The Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester on Feb. 12 announced it has received a $275,000 grant from the Mother Cabrini Foundation. The grant will be used to provide mental health and wellness services in afterschool programming for up to 200 children ages 4 -12, and up to 200 youth ages 13-18 from low-income families.
The club’s Wellness Center program includes having qualified mental health counselors on site who can identify youngsters needing intervention and provide age-appropriate counseling. The program incorporates the nationally recognized prevention and education curriculum SMART Moves (Skills Mastery and Resilience Training) which uses interactive, age-appropriate methods to build social-emotional skills and promote healthy decision-making.
The club’s Director of Wellness, Dr. Alana Pudalov said, “Our wellness team supports our four PreK classrooms throughout the day and during after school; we provide counseling and wellness activities, groups, events, and sessions to over 120 students weekly. Over the past two years, our counseling and wellness services and support have had a meaningful impact on our students and families. We’ve created spaces for healing, resilience, growth, and learning.”
The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation is a nonprofit working to improve the health and well-being of New Yorkers. It issued a statement saying, in part, “By embedding mental health supports into trusted afterschool environments, this program helps ensure young people — especially those from underserved communities — have the tools, resources, and relationships they need to thrive emotionally, socially, and academically.”
Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester was established in 1939. It serves youngsters of ages six months to 18 years from more than 40 Northern Westchester communities. It is headquartered in Mount Kisco.
