Stony Brook Child Care Services Steps Up to Assist Frontline Workers

When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the New York State on PAUSE executive order, providing guidelines on which businesses could remain open during the coronavirus pandemic, child care was deemed an essential service. Ensuring support for the families of frontline workers was a critical goal.

Although child care centers were not required to remain open, Stony Brook Child Care Services (SBCC) rose to the occasion in response to a special request from the Office of the Governor.

To provide essential services during the pandemic, a business must comply with Department of Health guidance and directives for maintaining a clean and safe work environment. Before it could accept children during the pandemic, SBCC closed for two days for a deep cleaning then reopened to currently enrolled families with essential workers. 

SBCC provides more than child care services as such, Mendelsohn said.  “During this pandemic crisis, SBCC teachers offer parents and their children a sense of safety, learning, support, and a touch of comfort.”  

It is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), an organization that works to promote high-quality early learning for all young children, birth through the age of eight, by connecting early childhood practice, policy, and research. SBCC earned NAEYC accreditation in 1990 and recently was accredited for another five-year term.

Even parents who are not using SBCC at this time are grateful to know it’s there in the event of changing circumstances.

Read the full article: Caring Through the Crisis 

On May 15, Stony Brook University was recognized by The Andrew Goodman Foundation (AGF) as one of just five Leader Campuses within its national, nonpartisan Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere Network that includes more than 70 college campuses across the United States.

The AGF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works to increase student voter participation on college and university campuses across the nation. The organization is named after Andrew Goodman, a 20-year old Freedom Summer volunteer and champion of equality and voting rights who was murdered by the KKK in 1964 while registering African Americans to vote in Mississippi. 

Last year, Stony Brook was one of 123 institutions to receive the Voter Friendly Campus award by NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) and the Fair Election Center’s Campus Vote Project for its continued commitment to increasing the student voting rate on campus. According to Tufts University’s National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, between 2012 and 2016, SBU increased its eligible student voting rate from 43.2 percent to 53.2 percent in presidential elections, with much higher goals for student voting in 2020. These impressive results are due to the sophisticated voter registration, education, and mobilization efforts led by the University’s Center for Civic Justice.

Impacting Change in the Community
Not only has SBU’s program been recognized by NASPA with the Excellence Award for Civic Learning, Democratic Engagement, Service-Learning, and Community Service, but the Center for Civic Justice also developed a nationally renowned student orientation voter registration model and has registered more than 25,000 students to vote, establishing itself as one of the highest achieving programs in the Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere Network.

Read the full story: SBU Designated an Elite Leader Campus by The Andrew Goodman Foundation | | SBU

Those with disabilities may not always be able to advocate for themselves in a medical setting. In New York State, these patients have a case fatality rate 2.2 times higher than the overall COVID-19 rate. 

A new tool was created to better service patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Michelle Ballan, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Dean of Research in the Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare and Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, created a “COVID Disability Form,” which she says was intended to “reduce healthcare barriers and to help individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) communicate their needs, whether the patient is verbal or non-verbal.”

As the initiative picked up steam, Ballan was able to collaborate with Dr. Andrew Wackett, Clinical Associate.

“As an emergency medicine physician and educator, I realize the importance of providing compassionate, appropriate and effective care to a range of patients and especially including those who are unable to easily communicate for themselves, such as patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Dr. Wackett, who is also Associate Dean of Student Affairs, Director of the Clinical Simulation Center for Renaissance School of Medicine. “This is a skill that can and must be learned by those training to become physicians and especially in such stressful times as during a pandemic.”

The idea has been so well received that Ballan was awarded a Pfizer grant to develop a training program for healthcare providers on how to best evaluate and care for persons with IDD presenting with COVID symptoms. Dr. Wackett will also be featured in one of the webinars about the initiative.

Ballan has also received a 2020 grant from the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry to make Stony Brook one of only 18 universities with dedicated content in the medical school curriculum focused on individuals with IDD for physicians-in-training.

She is hopeful that this program will help to eliminate diagnostic overshadowing and improve treatment rates.