NYIPT is proud to welcome Gail Gartenstein as the newest member of our Board of Directors.  Gail helped make our fundraiser the great success that it was, not only in securing in-kind and food donations, but also in preparing the beautifully displayed raffle baskets, and in bringing in many interested people who supported our cause.

NYIPT Partners With a Charter  School in Harlem

In the spring of 2006 NYIPT Director Phyllis Cohen and Board Member Robin Ashman met with Mr. Lenny Goldberg, principal of the Opportunity Charter School in Harlem, to talk about ways that we might work together to mutually benefit both organizations and ultimately help the children at the school.  At that meeting, NYIPT agreed to provide training to the school’s social workers who provide mental health services to the school’s troubled children.  In September 2006, our collaboration began with future plans of expanding our training to help teachers and parents better relate to the students and guide them in their education. 

NYIPT Invited to Present Workshops for ACS Project Stay

In 2006, we developed a working relationship with the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).  We agreed to provide training for ACS workers who interact with New York City’s most deprived and abused children on a daily basis.  Following our first training workshop at ACS, NYIPT was asked by Project Stay Coordinator Olatunde Olusesi to conduct a series of training workshops for the staff workers and interns at ACS Project Stay.  Project Stay targets runaway foster youth, and many of the staff assigned to help these children lack the training that they need to make a difference.  NYIPT was awarded a small grant for this training by the foundation of New Yorkers for Children.

Under the leadership of Tracy Simon, workshops were designed to help the staff understand the issues related to abandonment by birth parents, adjustment to adoptive parents and foster parents, and facilitation of a better fit for these kids in their foster homes.  Some of the workshop topics included: who are the teen runaways and what are their needs?; how to work with teen symptoms of trauma including regression, aggression and avoidance; and how to gain support from larger systems in the community, agencies, schools and extended families.  NYIPT faculty members Winslow Carrington, Bill Salton and Tracy Simon are leading these workshops and the feedback has been very positive.  We are looking forward to continuing our work with ACS. 

NYIPT Celebrates It’s 5^th Anniversary

To show our appreciation of the support we have received, and to celebrate the completion of five years as NYIPT, we hosted a wonderful party on June 25, 2006 at the Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead in Brooklyn, New York.  Owned by Board Member Annette Mont and her husband Stu, this Dutch colonial farmhouse was built prior to 1766 and is filled with antiques.  Annette invited us to “step back in time for a rare opportunity to spend a memorable evening in a historic landmark.”  Annette and Stu were our gracious hosts, and NYIPT supervisor Jane Buckwalter provided us with wonderful classical music performed by a flute trio of gifted musicians including Jane herself.

NYIPT Fundraiser: “A Night of Play” at NYC’S Marquee

On October 18, 2006 NYIPT hosted a very successful fundraiser at the New York City hotspot, Marquee.  Our Host Committee, Board of Directors and many other volunteers all joined together by donating their time and resources to make this event a huge success!  We are happy to announce that the event attracted nearly 200 people, we had more than ten VIP sponsors, and that nearly all of the food and drink was donated.  As a result, we were able to raise enough money to support our budget and goals for the upcoming year.  NYIPT thanks you for all of your contributions and we hope to see you at our event next year. 

In order to explain “what child therapists do” to our guests, NYIPT graduate and faculty Lorenzo Munroe spoke about his work with a six-year-old boy;

John’s mother brought him to therapy because he had witnessed a violent relationship between his parents and she was worried about its effect on her son. John’s parents were divorced but his father still exhibited ongoing aggression and violence toward his mother in front of John, whenever the father came to pick him up at his mother’s house.

John came to the first session and almost every session thereafter with a toy airplane – sometimes it was made out of Legos, other times of paper, and sometimes of materials that were not easily definable. When his plane was unrecognizable, he wondered why I didn’t know that this was, in fact, an airplane. As a therapist, I quickly realized that I needed to understand the meaning of this recurring airplane play theme.

After meeting with the mother for several regularly scheduled collateral sessions, and after meeting the father once when he brought the child to his session and had a tense interchange with his son, I began to understand what this plane symbolized.

In the next session with John, I said, “It must be really hard for you going between both homes, and especially seeing Daddy get so angry with Mommy and with you.” John looked at me as if to say “It took you long enough to get it,” and he nodded his head “yes.” After that I was able to use the airplane as a metaphor for John and his feelings about moving between 2 different “airports” were able to be verbalized. Soon John stopped bringing airplanes to his therapy sessions and his anxiety and behavior at home began to improve.

After hearing this vignette, all the non-therapists in the room began to understand the significance of our “Night of Play” --- that children communicate through their play.  Whatever they play out has a meaning and it is up to us to try to decipher the code!

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