50K Home Visits Later, LI Group Keeps Bringing Mental Health Care To Kids

HUNTINGTON, NY — Ten years after social worker James Regan created Lodestar Children's Services to bring mental-health care directly into children's homes, the organization says its workers have made 50,000 home visits.

The organization marked the milestone Nov. 5 at Appliance World in Huntington with a fundraiser honoring the families, staff and community members behind its work.

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The milestone traces back to a problem Regan, a West Babylon native, saw firsthand while working for nine years primarily in juvenile justice and group homes.

"There just weren't enough providers doing the work that we do, and I thought I could make a difference," said Regan, Lodestar's founder and executive director.

Regan came to believe that when possible, helping children and teenagers remain with their families was a better alternative than removing them from their homes to receive more intensive care.

"If you could keep a child or a teen from having to be taken out of their home, bring the help to them instead," Regan said. "It's just a much better model for most families."

Lodestar provides home- and community-based mental-health services to children and young adults, with programs that include counseling, psychosocial rehabilitation, family and youth peer support and employment-related services. It helps children receive support while remaining in their homes and communities, where providers can work with both the child and family.

"Lodestar knocks on doors," Regan told attendees. "We go to people's homes. We show up, and we say we're here to help your kid."

Rather than requiring a family already dealing with mental-health challenges to get a child to a clinic, he said, Lodestar workers go to them.

"We're not going to put barriers in your way that make it difficult to access mental health care," Regan said. "We're going to come to you."

Jeannine Hylander, an in-home therapist with Lodestar, said the model can remove barriers that might otherwise keep a child from receiving consistent treatment.

"Having services in home allows the parent to get services for their children, particularly in Eastern Suffolk where transportation is really difficult," Hylander said. "Or if they have multiple children in the home, it's hard to get one kid to therapy, especially a teenager who doesn't really want to go."

But working inside a child's home also changes the therapy itself.

"Being in the home with them is a different experience," Hylander said. "It's also more relaxed. They're in a comfortable environment. I have the ability to go outside with them or take a walk with them."

Hylander said therapy with children is often more interactive than an adult sitting across from a clinician in an office.

"We don't do traditional therapy where you sit across from the therapist like adults do," she said. "With kids, it's a different beast, and it's more interactive in their home."

Hylander carries a caseload of roughly 15 children and teenagers. Some receive an hour of therapy each week, while those with greater clinical needs may receive more. Others who have made significant progress can gradually reduce the frequency of treatment.

She recently finished working with an 18-year-old whom she had treated for roughly two and a half years. When they began, the teenager had experienced multiple hospitalizations and had several diagnoses, Hylander said.

Today, she is attending college, working part time and, in Hylander's words, "really kind of thriving as an emerging young adult."

That impact was also described by families during the anniversary program.

One caregiver, whose children have received Lodestar services for about two years, thanked Hylander for supporting not only her children but her as a parent.

"I am grateful for just the small words of encouragement and just the validation that what I'm doing is okay," she said. "It's good. The days that it's not okay, it's still okay."

Working inside families' homes can also expose Lodestar staff to needs that extend beyond the mental-health services the organization is funded to provide, Regan said.

"We're paid for our one-hour session that a therapist comes in and does once a week, but we're not paid when we try and fill up an empty fridge," Regan said. "We're not paid when we try and deal with a worn-out wardrobe that a kid's going to school in."

Regan said fundraising allows Lodestar to provide additional staff training and respond to some of those needs that cannot easily be addressed through the organization's regular funding.

The Nov. 5 celebration brought Lodestar's past and present together.

Chef Harold Dieterle, a longtime friend of Regan's from West Babylon High School, prepared food for the event after doing the same when Lodestar held a fundraiser at Appliance World a decade earlier.

"It was super grassroots when he first started, and now he's got a staff, and he's helping a lot of people and a lot of families," Dieterle said. "This thing has grown like a rocket ship."

Appliance World donated the Huntington showroom for the fundraiser, and former Suffolk County Legislature Presiding Officer Kevin McCaffrey presented Lodestar with a Town of Babylon proclamation recognizing its decade of work.

Kris Weinisch, a member of Lodestar's board, said demand for children's mental-health services continues to increase as the organization works to expand its reach.

"It certainly seems that the services are needed now more than ever, and seem to be needed more and more," Weinisch said.

Staffing is among the biggest challenges whch come with growth, he said.

"Lodestar is hiring and is looking for talented, caring people who want to serve," Weinisch said

The organization has also expanded its footprint into New York City, and Weinisch said the Bronx is among the areas Lodestar is looking toward next as it seeks to reach more families.

Whether growth comes through new programs or geographic expansion, Regan said, Lodestar intends to continue focusing on empowerment and home-based care.

The first 10 years brought 50,000 visits into families' homes.

"We plan on doing 200,000 over the next 10 years," Regan said.