Children's hospital helps teens get certified in mental health first aid Everybody, it's Mr. G at Cohen Children's Medical center with two very special people. I love coming in here. Everybody always says hello. I give free forecasts. But more importantly, I enjoy myself with a very special deal today. Very special. Now what is your name? My name is Isabelle Ku They chose you to speak to me with, Dr. Feuer.
Why did they choose you? What happened in your life that made that little star they wanted to showcase? So as a member of the Cohen Strong children's Youth Program, I am very proud to say that I am chosen as a representative to speak about the program. And I would like to say I'm a little bit well spoken. And most importantly, I'm smiley.
So I would like to say, because I'm smiley, I've been chosen to speak about the program. Well, those are two real nice qualities. Right. There's another. Your Cohen's Children's. Give us the title again. Cohen Strong Mental Health Youth Program. Cohen Strong. Why is it Cohen Strong? Because I would like to say that all of us together, united, we have the strength to talk about mental health challenges and also speaking about things that are just harder for people to talk about day to day.
So even with the collaboration of the kids, the teachers, and the advisors, we are strong, together. United. Where does Dr. Feuer come in? How does this relationship develop? So, at my school, I got involved with the Cohen Strong program through the mental health club. My school advisor, Dr. Chang, who is a school psychologist at Great Neck North High School, he introduced the Cohen Strong program and was like, "hey, look at this amazing opportunity for you guys.
Children's hospital helps teens get certified in mental health first aid
We all signed up, we managed to get in. And then that's where I met Dr. Feuer, who's been such an amazing teacher and advisor and mentor. She's always there no matter what. We don't need to book an appointment. She's just there if we need help or anything like that. So you introduce Dr. Feuer. You do that. So this is the wonderful Dr.
Feuer. She is the head psychiatrist at Cohen's Children's Medical Center. I'm not 100% sure on what her title is, but I'm sure she'll do it. Okay, so, Dr. Feuer, thank you. Tell us a little bit about the program. Thank you. Yeah Cohen Strong is a program that we have actually had for years. And in the past, we focused on having kids become advocates to combat bullying years ago.
And as we were working with kids and talking to kids about their troubles about what's causing them stress, what's giving them difficulty. It was actually the kids that had made us change the program into focusing on mental health because they felt that in their life and this was post Covid some of the things she, with many other kids have gone through during COVID that really mental health and understanding more about mental health, teaching each other about mental health, supporting each other with mental issues was what they
wanted to focus on. And we work with them to get them training to become team mental health counselors through teen mental health first aid certification. We train them in advocacy skills, leadership skills, talking about how you can build a peer leadership project how you can stand up and talk about these issues.
So for the people who are watching, the kids who are watching, you also have a hospital. You also have a unit that's for acute care. You have people who you are training. If somebody's watching right now and they're saying, how can I get involved with this? Or somebody's watching right now and say I have a problem.
What should they do? Yeah. So if they have a problem and they need help for their child or a family member, certainly coming to the children's hospital is a solution. Have a behavioral health urgent care where anybody can walk in and get help and support and then evaluation and connection to the care that they need.
teen Mental Health First Aid
And if they want to get involved with some of our advocacy work and some of our community work, they can also sign up as volunteers with the children's hospital or if they attend one of the schools where we have a school partnership program like easy School they can also join through their school. Now in Long island we have 55 school districts where we're working with students with getting them access to care and getting them more involved providing trainings.
Can you name some schools that you're involved with? I mean it's really most of Nassau county districts. We started in Rockville Center. Our first initial location was there and the district surrounding the South Shore. And then the second site was in Mineola and the north shore districts, including Great Neck.
And we also have a site in Comack in Suffolk county districts around that area. How much of this stress, if you will, would have come about even if there wasn't Covid. That Covid is not that to say Covid didn't happen was very stressful, but the life of a teenager is very stressful. Covid or not. You're absolutely right.
And the issues that we have Seen with mental health problems rising in adolescence started well before COVID including numbers of depression, anxiety, suicidality. Those numbers were increasing even before the pandemic. The pandemic was oil to the fire and kind of accelerated things rapidly. But what we're seeing now, we're back to sort of before COVID numbers in terms of how many kids we're seeing and the impact continues.
Because like you said, it is more than Covid. It's society, it's technology, it's many, many different factors. Let's talk about old fashion values where people would say, and I'm not discounting it because values that old fashioned stood the test of time. When you go through difficult times, it makes you stronger.
Sure. Is there a way that we're raising children that when we're helicoptering and plowing through the difficult times for them, so when they have a difficult time, mommy and daddy can't jump in because they're always jumping? Yeah, absolutely. So one way that I describe this usually to parents when we talk about these issues is that kids are not going to be able to regulate any of the feelings they're not allowed to have.
So if they're never having discomfort and they're never having to endure difficult things and difficult times and difficult feelings, if they don't, you know, if we clear all the problems so that they're never upset and always happy, they're never going to learn how to manage those feelings. And so as parents, it is our job to let our kids endure some difficulties, of course, keeping them safe and healthy as much as we can, but still allowing them to go through difficult times so that they can strengthen those muscles that they need later on
with skills that they need to conquer problems. But there is a, there is a dilemma. If you're a caring person, a loving person. Sure. And you nurturing person, and you want them to go through times and yet every time they fall, you're there. How do you stop that? As a parent, I think you have to explain to parents, and again, we talk about this a lot, that they have to endure their own discomfort and allow their child to have discomfort.
(PDF) Teen Mental Health First Aid for years 7-9
And that discomfort may be physical, maybe emotional, but they have to get through that difficult time if they're going to learn how to cope with it and how to move forward from it. And what you said earlier, from difficulty comes strength and growth. Izzy, did you ever feel, when you're going through times like we're discussing with Dr.
Feuer, did you ever feel you wanted to say to your parents, like, "Back off"? I feel like the term resilience comes to mind. So we use the word resilience in the Cohen Strong program to understanding how you have the strength to get over a problem. But you must have a support system to help you get through it as well.
So rather than them standing in front of you or clearing all the obstacles, they're standing with you side by side and saying, let's get through this together. The first time you ever told this to your parents, how'd that go? I'm sure when I was telling my parents about certain struggles, they were a bit surprised at first.
But my parents are such amazing parents. They helped me get through it. Even when my younger sister was going through some stuff, they also helped her get through it, get her connected with me with resources to help her go through her tough times. And really, it's the power of the parents and the power of the self to be able to get through a problem.
Okay. The same question I could ask the doctor, but I'm very curious. Are your parents growing from this program? My parents? They're watching something new themselves. So is there movement within themselves? Go ahead, Dr. Feuer She seems to want. I mean, I love that question, because we do want this to The point of this program is to have these kids be advocates for everybody, including their own families, including their peers, their schools.
They have to develop a project for their school at the end of the program. And we actually do hold a session for the parents when we orient them to what counseling training the kids are gonna get. They, I believe last year it's part of the mental health first aid. So I believe every parent attends those sessions.
I am not personally the teaching them, but it is really important part that the parents know and understand what their kids are learning about and what they're, you know, getting what content they're getting. And these kids are amazing advocates for this and talk about it with anyone. And so are those conversations that you have with your parents difficult? Definitely, at first it was more of a newer topic to them.
But as we grow, as throughout the years of my involvement, not only in this program, but also through the mental health club at my school more sensitivity towards the topic has been learned. Especially not only for me, but also for my parents. Certain words or actions, the ability to help people and connect. I feel like that's how my family has grown.
You speak beautifully, you know that? Thank you so much Dr. Feuer and us, I mean, we gotta take classes from her. Where do you see the program in five years, Dr. Feuer? I'm hoping the program will continue to grow. We have started doing this program with other community agencies, including faith based organizations.
So this summer, we have gone to churches and mosques and trained their youth groups. How are you received? How were you received? Very well. Very well. It was very well received. And the projects that the kids are creating are living long in these communities. And hopefully we'll continue to grow and we'll continue to bring it to more and more schools.
This year, we have our first private schools, and not just public schools, religious schools that are joining the program. And we're training this year 60 kids in this year's class. Is there something happening now that's new? Is there something that will be happening that we should know about? Yeah, absolutely. So our programs, like I mentioned, continue to grow.
And we're actually opening a new site in Westchester, which is a new territory for us. And it's somewhere where we don't currently have child psychiatry services. And we're very excited to bring this program and many others to that community. And we're also opening a site out in eastern Suffolk county in Riverhead, which is also lacking child and adolescent mental health services.
And we're very excited about building and developing more of these services in more places where Northwell communities are. I want to tell you that the CEO Michael Dowling, told me his main mission is health. Taking care of people in the hospital, the sick and the elderly is one thing. If you can control health from the beginning to the end.
Do you agree with that? Absolutely. And this is what our programs are. We build these programs in the community, call it upstream. Right. We go up to where the river starts to try to stop the problems from happening before they happen, and start to address early intervention and prevention with children, which is why we work with schools and students like Izzy.
Izzy, one final question. Okay. Ready? Yes. Rapid fire. Got it. Okay. Five years from now, where is Izzy? Hopefully studying in pre medicine track. Ten years from now, where is Izzy? Maybe in residency. At what hospital? Maybe Northwell. Okay. And what do you hope from an interview like this? I hope that no matter what age the viewer is, that they know that there's always support, always surrounding you, always available, even not only at Cohen's, but with your family, with your friends, or maybe even just a neighbor next door.
Final question, Rapid fire. Izzy is very smiling very camera friendly. I think during this whole process and intervention, you have used the word happy more than any other word. Your Mother has a smiley, happy face. She does. She does, right? Why is that word so endearing to you? The word happy... Honestly, just hearing it, when you say the word happy, you can't help but smile while also saying it.
And I feel like the word happy is something that, like, everyone experiences happiness once in their lives. And being able to experience that consistently and being able to share that is something that is a skill that I want to be able to grasp and be able to share with everybody. Somebody once said to me, who was a very wise man and very well known.
He said it in his older part of his life. He said to me, always tilt the needle in life towards fun. Always tilt the needle towards fun. What do you think that means? I feel like, personally, no matter what, no matter how serious the situation can be, you can always find something about it to make you smile. The only other thing I'll add is that we talked about managing stress and being resilient and optimism and hope and positive attitude is such an important part of that, because those are such crucial elements of staying resilient,
of going forward, moving forward, learning from our difficulties or struggles, reframing things, and starting to understand the positive side of a difficulty and how we became more because of it. Those are really important things that we teach and talk about I always say to my family. "Give me an alternative to positive. I'm listening.