BronxNet reports on our efforts to spread Thanksgiving cheer to the students and families at Haven Academy – while the school cannot celebrate together this year, the school provided turkeys, vegetables, and other food for families to cook at home.
“Unfortunately, we are not allowed to sit together as one. But we are still one in our hearts,” said one Haven parent.
Watch BronxNet’s report below:
At The Foundling, we see education as the pathway to independence. Our programs lay the groundwork for healthy development, wellbeing, and self-determination by teaching critical life and learning skills. We know that education is much more than what happens in a classroom, and includes families learning to communicate effectively, children navigating life challenges without strong family support systems, and young adults relearning habits to change the trajectory of their lives. This is especially true today, nearly eight months since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The 2020-2021 school year will undoubtedly present unique challenges for students and their families and caregivers—but for those involved in the child welfare system, they will have to overcome even larger hurdles and obstacles. That’s why The Foundling is doubling down on efforts to provide educational programming and support services to hundreds of students across our community.
Read our roundtable conversation with Foundling staff and expert leaders from our organization who work closely with students, families, tutors, mentors, and teachers—and you’ll hear firsthand how the school year is going so far.
| PARTICIPANTS | |
|---|---|
 Clarisse Miller
The Foundling’s Fostering College Success Initiative
Head of School, Mott Haven Academy Charter School
Road to Success, Road to Success Citywide, and Afterschool Allies at The Foundling
Elizabeth Tremblay School Based Mental Health at The Foundling
School Based Mental Health at The Foundling |
How are students faring with their return to school?
Jessica: Our students love coming to school, so we are cognizant of how learning remotely impacts them emotionally and mentally. Creating a structured routine and predictable schedule has really helped. School is in session using Google Classrooms from 8:00am-2:00pm and students interact with their classroom community virtually and complete pre-recorded activities throughout the day. They have blocks of time where they are encouraged to take breaks and get their bodies moving!
Michelle: Students are happy to be back at school and to have the ability to see their teachers and friends. Some students are disappointed with the low turnout of other students returning for in-person instruction—they miss the “normal times” from last year. And the student who are fully remote are sad that they aren’t blended, but their parents opted for remote learning due to having other people in their home who are immunocompromised.
How do you keep teachers, staff, students, and parents motivated each day?
Jessica: We plan virtual classes, assignments, events, gatherings, and meetings with a single question in mind: How do we uplift everyone and bring joy to the learning experience? We also hold monthly student celebration community meetings, weekly staff circles, and weekly “Coffee Hours” for families. Our team also makes surprise ‘cookie and treat’ deliveries to families!
How are students staying connected and maintaining friendships this semester?
Clarisse: We’ve increased the number of workshops we do so that students are interacting more with us and each other. Students are staying in touch with their friends through phone calls, video chats, social media, and interactive video games. Some make time to hang out or form study groups—which is really nice to see take shape. Kids need these social touch points to stay connected and to maintain friendships, and they’re doing a great job so far!
Michelle and Elizabeth: Some students are able to spend time with peers who live in their direct neighborhood, but many are feeling isolated and frustrated with the lack of social interaction. In some of our high schools where we provide therapy to students, we’ve seen freshmen feeling socially disconnected and struggling to make new friends because they’re not physically in school. We’re making the most of tech tools like Google Classroom to run interactive events and workshops that help new students meet classmates. We want to give them every opportunity possible to make new friends and feel connected. In recent weeks, we’ve seen some great participation and success.
How are your teams adjusting to working remotely?
Michelle: They have been creative in engaging students, families, and faculty through virtual workshops. In October we began re-entering NYC schools, and are now using a hybrid of in-person and telehealth services—whatever each individual school needs is what we deliver.
Joni: Our tutors have been extremely innovative! They’re using a multitude of technological tools and platforms to match the different learning styles of our students, like giving styli to students who learn best when they can write and draw on their tablet screens. We’ve created remote learning tip sheets, supplied links to additional online learning resources, and developed a training program on remote learning best practices.
What challenges are you facing—and what do solutions look like?
Joni: Given the changing academic landscape, some of our goals related to college access have shifted. Standardized tests like the New York State Regents exams and SAT/ACTs are largely cancelled, so we have been working with students to instead boost their math and English language grades in order to demonstrate college readiness without standardized tests. At the same time, we’ve been adapting to support 9th grade students entering high school. Research has demonstrated that this time of transition is of particular importance in predicting graduation rates, so we’re prioritizing support for these students to ensure they don’t fall off track with remote learning.
Elizabeth: It’s hard to get know new students when our team has not been able to meet them in person. We’re trying to balance addressing each student’s learning needs and their social emotional needs. We can’t ignore the stressors caused by the pandemic, but we also don’t want students to fall behind in their classes. Collectively, students have shown to be incredibly resilient and strong, and eager to make their new routines work in the most successful ways possible!
The New York Times recently profiled one of our teachers at Haven Academy:
“Jardy Santana, 34, teaches English at Mott Haven Academy Charter School, a school predominantly serving families involved in the child welfare system in the Bronx, which is run in partnership with the New York Foundling. She has been teaching for 12 years, including 10 at Mott Haven, and this year has been her hardest.
For her, the onset of remote learning last spring brought a weighty realization: Each student has very different needs in the virtual classroom.”
Read more at The New York Times
This article was also featured in three additional media outlets:
The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs reports on the lack of mental health resources available to New York City students this school year, including insight from our CEO, Bill Baccaglini.
“As kids finally resume classes – remotely this week and in classrooms next – they will find that many social workers and other mental health care providers have disappeared from school budgets.
“We’re turning off the spigot to kids with serious needs,” says Bill Baccaglini, the executive director of the nonprofit New York Foundling, which runs mental health programs in 22 public elementary, middle, and high schools, mostly in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.”
Fox5NY’s New York at our Best II included a clip from Haven Kids Rock, our musical arts program based at Haven Academy.
Fast Company profiled The Foundling’s Haven Academy in their article on personalized learning: “With remote learning likely to continue in some form at least through 2021, a greater degree of independence is being forced on students by structural necessity. Perhaps it’s time for schools to look anew at personalized learning, a model that in its best incarnations is not algorithm-led but student-led.
Haven Academy students have been relatively successful at learning during the pandemic—a reminder that any remote-learning strategy, particularly one that is personalized, requires that schools give educators the time and resources to invest in relationships with their students. At the academy, that happens through educator training, close coordination with social work staff, and family support services provided via nonprofit operating partner The New York Foundling.”
New York Times reporter Eliza Shapiro profiles how Mott Haven Academy helped their students throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Shapiro shares with readers how “Jessica Nauiokas, Mott Haven’s principal, spent the first few weeks of the lockdown figuring out how to get cash and food into the homes of the school’s most vulnerable children, so that they could eventually focus on their studies.” The article includes a quote from a parent who shared, “there were a lot of times I wanted to give up because it was too much for me” and “had it not been for Mott Haven, ‘I probably wouldn’t have home-schooled. I probably would have skipped it.'” READ MORE
For over 150 years, The New York Foundling has worked in partnership with our neighbors to ensure that everyone can meet their full potential when facing challenging situations. This hasn’t changed, and our staff continue to provide life-changing and meaningful support in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This series shares how The Foundling’s many programs are responding to the needs of their community.
In Puerto Rico, The Foundling serves 1,500 children through Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Our Early Head Start program is home-based and serves expecting mothers, infants, and toddlers. The program promotes strong parent-child relationships and helps provide high-quality early learning experiences. Our Head Start program delivers high-quality early education and child development services to children ages 3-5 in San Juan, Cataño, Vega Alta, Coamo, and Toa Baja.
The families and Foundling staff in Puerto Rico have shown tremendous resilience and perseverance, despite the devastation caused by the 2017 hurricanes, a series of earthquakes at the start of 2020, and now, ongoing hardship as families try and stay safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to devastation caused by hurricanes in 2017 and earthquakes in 2020, The Foundling’s Early Head Start and Head Start programs in Puerto Rico were already accustomed to delivering services in new and creative ways when COVID-19 hit. “How school and teaching is conducted here changed after Hurricane Maria,” says Carmen Villafane, Senior Vice President of the two programs. “We’ve had some practice with online learning and using digital tools.” Throughout the pandemic, our teachers have become more and more creative with their teaching methods. They’re finding new online learning and practice programs for students. They’re posting instructional videos on how to do the day’s activities, and they are recording videos of themselves reading stories and sending them to the families.
Since schools in Puerto Rico have been closed since March due to the pandemic, teachers and staff have also been sending care packages to students and their families with materials including scissors, paper, pencils, markers, glue, crayons, and other craft materials. That way, when teachers assign activities and projects to do, the families are able to complete them. “Without these materials, the children would lose the crucial skills they need to progress to the next step in their education,” Carmen explains. “So, we’re doing everything we can prepare them and ensure that nothing stands in their way of educational success.”
Activities are geared towards promoting children’s cognitive, social, and emotional growth for later success in school. The program delivers developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate learning experiences in language, literacy, mathematics, social and emotional functioning, science, physical skills, and creative arts.
Teachers host a weekly virtual class and support activities throughout the week. In addition to engaging children and parents, other members of the household are welcome to join as well. During this time together, everyone is able to participate in activities such as songs, stories, and crafts, as well as teacher-guided discussions about COVID-19 and general health and safety measures. “Off-screen, the parents have done a wonderful job working with their children on educational activities,” Carmen commented. For example, teachers will recommend an activity for parents to work on with their children at home, such as making homemade Play-Doh or “Plastilina,” and the parents will share their videos of family craft-time with the teachers.
Early Head Start, which provided home-based services to 36 families before COVID-19, is now held online. Vocational home visitors, who work with a child’s family to ensure their home environment supports their well-being and education, are trained to identify family needs in both online and in-person settings. They develop programming, handle assessments, and if a need arises that requires specialized care, they provide referrals to nurses, social workers, mental health professionals, or other community resources.
Throughout the year, and especially in times of crisis — be it a hurricane, an earthquake, or a global pandemic — the families served by our Head Start programs often struggle to have their basic needs met. “Food is too often in short supply,” Carmen notes, “It’s a common challenge our families face. But with the help of local charities and generous donations, we have been able to buy and supply grocery bags full of food to the families we serve.”
“I am so proud of my employees,” Carmen adds, “They have all gone the extra mile, which is what we need in this moment, and what we’ve needed in every moment since Hurricane Maria. Earthquakes still affect south Puerto Rico every day, and there’s no end in sight. And yet, despite the uncertainty, our staff wakes up every morning prepared and ready to serve. I couldn’t be more proud of them for their hard work and continued commitment. The Foundling’s presence here in Puerto Rico really makes all the difference.”
To learn more about how The New York Foundling is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, visit our emergency response page. Stay tuned for more stories from the frontlines as we continue to support our neighbors on paths to stability and strength.
Read past posts in the ‘Our Work Continues’ blog series:
For over 150 years, The New York Foundling has worked in partnership with our neighbors to ensure that everyone can meet their full potential when facing challenging situations. This hasn’t changed, and our staff continue to provide life-changing and meaningful support in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This series shares how The Foundling’s many programs are responding to the needs of their community.
The New York Foundling launched Camp Felix in 2008 to provide children in foster care with the magical gift of attending an overnight summer camp filled with sports, games, swimming, making friends, and connecting with others who have experienced trauma and hardship, and know what it is like to be involved in the child welfare system. Campers stay active, nurture their creativity, and connect with nature.
Located an hour north of New York City, Camp Felix has come a long way since its first summer and is now open to children in all of The Foundling’s child welfare programs. Typically, children attend our overnight summer camp for 1 or 2 weeks and immerse themselves in activities that instill feelings of self-confidence, resilience, self-respect, and a strong sense of community. Our campers return home filled with confidence, newfound strength, and the belief that they can “achieve anything.”
COVID-19 has changed what Camp Felix will look like this summer. The group activities and communal settings that define the overnight camp experience would be difficult to adapt to current safety guidelines, and so The Foundling made the decision to cancel 2020’s traditional camp season. The health, wellbeing, and safety of our campers, their families, and Camp Felix staff is too important to risk. However, thanks to The Foundling’s dedicated and creative team, this summer, children and teenagers will experience the magic of Camp Felix at home!
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Foundling had hopes that in-person operation of Camp Felix in August would still be possible – but as things progressed and the world changed, team knew they had to begin planning a virtual program instead. “The kids need this camp,” says Jane Feyder-Siegel, the camp’s Program Director. “It was always our back-up plan to run it online if we couldn’t do it in-person.”
With the support of our partner The Felix Organization and generous funders, Camp Felix At Home will deliver high-quality, interactive camp-themed programming supervised by veteran Camp Felix staff members throughout the month of August. The virtual camp experience will feature 2-3 hours of daily activities, including fitness, yoga, arts and crafts, theatre and dance, STEM workshops, musical performances, and more. Virtual campers can participate in the entire program start to finish, or they can choose select weeks, days, or activities based on their interests.
“When we told kids and caretakers that we were still going to run Camp Felix, it was a great relief to them,” Jane continues “Children and families look forward to camp all year long. It’s a real get-away for them and an opportunity for them to be carefree kids.”
At first, planning a virtual camp was daunting. “But we put our heads together, got creative, and we’re really excited about what we’ve come up with.”
While some activities like swimming, rock climbing, and basketball can’t be adapted to an online platform, many other camp favorites will return. Each day will still start with the Morning Circle where campers and staff sing songs and talk about daily and weekly goals and challenges. “We can’t give out a Cleanest Cabin Award this year, so instead campers will be competing within their own homes to see who can complete the most household chores—things like dusting, vacuuming, doing the dishes, or helping their parent/guardian with dinner.”
A week before Camp Felix At Home begins, campers will receive a care package, including a t-shirt, journal, set of headphones, snacks, coloring and activity books and supplies, arts and crafts supplies, and a frisbee.
The camp’s programming will allow campers to pursue a variety of interests. STEM workshops provided by Engineering for Kids will enable campers to explore cyber robotics, parachutes, and candy catapults. Musical theater workshops, led by Broadway Bound Kids and based around routines from Hamilton and The Lion King, will teach campers to project their voices and develop their stage presence. Acting workshops from Boston Casting will offer improv and stand-up comedy instruction.
“There will be a lot of trial and error with Camp Felix At Home, but the kids are excited and open-minded; and families love that we are still finding a way to come together and do something special,” Jane says. “Parents and foster parents want their kids to spend the summer doing fun, productive activities, and exploring new passions and hobbies, albeit remotely.”
To learn more about how The New York Foundling is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, visit our emergency response page. Stay tuned for more stories from the frontlines as we continue to support our neighbors on paths to stability and strength.
Read past posts in the ‘Our Work Continues’ blog series:
For over 150 years, The New York Foundling has worked in partnership with our neighbors to ensure that everyone can meet their full potential when facing challenging situations. This hasn’t changed, and our staff continue to provide life-changing and meaningful support in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This series shares how The Foundling’s many programs are responding to the needs of their community.
At The New York Foundling, we see education as the pathway to independence. All of our programs lay the groundwork for healthy development, wellbeing, and self-determination by teaching critical life and learning skills. Youth in foster care face especially significant challenges in their lives that contribute to notably lower academic performance, from reading and math standardized test scores, to school attendance, to high school graduation rates, to college enrollment and graduation.
The Foundling’s Road to Success program, an innovative long-term, one-on-one tutoring program for youth in foster care with The Foundling, is designed to support young people in foster care in reaching their full academic potential. Road to Success goes above and beyond the expectations of a typical tutoring program by providing true mentorship to students and working closely with families in a coordinated effort to improve academic achievement.
Since March, Road to Success program tutors have worked diligently to ensure students stay on track for educational success and don’t fall behind in the wake of the disruptions and challenges caused by COVID-19.
When COVID-19 hit New York City, all students were asked to shift into remote learning immediately and for the near future. For underserved communities – including young people in foster care – securing access to technology and navigating the new classroom process posed significant challenges. For the young people in our Road to Success program, they had a special support on their side – our Road to Success tutors. “We spent the better part of March and April securing the equipment and resources needed to provide every student with the tools they needed to succeed—and that wasn’t easy,” shares Joni Rivera. As Assistant Vice President of The Foundling’s Educational Services, Joni oversees a number of educational support programs, including Road to Success.
“One of our students, for example, is visually impaired and needed a specialized device and software to be able to do her work,” Joni elaborates. “We hounded her school until they finally got her what she needed. The good news is that with the right technology, staff support, and the student’s perseverance, she’s still slated to graduate high school this summer.”
While the New York Department of Education promised to provide iPads for all the students enrolled in its public schools, not every student in Road to Success received one during the initial distribution—even though the State tried to prioritize children in child welfare. “We had to provide our students with that technology on our own,” Joni explains. “Thankfully, we received generous donations and were able to purchase iPads for the rest of the students who needed them.”
Once students had secured technology access, the tutors of Road to Success were able to get students back on track for educational success. Like many students making the transition to remote learning, our Road to Success participants experienced expected challenges like time management skills and a need for increased digital literacy, but our participants also continued to other challenges unique to youth in foster care.
“Our tutors do a lot of advocacy work on behalf of our students,” Joni explains. Because of COVID-19-related shutdowns—along with a lack of access to scanners and printers—applying for college has been especially difficult for many of the college bound students in the program. Young people in foster care face some of the lowest college enrollment rates in the nation, so enabling our participants to apply to and matriculate into college is one of the most important roles that our Road to Success program has. Some problems with application submissions have been easier to solve than others—such as installing scanner apps on student phones—but compiling the required financial documentation has been very challenging.
“When our students fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and their college applications, they need to prove their ‘non-tax-filer’ status to the school,” Joni explains. “Even within the SUNY and CUNY school systems, there’s no standardized way to do this. Each college campus has their own set of hoops to jump through.” Proving this status is critical to securing financial aid, and to completing every application.
Joni continues, “Pre-COVID, students would get verification documentation from the IRS, but since the outbreak, the IRS’s offices have been closed. You can’t call them. You can’t email them. There’s no way to complete the process online. It took a lot of phone calls from our staff about multiple students, but SUNY and CUNY finally agreed to accept letters from caseworkers as an alternative.”
“I can’t even imagine kids doing this on their own without support,” Joni adds. “It’s been difficult enough as it is for us, and we’re adults who’ve been trained to do this work. It’s just crazy to think about how many students in foster care, who don’t get the kinds of support we provide, must be falling through the cracks right now. Now more than ever, I think it’s really important to highlight the need for educational advocacy and tutoring in the foster care space.”
To learn more about how The New York Foundling is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, visit our emergency response page. Stay tuned for more stories from the frontlines as we continue to support our neighbors on paths to stability and strength.
Read past posts in the ‘Our Work Continues’ blog series:
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Jessica Nauiokas
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