Keeping it positive: Boys & Girls Club wellness center

This article is part of The Recorder’s ongoing series on the child and adolescent mental health crisis through the perspectives of parents, teens, educators and mental health service providers.

Alyzza Ozer, CEO, the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester Wellness Center, and Alana Pudalov, head of the Wellness Center. JULIA KEMPER JOHNSON PHOTO

By MELISSA WHITWORTH

One of the most robust, comprehensive youth mental health programs in our community has been running at the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester since September 2024, after five years of planning. It is one of the first of its kind for the Boys & Girls Clubs in New York state, with 12 evidence-based mental health interventions up and running.

Seeing the need in their community of over 800 children ages 3 to 18 who access 40 school and afterschool programs, the club in Mount Kisco created a mental health wellness center and hired a full-time, on-site social worker.  Alana Pudalov, who holds a doctorate in clinical social work, heads up the BGCNW Wellness Center, and has dedicated her career to helping teens — and children as young as 3 — with mental health. Her speciality is an area of study called “positive psychology.”

Pudalov lives by this philosophy. Her work at BGCNW is infused with palpable joy: the center itself, a large bright room right by the preschool classrooms, is filled with artwork, glitter jars, and numerous ongoing craft projects — therapy for younger children is often art- or play-based. She works alongside Bryant Srour, the club’s mental health clinician, who was a member of the club as a child. 

Most of the members of staff across the campus were BGCNW kids themselves.

Alongside Alyzza Ozer, the club’s CEO, Pudalov and Srour have put together evidence-based practices that include individual counselling; group therapy sessions; play-based therapy; parent education, support and referrals; mindfulness and relaxation techniques; art-based therapy; movement and somatic therapy; social skills development; academic support; nutrition and wellness education; community outreach and advocacy; case management and follow-ups; and crisis intervention.

“I feel really blessed that I get to lead our wellness team and our community here and on behalf of all the kids who truly love it,” said Pudalov. “Children coming to the Boys & Girls Club look for us and want to do whatever creative, messy, activity we have going on, they look forward to that.” 

The younger children have been making mindfulness jars full of glitter, and creating paintings that depict the five senses — another mindfulness tool for young children.

“That gets them through really hard days at school and long weekends where there’s unpredictability. The work that we do represents and supports all the kids here and the staff who lean on us,” said Pudalov.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of America have over 5,400 locations serving 3.3 million young people annually. The organization’s network extends across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and on U.S. military bases worldwide. 

At the Mount Kisco location they serve and advocate for children and teens of “every shape, size, socio-economic background, Black, white, Hispanic, trans, straight, gay, bisexual, whatever their religious beliefs — everyone,” says Ozer.  “This club’s been here for 85 years and there’s just such commitment to genuinely embracing and celebrating every kid. And because there’s been such a legacy of staff and people so committed to that, when you walk through the doors of this club, every kid is treated with the same level of respect.” 

Importantly, Ozer says, that diversity is also represented in their staff.

Pudalov’s colleagues said that the children find her magnetic. They are always seeking her out, want to spend as much time with her as they can and are excited to discuss the many projects she has prepared for them. “They all benefit from her calming presence,” said one colleague.

The special sauce of much therapy work is what Pudalov calls “the warm handoff” — a term she says is common in the world of social work and is perhaps the most important factor in a youth accessing and continuing mental health treatment. A well-thought-out, researched and executed handoff increases the chances that a child who is struggling will keep the appointment with their new provider, feel supported in that path, and that the barriers to access such as language, culture, stigma (which is seen across all demographics and income levels) — even gender —  are much reduced.

There have been a number of times when a youth needs more intensive help or crisis intervention, and again, the Wellness Center and Pudalov and her team have become adept at case management and follow up — an extension of the warm handoff. 

“This is something we talk about a lot in this field, where you are ensuring that you leverage your relationship to make that referral successful.”

The club’s on-site clinicians were first available to staff, who received trauma-informed training. Then the children themselves started receiving services, and their parents, guardians and caregivers.

“It is amazing now that we have clinical and programmatic touch points with everyone across all age groups,” said Pudalov. “We are doing all the different things. And a lot of that comes from feedback. People might say, ‘I want to learn more about DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, which works on regulating intense emotions), but I want to do it from the comfort of my home or privately.’ [We then facilitate that.] I think that’s really the beauty of what we are doing here.”

Ozer has also led a formidable path advocating for better mental health services for the club’s children. Two years ago she took a group of 16 youths to Albany where they campaigned for a bill to pass that allowed state funding for mental wellness programs to be handed directly to the providers rather than filtered through agencies. That bill was successful.

“Since then our Mount Kisco club has been leading the charge in advocating for on-site mental health treatment for its students,” says Ozer.

“We’re also licensed through the Office of Children and Family Services. [Our programming and therapy is] very specific and the subject matter also has to be developmentally appropriate.” 

After that campaign, Ozer says, “The state provided half a million dollars to New York state’s Boys & Girls Clubs for preventative mental wellness. That gives us credibility, that the state of New York believes that what we’re doing is valuable. We are also the only community-based organization that receives funding from the county for youth wellness,” she said. “So the county Board of Legislators has now voted two years in a row to provide us with an allocation specifically for mental wellness.”

The implementation of BGCNW’s mental wellness center unfolded in three parts. The first step was training for all people working at the club. “So the first thing that we did before we even got here was trauma-informed training for the staff,” Ozer says.

The second prong was a partnership with the organization Cognitive & Behavioral Consultants, based in White Plains. “They took the curriculum of all of our programming from preschool through age 18, and reviewed it.

The CBC is also involved in about 80 to 100 public schools, says Ozer, where they have the perspective of all the different ways mental health interventions work within the school districts.

Then the third part of the wellness program was to hire on-site clinicians. 

Is there hope amongst the mental health team when it comes to addressing the crisis our youths find themselves in? Is there hope about the efficacy of the program they have, the funding for it, the expansion, the impact? 

“Oh absolutely,” says Ozer. “Mental wellness is so crucial, especially in an afterschool programming venue, where we have 40 programs to help children between school ending at 3 p.m. and hometime. 

“If a young person is not mentally well, none of those programs are going to be as effective. So by providing mental wellness and support, it then has a direct impact on absolutely everything else in that child’s life.”

Pudalov agrees that youth mental health is something that can and will improve.

“One hundred percent,” said Pudalov. “And I think that’s the beauty here, at the wellness center. It’s mission-driven and runs by the feedback from all the stakeholders we have here, while honoring the kids and what they want. Even in our space now, the kids are giving us ideas of what kind of activities they want to do. How do they want to talk about their feelings? What would help them feel more comfortable? So it’s amazing to see kids bringing these ideas. They’re making everything what it is here. The kids having agency is really, really key.”

“Children’s mental health is foundational to their overall well-being, and it takes more than just families to support it,” said Michael Orth, commissioner of  Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health. “Community-based organizations like the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester play a crucial role by providing safe, supportive environments where young people can build resilience, form positive relationships and access resources that promote emotional wellness.” 

Orth also said that the Club’s “commitment to the mental health and wellness of every young person who walks through their doors reflects the kind of community partnership that strengthens and uplifts our entire county.”