When I first accepted my position at JFS working with older adults, I realized that I would lose many of them to death but, in the beginning, it was abstract. Because we have the privilege here to form long term relationships, care managers are affected deeply when clients die. Our relationships with clients feel like…
Domestic Violence: A Day in the Life of DVORA
Liz Coleclough is the Director of Project DVORA, a JFS service for people affected by domestic violence. Here’s what a typical day looks like for her. 9:00 a.m. We’ve been trying to get our client into a local shelter, and I see in the database that one has space. Oftentimes there’s a ton of demand for one…
Ending the Mental Illness Stigma
In my 15 years of working with mental illness, I see how unwelcoming society can be towards people who live with these disabilities. Sometimes the mental illness stigma is overt, like a potential employer choosing a candidate without a disability over a qualified person who has one. Other times, it’s more subtle, such as someone using…
On the Subway in NYC
I am taking the Broadway #1 train from Penn Station to Van Cortlandt Park in the late afternoon. Van Cortlandt Park is the last stop on the line. About three stops from the end, everyone in my car exits. I’m left alone. The door opens from another car. Enters a 30-something year old guy, big,…
The Importance of Play to a Child’s Development
The importance of play is so widely recognized as critical to a child’s development that it is guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Playing is more than “just” fun. It builds cognitive, social, emotional and behavioral skills which children benefit from their whole lives. Play as the Child’s Lab Albert…
Averting the Harsh Decree of Mental Illness
There was no word for mental illness in antiquity. Like the fear of death, the fear of slipping into mental anguish was as real in antiquity as it is in our times. We see this in the traditional Jewish liturgy of old. For example, in the most well-known prayer of the High Holidays, ‘Unetaneh Tokef,’…
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