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By Chandra Wilson HEALTH - This April marks National Volunteer Month, a time to celebrate the important role volunteers play in helping organizations and communities thrive in their mission to help others. At the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), volunteers play a crucial role in supporting the health of New York’s diverse communities, and volunteers come from equally varied backgrounds. Volunteers bring their special skills to everything they do, running the gamut from hosting craft classes, providing a friendly call to those in hospice, knitting scarves for ill patients, or helping in less seen, but equally important, background roles like fundraising and clerical work.  Given the many challenges COVID-19 continues to pose for the health of New Yorkers, VNSNY volunteers are needed now more than ever, and their dedication, as well as the gift of time, cannot be understated. Volunteers sacrifice their time and give back to the community simply in the name of kindness...

Salvador Garcia, FRIENDS Clinician, Visiting Nurse Service of New York By Salvador Garcia, FRIENDS Clinician, Visiting Nurse Service of New York HEALTH - Over the last two years, families have been under a tremendous amount of stress. At the FRIENDS clinic, an Article 31 clinic located in the Bronx, we continue to assist overwhelmed and exhausted clients that are having trouble managing stress after a prolonged experience with the COVID pandemic.  At the FRIENDS clinic, our licensed social workers, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurse practitioners provide medication management and ongoing therapeutic services for children, youth, and their family. Whether it’s parents with limited resources, students struggling with heightened anxiety and/or depression, or older adults fearful of leaving their home, these concerns do not follow the stream of spikes and dips in the overall COVID cases in the Bronx. Instead, these are persistent emotions that ultimately manifest themselves in w...

A row of residential buildings in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Sept. 25, 2019. | Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY This article is adapted from our Rent Update newsletter sent March 7, 2022. You can sign up here to get it or fill out the form at the bottom of this post. By Rachel Holliday Smith, THE CITY  This article was  originally published  on  Mar 7 at 8:10pm EST  by  THE CITY The backlog is thousands deep, and even those who got approved for funds have hit snags. Here’s your ERAP update from THE CITY’s Rent Updates newsletter. If you’re reading this, you might be or know one of the 315,162 people who, as of March 1, have applied to get back rent paid by the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). And you may know that there’s not nearly enough money to go around. With current funding, there’s enough to cover just 165,000 applications to the program, according to recent analysis by the New York Housing Conference. Will the state allocate mor...

‘Just being there’ can mean powerful healing VNSNY Social Worker Christine Garcia  By Chandra Wilson NEW YORK - March is national Social Work Month, a time to learn about and acknowledge the meaningful impact that social workers have on so many lives.  Whether it’s helping individuals, families or community groups cope or navigate the obstacles they encounter in life, from medical or emotional challenges to access to health education, care or government and support resources, or just being there, ready to listen, social workers—especially in the home care field—are true heroes of our healthcare professions. At the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), hundreds of social workers travel hundreds of miles and make hundreds of phone calls every single week as they advocate and care for patients throughout New York’s five boroughs and Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties. Rarely in the limelight, they may see their patients only a few times, but despite this short ...

Ruth Caballero, RN, VNSNY By Chandra Wilson During Black History Month, in addition to celebrating the remarkable achievements of African Americans throughout history, it is important to think about how race and ethnicity affect health and quality of life.  Health disparities can be particularly dangerous when people are not aware or don’t understand that they’re at risk. Creating awareness, both within the medical community and among individuals whose lives are impacted by disparities, is a critical step toward better health for all. We hear a lot these days about how social determinants of health—or the economic and social conditions that influence individual or group health status—are responsible for health disparities among different populations. Closing those gaps in care is what the not-for-profit Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) has been doing for more than 129 years—ever since founder Lillian Wald first cared for vulnerable New Yorkers on Manhattan’s Lower E...

Gov. Kathy Hochul met virtually on Tuesday with education leaders from across the state as debate ratchets up over mask mandates in schools. Mike Groll / Office of Governor Kathy Hochul By Christina Veiga, Chalkbeat New York New York’s health commissioner told lawmakers on Tuesday that there is no date set for lifting the state’s mask mandate in schools, as the governor met with education leaders to map out next steps when it comes to pandemic safety protocols.  Mask requirements in schools have been a flashpoint throughout the pandemic . The debate has ratcheted up recently with governors in nearby states including New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut announcing sunsets to such mandates. There is surprisingly little rigorous evidence about the effectiveness – or the harms – of masking students. But polls have consistently shown that most parents and a majority of adults support masking in classrooms , so withdrawing mandates might discourage families from sending their c...

By Chandra Wilson It’s American Heart Month, and there’s no better time to raise awareness of the signs of hypertensive heart disease (HHD), which is better known as hypertension, or elevated blood pressure. Hypertension is often called the “silent killer” because, as reported by the American Heart Association (AHA), nearly half of all Americans have hypertension, and many don’t even realize it. The facts are clear. HHD is the leading cause of death for all Americans. For African American men and women, the risk for developing HHD is even higher, as roughly 40 percent are estimated to have high blood pressure. The condition increases with age, and if not properly managed can lead to heart failure, coronary artery disease, kidney failure, and other serious health issues.  However, with early diagnosis and proper treatment, hypertension is reversible. Ruth Caballero, RN, a public health nurse with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York for more than two decades, provides home...