Director Cindy Bautista wins the Child Advocacy Award from the Administration for Children's Services

Cindy Bautista wins the Commissioner’s Child Advocacy Award from the Administration for Children’s Services

Association to Benefit Children (ABC) is proud to share that Cindy Bautista, the director of our preventive services program, All Children’s House, was awarded the Commissioner’s Child Advocacy Award by New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Dr. Jackie Martin, ACS’s Deputy Commissioner, honored Ms. Bautista’s leadership with the following words:

Cindy Bautista has steered ABC’s prevention program through the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic with compassion and steadfastness. […] Cindy’s steadfastness also inspires her entire team to feel competent, confident, and committed. She has built a remarkable team and inspires her colleagues with her wisdom, good judgment, and sense of humor.

Cindy is a leader in New York’s preventive services and a compassionate advocate for the most vulnerable children.

Fourteen years of service for highest-risk children

Cindy joined ABC fourteen years ago as a case planner, and she has been supporting children and families at the highest risk for morbidity and mortality ever since.

The families she works with have complex and compounded trauma. “Sometimes, there was violence and abuse - community violence, domestic violence, sexual abuse - directed either at the child or in the home. Sometimes, the parents have substance abuse issues. Most times, the parents have complex trauma and mental health struggles of their own.”

Cindy highlighted that issues of trauma are often intergenerational. “We tend to parent the way we were parented. For parents who grew up in the shelter system without role models, these experiences affect the way they attune with their own babies.” Her team looks at trauma experienced by both the child and the parent to understand the dyad relationship better.

Successful incubation of the Child-Parent Psychotherapy model

Several years ago, Cindy and her team incubated the Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) model, an evidence-based, trauma-informed therapeutic intervention that strengthens child-parent attachment, parental empathy, and resilience in families. Due to its effectiveness, the use of the CPP model she helped incubate provided the blueprint for replication in all of New York City. ABC continues to be responsible for providing preventive services throughout Manhattan, while trusted partner organizations in the rest of the city are achieving citywide systems change by implementing ABC’s CPP model in their own preventive services programs.

95% of the families served by All Children’s House stayed intact at the end of last program year.

Beacon of hope during the COVID-19 crisis

Cindy’s leadership has never more been apparent than during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Dr. Martin of the ACS said, “As schools and child care centers opened, closed, opened, and then closed again, Cindy supported her team and families to combat the rising feelings of COVID fatigue. The creativity that she and her team exhibited as they maneuvered the challenges of limited public transportation, staff having to quarantine, securing supplies of PPE, and the infinite questions raised regarding best practices for carrying out in-home sessions and supporting families in the age of COVID was evident at every turn.”

Her team also coordinated with other ABC staff for its emergency food and supply distribution effort, through which it provided more than a quarter of a million meals, as well as diapers, wipes, and baby formula to families at the time of their greatest need.

As her team engaged in these herculean efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cindy stood by her families and her team. She made visits to homes and shelters to ensure that the families could get to a supervisor at ABC and that her staff felt properly supported.

A true love of ABC

When asked what motivated her to come to work at ABC day after day for fourteen years, Cindy replied: “ABC’s leaders - Gretchen [Buchenholz] and Eri [Noguchi] - are so supportive of the work we do. They are present at every staff meeting, and they are always there to talk about any cases we have concerns with. ABC is an organization for vulnerable children and families, of course - but it is also for the staff who work here.”

Cindy is a tireless advocate for children. ABC is so proud of her many accomplishments, including her most recent award.

ABC receives the highest rating of four stars from Charity Navigator for the 12th consecutive year

May 4, 2021

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - Association to Benefit Children (ABC) is proud to share that it has received the highest rating of four out of four stars from Charity Navigator for the twelfth consecutive year, demonstrating “strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency.”

Only 1% of the more than 1.5 million charities in the United States have received 12 consecutive 4-star evaluations. In a letter addressed to ABC, Charity Navigator President and CEO Michael Thatcher explained that ABC’s Charity Navigator rating “indicates that your organization adheres to sector best practices and executes its mission in a financially efficient way. Attaining a 4-star rating verifies that Association to Benefit Children exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in your area of work.”

Charity Navigator is a leading charity evaluator in America, working with the mission to provide “donors with essential information to give them greater confidence in both their charitable decisions and the nonprofit sector.”

ABC’s Executive Director Gretchen Buchenholz welcomed the rating by Charity Navigator. “By designing programs based on evidence-based, replicable, and scalable models, ABC has been delivering compassionate and effective programs since our founding in 1986. It is wonderful to receive this recognition from Charity Navigator again, especially after a year in which our staff worked with grit, ingenuity, and love to provide the highest-quality services in the face of enormous challenges.”

A full Charity Navigator profile of ABC can be found here.

"Do your part and get vaccinated" - Op-Ed from Dr. Cavin Leeman

After a slow start, vaccination against COVID-19 is becoming increasingly available, and eligibility for vaccination is gradually spreading. Unfortunately, many people are choosing not to be vaccinated. Not only does this deprive those persons of very valuable protection, it also does a real disservice to everyone in the community and the nation.

Some people refuse vaccination because they think it may not be effective. Yet studies on thousands of people have shown that the vaccines which have been made available are extremely successful in preventing infection, and virtually 100% effective in preventing serious illness and death.

Other people worry that the vaccines may not be safe, because they were developed and made available remarkably quickly. But the speed was the result of an enormous effort. Safety was not compromised. Extensive trials established the vaccines’ safety before they were released, and, by now, millions of people have been vaccinated safely. Side effects, when they occur, are mild, and it is impossible to get infected from being vaccinated, since none of the vaccines contain any live virus.

Still other people refuse to be vaccinated because they fear a government plot to harm us. Not a shred of evidence of such a plot has been discovered, while COVID-19 harms all of us in a great many ways, both direct and indirect.

So far, COVID-19 has killed over half a million people in the United States, sickened millions more, and caused incredible economic and social damage. Unfortunately, the pandemic is far from over.  The longer it lasts, not only will the number of people who are getting sick and dying from the existing forms of the virus keep increasing, but the more variants of the virus, possibly even deadlier, will appear.

It is critical that we bring this pandemic to an end as quickly as possible. Everyone who gets vaccinated not only is benefitting his or her own health, but also is helping to protect the health and lives of many others. Let’s all do our part!
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This op-ed is written by Cavin P. Leeman, M.D., and it was originally published on The Millerton News. Dr. Leeman is the President of Stephen & May Cavin Leeman Foundation and a longtime ABC supporter.

ABC Parent Adama Bah's Video Op-Ed Published in the New York Times

January 26, 2021

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - Adama Bah, an ABC parent, a former member of ABC’s Policy Council, and a well-informed and passionate advocate for equity, published a video op-ed in The New York Times on January 25, 2021. In this op-ed, produced by the Times’ Opinions Video Producer Sanya Dosani, Ms. Bah argues that the U.S. should apply existing laws against domestic violent groups, such as the white nationalist and radical far-right groups that stormed the Capitol earlier this month, rather than creating new ones. She believes that it is both unnecessary and dangerous to expand on existing anti-terrorism laws, as historical precedences of doing so have given law enforcement the ammunition to target communities of color, religious minorities, and recent immigrants rather than countering the mass shooters, white supremacists, and homegrown violent groups they were designed for.

Ms. Bah is a strong advocate for Black, Muslim, and immigrant populations, and she has forcefully spoken out against racism and discrimination over many years, including in an interview she gave to ABC in August 2020. During this interview, the entirety of which can be found here, she shared:

I love coming to pick up my daughter from ABC’s Cassidy’s Place and seeing her laughing - as a parent, nothing is better than seeing your child be happy in a safe environment […] I didn’t have that growing up. I was arrested when I was sixteen for overstaying my visa, and that’s when I learned I was undocumented. I was taken across state lines and locked in a jail cell for two weeks without my parents knowing. My father was also taken and eventually deported.

In addition to her activism, Ms. Bah provided programmatic guidance to ABC’s directors as a member of our Policy Council, a group of ABC parents who help us design and deliver compassionate and effective services for vulnerable children of New York City.

ABC Remembers Howard Rubenstein

The Association to Benefit Children mourns the loss of our treasured friend, a friend to all children, Howard Rubenstein, known fondly as the Mench of Manhattan. Howard’s respect for and support of ABC’s work will always be remembered. Our deepest condolences go out to Amy and his whole family.

Gretchen Buchenholz, Amy Rubenstein, Howard J. Rubenstein, Charlie Rangel, and the Honorable Mayor David N. Dinkins at Mayor Dinkins’ 90th birthday party.

Photo Credit: Margot Jordan Photo | Amsterdam News

There will not be another harvest of the grapes of wrath on our watch

Dear ABC Family,

We used to call them “sore heads,” those kids who lost the game and threw the bat! A mob of them, sore losers, thugs, threw their hatred at America, at our values. When we got news at ABC of the siege, we were together; it happened just at dismissal, as throngs of children of all races, religions and ethnicities, who were filled to the brim with hope and love, were leaping jubilantly into the winter sunshine, and we held every child and one another close with the firm knowledge that love and justice will prevail. There will not be another harvest of the grapes of wrath on our watch.

Standing together with you, arms locked, with love,

Gretchen Buchenholz, Executive Director

Eri Noguchi, Chief Operating Officer

MaryEllen Rooney Named an 'Angel in the Nursery'

MaryEllen Rooney Named an 'Angel in the Nursery' by the New York Zero-to-Three Network

December 15, 2020

MaryEllen Rooney, the Director of ABC’s Graham School at Echo Park, was recognized as an ‘Angel in the Nursery’ by the New York Zero-to-Three Network in its December newsletter titled “Beacons of Light.” She is being recognized for overseeing ABC’s emergency childcare program for children of first responders and essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and coordinating our large-scale food distribution efforts that gave out a quarter a million meals to families struggling with food insecurity. You can read the full story here:

Dr. MaryEllen Rooney, Director of ABC’s Graham School at Echo Park, was a real angel in East Harlem this year, working with humanity and compassion for all. Not only did MaryEllen oversee an emergency childcare program for first responders and other essential health workers, but she also coordinated a food distribution program that provided more than a quarter of a million meals to children and families in East Harlem at their time of greatest need. ABC’s emergency childcare was open 11 hours a day, and had 36 daily slots available for children – birth through school age – from the start of April, going up to 54 by the summer. On top of all of this, MaryEllen also coordinated deliveries of formula, diapers, and other essentials to new mothers and was always on hand for every family emergency or unexpected issue. Whether she was opening emergency childcare early in the morning or getting emergency mental health care to parents in crisis late at night, MaryEllen, with her marvelous and unique sense of humor, was in so many ways the glue that held ABC’s COVID-19 response together.

The New York Zero-to-Three Network is “a community of individuals who are committed to strengthening the development of children birth to three and their families.”

ABC Honors World AIDS Day

December 1, 2020

Today, ABC honors World AIDS Day. In the mid-’90s, when crucial progress had been made in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, ABC focused its efforts on the critical need for early identification, counseling, and treatment. ABC’s class action lawsuits in 1994 secured counseling, testing, and treatment for children in foster care; another lawsuit in 1995 ensured routine HIV testing for all newborns in New York and the provision of treatment and counseling for HIV-positive infants and their family members.

The far-reaching policy reform that ABC won with the pro bono legal help of Colin Crawford alongside Margaret Keane and John Kinzey of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, has increased medical support for children with HIV/AIDS and helped totally eliminate maternal transmission of the infection in New York State. In 1990, 700 babies were born with the disease. By 2018, the perinatal transmission rate was zero.

We thank Jason Zieran for his help producing this film from our archival records.

Remembering Mayor David N. Dinkins

Dear ones,

We have lost a dear friend, ally, and champion for children in this city. Mayor David N. Dinkins, the children’s mayor of the Gorgeous Mosaic that is New York City, and a leading light in the fight against child homelessness and pediatric AIDS. The parallels between Mayor Dinkins’ work and ABC’s were clear from the start. He joined the ABC Board of Directors just months after he had finished his time as mayor.

For decades, ABC has depended on Professor Dinkins’ wisdom and skill, his compassion for children and his drive to make the world better for them. Wherever he went, kids knew him and loved him. He used to carry their photos in his vest pocket, and, more recently, he has carried them in his heart. He was a giant, a luminary in the field, a teacher and a listener, whose wisdom we have relied on to get through dark days and whose presence has graced so many of our most joyous days. He was perfect, apart from his complete inability to carry a tune. Although that never put us off singing together.

On so many occasions, he was present and ready to give advice on the challenges we face as a community. He will live on through the countless children and adults he inspired and those who will continue to be inspired by his legacy.

All our love,

Gretchen

How ABC brought Thanksgiving to families living in poverty despite the pandemic

November 24th, 2020

EAST HARLEM, NEW YORK - ABC was determined to bring Thanksgiving to the most vulnerable families of New York City despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. During its annual Turkey Day, which took place on November 21st, ABC distributed close to a thousand whole turkeys and pies as well as cranberry sauce, corn, potatoes, gravy, and rice from its East 126th Street location so that families who would not otherwise be able to celebrate Thanksgiving can have a hearty meal to eat at home.  

ABC stayed sensitive to the needs of low-income families throughout its planning. Recognizing that many destitute families do not have access to a large enough freezer to place a whole turkey, it prepared separate cooking instructions for those who can only keep it in the refrigerator and have to cook it sooner. Some families, especially the ones living in homeless shelters, may have neither a freezer nor a refrigerator or have any way of cooking. They received fully prepared meals. Vegetarian options were available for families who do not eat meat.  

It was also a challenge to reimagine the logistics of Turkey Day, which ABC has been hosting for over two decades now, to ensure safety of staff, volunteers, and families. ABC developed a rigorous procedure for all staff and volunteers in accordance with the guidelines put forth by New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. A floor map was developed to show who can be in each room and even included the steps that need to be taken if a child needs to use the restroom. In previous years, families used to fill out surveys to evaluate the impact ABC had on their children after picking up their turkeys. This year, most of this took place beforehand through mail and phone outreach efforts. As a result of its extensive planning, ABC was not only continuing its Thanksgiving tradition but also nearly doubled the number of meals it is giving out to vulnerable families from previous years. 

“Our communities suffered disproportionately during this pandemic,” says Gretchen Buchenholz, a leading children’s advocate who is ABC’s founder and Executive Director. “But ABC is always responsive. We continued to provide all of our regular programmings throughout the crisis and operated emergency relief efforts, including a large-scale food distribution effort that provided more than a quarter-million meals. And we facilitated Thanksgiving with a thousand mouthwatering turkeys and pies! We are so thankful we can do what we do – it's a testament to the trust our community has placed in us.”