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Clinic for Young Children Who Experience Trauma Opens in Brownsville

By Camille Bautista | February 23, 2017 5:43pm | Updated on February 27, 2017 7:22am
 Children celebrating at grand opening party for Brownsville Child Development Center. The new center provides therapy for families and kids ages 0 through 5.
Children celebrating at grand opening party for Brownsville Child Development Center. The new center provides therapy for families and kids ages 0 through 5.
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Michael Priest/The Jewish Board

BROWNSVILLE — A clinic focusing on children younger than 5 who have suffered emotional trauma has opened in Brownsville.

The Brownsville Child Development Center  seeks to bring awareness to healing emotional and psychological issues in young kids.

The center at 255 E. 98th St. near Livonia Avenue brings services on-site and out in the community, with programs available in residents' homes and other locations including homeless shelters, schools and child care centers.

The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services opened the clinic at the end of January in conjunction with dozens of community partners and government agencies, organizers said.

It is part of First Lady Chirlane McCray’s Early Childhood Mental Health Network.

“Two years ago we identified Brownsville, Brooklyn as a neighborhood that was underserved and could benefit from having early childhood mental services,” said Rebecca Wulf, executive program director for community treatment and support services at The Jewish Board.

“There’s a high incidence of children who live in the neighborhood who are the subject of some kind of allegation of child abuse or neglect, and there was no child-service clinic in Brownsville.”

A report from the Citizens' Committee for Children identified the neighborhood as the highest-risk community in the city when it comes to children’s health.

Brownsville had an infant mortality rate of 6.1 percent, according to the December 2016 study, and babies were more than three times likely to die before their first birthday compared to infants in Borough Park.

The neighborhood also ranked fourth out of the city’s 59 community districts in terms of the highest risk to a child’s well-being based on factors such as economic security, housing and family and community.

Through the new center, kids up to 5 can receive mental and behavioral assessments and therapists can work out in the community to deliver individual, family and group counseling.

Counselors address issues surrounding homelessness and domestic violence, Wulf said.

Parents and caretakers are actively involved, with therapists working with clients to examine difficult relationships with their own mothers or fathers and to help develop skills to parent their own children in different ways, she added.

Social workers use toys and play therapy with children to get a sense of what is happening in the family, according to Nishanna Ramoutar, clinical supervisor of child-parent psychotherapy at the center.

The once-a-week sessions can last up to 90 minutes.

“We really look at what is the [child’s] trauma…we want to help them make sense of their experience,” Ramoutar said.

“But not all of this is therapeutic, analytic work, we’re also talking about routine. Does the parent know what to do, do they understand child development?”

Other cases can range from children suffering trauma after being bitten by a dog, to witnessing violence in their neighborhood.

One 26-year-old mother said she was drawn to the clinic to learn how to better relate to her 8-month-old, and to ensure she doesn’t pass stresses from her childhood onto her son.

Through collaboration with local organizations, partners are being trained to help identify children who may be experiencing issues so they can receive proper services at the center, according to organizers. 

The center has served 50 children and their families on and off-site since its opening, organizers said.

“There needs to be some more community education about how young children can receive therapy and that young children have feelings, and those feelings are important,” Ramoutar said.