From left: Mott Haven Academy Charter School’s PreK-2nd Grade Assistant Principal Vyasa Autar, Elementary School Director of Social Services Lauren Katzenstein, 3rd-5th Grade Assistant Principal Aly Jaquith and Elementary School Principal Michael Windram
Students at Mott Haven Academy Charter School (Haven Academy) in the Bronx are no strangers to trauma. The pre-K to 8th grade school was launched in partnership with The New York Foundling specifically to meet the needs of children involved in the child welfare system. “We work hard to ensure that our school is a trauma-sensitive environment for all scholars and families,” said the school’s Elementary School Director of Social Services Lauren Katzenstein, MSW ’19. Still, the community was deeply shaken when a beloved third grader died this past July after a long battle with cancer.
The student had been at Haven Academy since kindergarten. “The kids have been aware of his diagnoses throughout the last few years and have always been champions for him,” Ms. Katzenstein said. When his cancer came back very aggressively after a period of remission, the whole school rallied to support him and his family, friends and loved ones. Even though classes had ended for the year in June, the school created an on-site crisis center to provide counseling services for students and staff after he passed away. “As an empathetic and loving community, we have an opportunity to support our children during times of tragedy and grief,” said Haven Academy’s Elementary School Principal Michael Windram.
With the new school year approaching, Haven Academy sought specialized assistance to prepare the staff to help the nearly 500 students process their ongoing grief. Ms. Katzenstein noted that the need is particularly acute since many students are dealing with cumulative grief. “We have seen a big increase since COVID of students experiencing ‘traumatic loss,’ such as loss of a parent, sibling, or close relative, as well as more ‘ambiguous loss,’ such as placement in foster care.”
After failing to find a professional development program that would meet the needs of the community, Ms. Katzenstein turned to Dr. Gabriella McBride, Project Director of NYU Silver’s School Social Work Training Academy (SSWTA). Mott Haven Academy is an SSWTA partner and has hosted Silver MSW student interns since 2009. Dr. McBride was confident that Clinical Professor Susan Gerbino, the Founding Director of Silver’s Zelda Foster Studies Program in Palliative and End-of-Life Care, would be able to help.
“As expected, Dr. Gerbino immediately jumped in,” said Dr. McBride. “She worked with Lauren and Zelda Program instructors Dr. Solimar Santiago-Warner and Nancy Cincotta to develop and present customized trainings to meet the needs of the school’s clinical staff, administrators and teachers.”
The first training, for the school’s five-person clinical team, focused on clinical interventions that can be used when working with students who have experienced grief and ways to help families supporting a grieving child. The second extended to the school’s 11-person out-of-classroom support team, including behavior specialists, elementary and middle school principals, assistant principals, and directors of English as a New Language and social work services. That session focused on creating a grief-sensitive school environment, ways to support students who are experiencing grief, and ways to memorialize a student who has passed.
The final training was delivered to a group of 32 teachers, including those with students who have lost a parent or sibling within the last year or so and those teaching the cohort the student who died was in. It was focused on helping students who have experienced traumatic grief.
“From the first moment I walked into Haven Academy, it was clear that this was a loving community dedicated to children,” said Dr. Gerbino, who thanked Dr. McBride and Ms. Katzenstein for inviting the Zelda program to the school. “Given their excellent foundational knowledge of grief, we added advanced concepts centering on ways to talk with children about illness and death as well as interventions to help meet their goal of creating ‘grief sensitive’ classrooms.” Dr. Gerbino noted that she and her colleagues also provided space for the staff to honor their own grief.
“It’s been amazing to see the connection between the Zelda Program, the SSWTA, and our community partners at Haven Academy,” said Dr. McBride. “It also speaks to the need for schools in general to have curated training to meet the needs of their staff and students.”
Ms. Katzenstein said it was particularly meaningful that her alma mater has been able to help her school community at this difficult time. Principal Windram added “NYU has allowed us to build our skill set in this critical work. Their expertise in this highly-focused area has been unmatched and helped us grow in our abilities.”