One Mental Health Clinic’s Journey into Integrated Care

We have heard the statistic countless times over the past few years, yet they are still shocking. People with serious mental illness will die, on average, 25 years sooner than the general population. WJCS, like many mental health providers, has predominantly focused on the area of the human body...

Coordinated Behavioral Health Services, Inc. (CBHS) – One Group’s Pathway Toward Preparing for Managed Care

Coordinated Behavioral Health Services (CBHS), incorporated in 2012, is comprised of eight leading behavioral health and developmental disability nonprofit community-based agencies serving the Lower/Mid-Hudson River Region of New York State, and providing services in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland,...

Treating Youth with Sexual Aggression: Stopping Predators? Or Meeting Needs?

For the last three decades, the Juvenile Starting Over (JSO) program at Westchester Jewish Community Services (WJCS) has been treating Youth with Sexual Aggression (YwSA). It is the only community-based program in the area specially designed to help these young people cease their problematic sexual...

Who We Are and How We Arrived at Today: Thirty Years of Treating People Who are Trauma Survivors

The WJCS Treatment Center for Trauma and Abuse (TCTA) has been in the forefront in providing mental health services to survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and other forms of trauma, in Westchester County for the past 30 years. Many of the individuals seen through this program have a diagnosis of...

From Psychoanalysis to CBT: One Psychiatrist’s Journey

By now, most professionals in the mental health field acknowledge that psychotherapy treatments grounded in cognitive behavioral principles are effective for a wide range of common conditions. Their efficacy in anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and...

Engagement in the School Based Clinic Setting: Challenges and Opportunities

The early phase of mental health treatment called “engagement” marks the beginning of an emerging collaboration among provider, child and family. During engagement, clients develop important senses about their providers: Do I like this person? Can they help me? Does it seem like they care about...

Don’t Let Caregiving Make You Sick

With more than 44 million family caregivers in the United States, chances are you or someone you know is taking care of a loved one. This can be an extremely rewarding experience as it allows caregivers the opportunity to demonstrate their love for someone dear. Yet, caregiving also can be quite...

Find Your Center: PTSD and Yoga

More than 5,000 years ago, yoga was developed in the Northern part of India. Who would have predicted that this tradition can bring healing to war veterans and sexual abuse victims, alike, in 2010? Yoga has been a part of the Western lifestyle for the last 40 years, and it has become more and...

Treating Trauma Survivors in a Family Mental Health Clinic

Westchester Jewish Community Services’ (WJCS) Treatment Center for Trauma and Abuse has been in the forefront in Westchester County in providing child and adult survivors of child sexual abuse with effective treatment for almost thirty years. The program began in the Hartsdale clinic with just...