to manage the cell phone use. I know
for my own parents, my mom was pretty good at
limiting me when I was young, but as I got older,
I kind of went on my own path and decided
to use my phone a lot more than I had
been using it. But yeah, there's no precedent for this.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
So I said to my friend, I said, so, what
did you tell your son to do? And he goes, well,
I asked my son, why did you do that? And
the answer he got back was, well, because she asked
for it. She's three.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Good thing she did ask for a car.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I guess that's next week, Mike, that's next week.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
You know, it's interesting when you think about how safety
has evolved for young people and for families like you know,
when I was young, you know, my parents say we're
out of the house. Lock the door, make sure you
locked the door. Don't let strangers in. Right, it was
always about like strangers not being able to physically get
into your home. Well, now we just allow strangers in
(26:50):
our home all the time, all the time. By giving
a phone to a child, and children are at great
risk of being taken advantage of monitoring wise, you know,
photos anything. You know, once something's on the internet's on
there forever, and there's a lot there's a lot of
I have a lot of fear for young young people,
(27:12):
young women in particular, young girls, that are subject to
some some real dangers right over social media.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I think to that point, like I will say, my generation,
we weren't taught how to use these platforms safely at all.
We were not taught how to navigate these things or
the content that we were seeing stuff that other generations
did not have to see at such early ages, whether
that's violence or sexual content, et cetera. And you know
(27:42):
that definitely takes a toll on your mental health. It
definitely impacts how you view yourself, how you view yourself
in relation to other people. You know, there's this whole
highlight reel. Yeah, the highlight reel, this projection of a
life that may not even be a realistic or even
real life.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And you know, when you think about it, you know,
when you're talking to about a young person, and I
can and I can go back to when I was
fifteen and sixteen, and Mike and I have spoken about
this there's no question, and I'm absolutely one hundred percent
certain this is a true comment. If I had access
to the technology that a fourteen year old has now
(28:21):
back when I was in high school, I wouldn't really
be in a lot of trouble because I didn't know better.
I would be doing stupid things. And I think you
stumble into these things and you can't get yourself out
of them. There's almost like a snowballing effect that occurs,
right well.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, absolutely. There's actually like a quote by Jonathan Hate
or it's actually not by him, but I think I
watched a podcast that he was on and he said this.
It's basically like you don't want to drink the poison,
but you feel like you have to write. And that's
kind of how a lot of us feel. I mean,
I think of any generation about social media. We are
so used to it now and so many things have
(28:57):
shifted online and onto social media platforms that it's really
hard to extract.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And to the point that you just made specifically about
young girls, I mean again, this is again. I've got
a little bit of gray in my hair, as you
can tell, but I can remember how nervous I would
be if I wanted to call a girl that I
wanted to take to a movie or to a dance,
and invariably you would call their home and a lot
of times you'd end up speaking to her dad, and
(29:24):
I can remember, oh my god, I'm hanging up at
your father as your father just answered it. So but
now that that whole process is circumvented, because if you
have someone's cell phone number, you've got a direct path
to them, you know, at any time unless a parent
puts in, as you say, the guardrails in terms of
what's going on. So it's very very interesting, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
It's fascinating as I listened to the three of you
discussing this in there. You know, it used to be
if you lived in a town and a threat came
into the town, law enforcement was aware of it, and
everybody was aware. They would lock their windows and lock
their doors. Now the threat is global. It can be
coming from anywhere. A lot of these scams and these
(30:03):
schemes are coming from overseas where they can't even identify
who they are, and they're getting into your child's phone
and maybe convincing them to do things that they shouldn't
be doing from from Poland, or from Czechoslovakia, from anywhere.
But I think the key to the whole conversation here
is and Lee and I have talked about this a lot,
that we went through such a period of mental health
(30:26):
facilities and services just disappearing from all the communities, the
fact that family services have stepped up the way they have.
I mean, and there's a lot of situations, Lee, where
you are the only game in town when it comes
to some of these horrific things that are going on,
and you obviously are overwhelmed because you've got such a large,
(30:47):
you know, a large group of people that rely on
you now growing every day, and it still doesn't seem
to me like the rest of the world is coming
back on board. I mean, you guys are leading the way,
but you know, you've got you, and you've got MHA
and some organizations that are trying, but it seems like
almost overwhelming nom am I not looking at it clearly.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Well, it's a difficult time to be a nonprofit right now,
you know. I mean, I don't mean this as a
political statement, but you know, we are organizations that rely
on government support, and we're also organizations that people who
are impacted by large, policy changes rely on to support them, right,
so you know it's a very difficult time to be
(31:27):
a nonprofit. I just want to read you a quote.
This quote is from Glennon Doyle from the book Untamed,
and it says, I find myself worrying most that when
we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them.
As a result, we are raising a generation of writers
who will never start writing, Artists who will never start doodling,
(31:50):
chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen,
athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall,
musicians who will never pick up their ant's guitar and
start strumming. That quote, I keep going. It makes me
so sad. I go back to that all the time.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I think you shared that with me the other day,
and I found myself reading it as well. I mean,
you know, exaccurate, though, there's no question. One of my
other favorite quotes is, you know, Ernest Hemingway, when Ernest
Hemingway was fourteen years old, he didn't know he was
Ernest Hemingway until he started doing what he did. You know,
Pat Conroy, my favorite author as well, didn't know he
was Pat Conroy when he was thirteen years old, and
(32:27):
to that point because of boredom, because they understood that
they had this innate talent, they had that drive that
they needed to pick up a guitar and they found that, Wow,
I'm good at this. You know, when you give him
a phone, you sort of take that exploration process away,
which is sad. And it's a great quote, Lea, it's
a great, great quote. You know, Family Services has been
(32:48):
around and our listeners don't know this since eighteen seventy nine. Yep,
over one and forty years, I mean seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I think we spoke about it.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Uncle Mike is excited because our one hundred and fifty
anniversaries coming soon, and he thinks that that year we
should all run one hundred and fifty miles and raise
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for Family Service and we're.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Going to help you do that. But do you I
think I asked you this question before because I'm sort
of like an old history buff as well, but particularly
with organizations that have been around as long as yours have,
do you have archives and stuff in terms of what
people were, you know, doing and dealing with way back.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
When they've got to exists somewhere not not readily accessible.
But we do have a very lengthy history page on
our website. Yes, somebody did a whole write up for
us around the history of the organization. We actually, during
COVID dug up some history that our staff had been
(33:47):
assisting in the influenza outbreaks, you know, many many many
years ago, so you know, it was sort of like
coming full circle that we were, you know, working during
the other pandemic.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
So if I go, well again, and your website is
very well put together, and I'm looking at all the
jobs that you're currently looking to be able to place,
and I think ultimately, at the end of the day
what you're saying, and I think what you're really looking for,
and everyone that I've met over at Family Services shares this.
You know, you were seeking dedicated individuals who share our
values and want to get involved with strengthening their community.
(34:23):
And I think that very much says it says, it
certainly describes you.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, well, that's you know, like Carmen was saying, that's
how she found us, right that she you know, left
college and wanted to make an impact on the community.
And that's my same story too. Fifteen years ago, right,
I left college and I wanted to make an impact
on the community, and Family Services is truly the best
place to do that. And you know, Carmen is not
in a role where she's working providing direct service, but
(34:47):
her work just as importantly impacts you know, the direct
service work, right, No.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
I was just saying the ability to provide those services.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Well.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
The other thing too, that you're always looking for is
you're always trying to see out people who want to volunteer. There.
I've got an idea. Can I talk to you about
this idea? And what about this? I mean, you're not
going to turn those people away. You're more than ready
to talk to individuals. We have an idea for a
program more. Have you thought about this? Talk about your
(35:16):
volunteer People want to volunteer for your organization? How do
think about doing that?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (35:21):
On our website in our career section, you can see
the volunteer opportunities. You know, we have a number of
volunteer opportunities from working in specific programs to you know,
helping people navigate the Family Partnership Center and a lot
of organizations will do things like food drives to help
fill our food pantry or other basic needs. Our Center
(35:42):
for Victim Safety and Support, you know, keeps an emergency
stock of items for families that are in need. And
you know, that's a really good opportunity to get involved.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Now, you also didn't you also say that Family Services
Now has a billboard somewhere and in terms of tell.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Us about that, tell us about our billboards.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Correct? Is that your is that development department? It is Sverment.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
It's not my design, but I work with Drake Creative.
They're a really great marketing and a brand consulting company. Yeah,
we basically have this campaign that we started back when
we were doing our fifty two End Stigma campaign where
Leah ran her fifty two plus miles and yeah, we
had this really great messaging and all these really amazing
(36:24):
graphics that we're all about connecting with other people and
you know, just taking that step of asking someone if
they're okay, asking someone, you know, how they're doing, just
checking in and so that's what we've done. Now we
have three buillboards on all three of the mid Hudson
Valley bridges. So it's the Newburg Beacon, the Kicks and
Rhinecliff and the Poughkeepsie to Highland one. So yeah, they're
(36:48):
really really beautiful, vibrant, eye catching. It's a really exciting
development and it's great to get our name out there
a little bit more, especially in connection with our mental
health service Carmen.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
You represent is a perfect example of someone who I mean,
you're not an MSWU, you're not a therapist or anything,
but you're somebody who has got skills right now that
are very applicable to what Family Services needs, you know.
And that's a really nice thing about being able to
I think because a lot of times people are saying, gee,
I'd love to be able to help, but I'm not
(37:20):
a counselor, or I'm not a therapist, or I don't
know how to be able to do that. You know,
given the variety of the programs that are currently offered,
you know over at Family Services, there's a whole need
for a whole lot of people to come in and
apply their talents like you in this organization. And one
of the things that I've always said, when you're involved
with people in the not for profit world as opposed
(37:42):
to the for profit world. In the not for profit world,
I have always found that you're dealing with people with
the live heads and the live hearts. And that's why
I love being able to have you guys come in
and talk about it. And you're right, we could go
seven more hours talking about these kinds of things, because
it's like peeling an onion. Oh have you ever considered this?
Or what about that? Or Hey, what's going on here?
You know, it's a fascinating conversation. And Family Services Communities
(38:06):
Without Limits is a jewel in the Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County
area and it's only getting better. And and our mission
here on wk i P is to highlight what you
guys do and to be able to make sure people
understand that there are resources available to them through your programs.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yeah, listen, we have a whole bunch of people that
work for us and never thought that they went to
school to work for a nonprofit. Right account ands, folks,
and maintenance and security, right to development, you know, marketing.
There's there's something for everyone, right and and people find
their way towards us, and then they realize how different
it is doing HR or marketing for an organization that
(38:47):
has such a tremendous impact on the community versus you know,
a factory making widgets. Maybe you know it's just totally different.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
No question, no, no question. So now tell us about
the event that coming up in your report to the community.
I want to make sure that people have the opportunity
of understanding what's happening and when that event is going
to take place.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
You want to tell everyone, Yeah, I'm happy, come on
com Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
Our Annual Report to the Community is something we put
on every year to kind of inform anyone from the community,
whether that's business owners, government stakeholders, of the work that
we're doing and the work that we plan to do
in the future. As we've mentioned before, we're constantly adapting
and expanding our services and we want to be able
to celebrate that and highlight that for the people that
(39:33):
we're working with, the people that we serve. Yeah, and
this year we have a really great keynote speaker. Her
name is Catherine Martinko. She's the author of Childhood Unplugged.
She is fabulous. She talks all about digital minimalism, which
is basically being able to unplug detach yourself emotionally, mentally,
(39:54):
from your phone and from social media. So she's going
to come in and talk a little bit about that
in relation to children's mental health, youth mental health, and
that's definitely very topical considering we're expanding into children's mental
health day.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, we we're really excited. I've spoken with Catherine a
number of times. She's she's got got a great message.
You know, she's not anti technology, right, she has three
kids spanning you know, different ages herself, so she's experiencing
this as a parent as well. But it's really just
about reclaiming childhood, right, how do you make sure children
still have a childhood while also contending with you know,
(40:31):
the pressures of a digital world.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Society has stolen childhood, childhoods from children. I really believe
that in many respects, and it's very very hard to get.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
It past age old, the age old saying youth is
wasted on the young. Well, unfortunately it's true, it is true.
But we need to be able to let kids be kids,
and we need to be able.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
To exactly what that's saying exactly our kids. You know.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
You know, there's a big movement in New York to
move to remove phones from schools because you know we
that is an area where we do have an impact. Right,
there's eight hours of a day that a child is
in school that school administrators have the power to let
them get that break that Carman mentioned right, emotionally and
mentally use their social skills, right, communicate with others. I
(41:16):
have a real concern that phones in schools are really
helped are reducing empathy for children.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
What happens when someone a fight goes breaks out in school,
or something happens in school, they pick up their phones
and they record it as opposed to helping.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yes, this is.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
An entire generation of children not building empathy. You know
that that's a real concern. Why would you think to
take out your phone? You know, listen, I was running
with my baby and a stroller out in a remote
trail and I ran into a bear. You want to
know how many people ask me if I took a
picture of it. I'm like.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
No.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
The last thing I thought about his autographic right, Right,
The last thing I thought about was taking out my phone.
Whoever gets pictures of wild animal encounters? I have no
idea how they did it.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I the last house, How scared were you think?
Speaker 3 (42:07):
The last thing I thought about was taking out my phone.
I turned it and ran right. I had my child
to protect it and myself to protect. But children rite
that like you probably saw it growing up, right, something
you see people, These kids have these horrible I mean,
this is horrible like sexual assault, right, gang rapes that
are on tape? Who was taping this?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (42:28):
As opposed to helping? What kind of world of human
beings are we creating with that's their first thought? And
you probably saw it all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Car.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
It's not just children. I mean we went through that
horrible period down in New York City where the Asian
population was being picked on and being beaten up. And
every time you saw a poor Asian woman getting a beating,
instead of three people jumping in and pulling the guy
off from to your point, they're all getting the video
of it, right, so they can get up on the news.
I don't know if they make money off of that
what it is, but I'm thinking to myself, how can
(42:57):
you stand there and watch this guy beat this woman
and not do anything, and not only not do anything,
film it, right?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
I mean everyone is a what are the people called
that follow famous people with cameras? Paparazzi Yeah, everyone's a
paparazzi right about them.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Leah.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Before you go, I really thank you for coming into
this particular format because it gives us a little bit
of a time, to a little bit of an expanded
time to be able to sort of delve into a
little things a little bit more deeply and what I'd
like to be able to do over the next couple
of weeks and months and so on and so forth,
because you're always a welcome guest here to be able
to do a little bit more deep dives in terms
(43:34):
of your programs, bring your program heads in, bring more
employees in to talk a little bit about what Family
Service is all about, how nice it is to work there,
and so on and so forth. Before you go, can
you just give our listeners the phone numbers again for
your behavioral health centers, your twenty four hour hotlines, and
your chat line.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Okay, so I'm going to give you the twenty four
hour domestic violence hotline line that is eight four five
four eight five five five five zero. That's eight four
five four eight five five five five zero. Our twenty
four hour crime victim rape Crisis hotline that is eight
four five four five two seven two seven two. That's
(44:19):
eight four five four five two seven two seven two.
And our behavioral health line to get an intake, that's
eight four five two seven six four six zero zero.
That's eight four five two seven six four six zero zero.
(44:40):
And I encourage you to access the chat via our website,
so to go on Family Services and hy dot org.
That's Family Services and why dot org. That is also
where you can get information about our employment opportunities, our
volunteer opportunities. You can make a donation, and you can
get tickets to our upcoming report to the community, which
(45:02):
again is on Thursday, March twentieth. It's at eleven thirty.
It's a lovely lunch at the Grand View. It's going
to be a great, great afternoon.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
And WKIP will be there, Uncle Mike and I are
looking forward to it. So we'll be looking to see
you at that event. And anybody who wants to can
join your mailing list for Family Services by going to
your website clicking on join our mailing list. I just
did so I'll be looking forward to getting your periodicals
from time to We.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Promise we don't send too much out. We you see
a lot around events and important stuff and everything we
send out is beautifully designed by Carmen.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
And again, if anybody is interested in being able to
continue to support this organization, because it's a difficult time
that we're living in, you know, donations are always always welcome.
Listener support is always needed, and if you do have
the opportunity and you got a couple spare bucks, there's
(45:57):
no better organization than Family Services Communities without limits to
donate that too. So Leah Feldman, always a pleasure, Thank
you so much. I was very lovely meeting you. So
I'm very happy to meeting you, and I think you're
doing a great job based upon what you've said, and
we look forward to continue our conversations with you. Thank you,
Thank you all right, thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
We'd love it if you tuned in to Hudson Valley
This Morning with Ed Kowalski from six to nine am
Monday through Friday on fourteen fifteen, thirteen seventy am or
ninety eight five FM WKIP
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