Concordance focuses on needs of children

BY CHRISTINE VARNO Staff Writer

BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

LONG BRANCH –– The Long Branch Concordance (LBC) opened its doors almost a year ago to address needs in the community, and this month shifted its focus to the children.

The meeting room at the Brookdale Learning Center on Broadway was filled with supportive organizations and agencies on Oct. 19 at the LBC monthly meeting which was titled, “What About the Children?”

A panel was held with representatives from five agencies who discussed the needs of local families and their children;

The agencies were Regional Perinatal Consortium of Monmouth and Ocean Counties; Long Branch School-Based Youth Services; The New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS); Prevention First and Monmouth Cares.

“We want to look at the needs of the children,” director of the LBC Terri Blair said. “Approximately two-thirds of kids that are in the [Long Branch] school system are eligible for free or assisted lunch. These families could use resource and support information.”

The superintendent of Long Branch schools was among those who attended the meeting and told the agencies, “Keep working hard for those who need it the most because far too often we work hard for those who need it the least.”

The LBC is a collaboration of some 50 agencies that meet on a monthly basis to share resources and discuss how the concordance can best support the families and children in Long Branch.

The mission of the LBC is to provide resources and referrals, promote networking by agencies, organizations and residents and to assist in identifying gaps and overlaps in services.

The panel speakers explained what part their agencies play in the well-being of children and their families.

Beatriz Oesterheld, of the Regional Perinatal Consortium, said her agency works to ensure the health of children.

“We concentrate our efforts on educating women to the importance of prenatal care,” she said. “If you do not have prenatal care, you do not have healthy babies.”

Virginia Carreira, of the Long Branch School-Based Youth Services, said her agency provides medical care for students in Long Branch from birth to age 19 years.

“We can see kids as long as they have consent from their parents,” she said. “We test for medical {conditions}, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies. I think we are accomplishing a lot.”

One of the programs offered by Carreira’s agency is “Baby Think It Over.” The program gives high school students a baby doll on a Friday following school that they are assigned to take care of for the weekend.

The dolls are programmed to cry to signal that they are hungry or need to be changed. Data stored inside the dolls determines if the “baby” was abused.

“At that point the students can learn what it is like to care for a real baby,” Carreira said.

Steven Mandez, with DYFS, said his agency has received the most referrals in the areas of substance and physical abuse and neglect.

“We are really seeing an increase in adolescent problems,” he said. “We want children to grow and learn and be healthy. We try to serve children and their families.”

From Prevention First, Marilyn Kinelski said the agency’s mission is to strengthen the foundations of children to avoid problems, such as substance abuse.

“We are working on developing healthy assets in youth,” she said

Colleen Meyer, Monmouth Cares, said her agency uses a family strength-based wrap-around model to deal with family needs.

“We mostly deal with children who have mental or behavioral issues,” she said. “We keep the kids in their home and look for things that are available for them to do that they can succeed in.”

The LBC has an office on the second floor of the Garfield building at 279 Broadway. Since it opened in February 2005, it has received 361 visits from people in the community who need support, resources and referral services such as financial, safety, employment, legal, spiritual, transportation, education, food, shelter and more.

A total of 177 children have been involved in the cases, Blair said.