One Social Worker’s Extraordinary Journey to Help Families in Need

As a little girl growing up in Brooklyn, Debra Thomas used to bring an extra sandwich to kindergarten in case a classmate didn’t have enough for lunch. Now, she is helping kids in need on a much larger scale as Program Manager for three key VNSNY Community Mental Health Services (CMHS) programs for children and families.

“I love my work,” says Debra. “The people we serve are too often forgotten. If they do get services, they’re used to people telling them, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that.’ We come in and say, ‘What do you need?’ The families are so grateful for that.”

The CMHS programs she manages—two short-term rapid intervention initiatives, the Children’s Mobile Crisis Team and the Home-Based Crisis Intervention program, and the school-based Promise Zone preventive program—always look for opportunities to cross-refer to each other. This collaboration has become even more seamless with a single person in charge of all three, resulting in wrap-around services for children and families who are vulnerable on so many fronts.

In one recent example of this, recalls Debra, a child enrolled in Promise Zone lost an extended family member who lived in the same home. Alerted to the family’s situation, the Mobile Crisis Team stepped in to connect the family with bereavement services, and the Home-Based Crisis Intervention also checked in on the family to learn its needs. “We went full circle,” says Debra, “and we were able to get that family many much-needed services as a result.”

When Debra started at VNSNY as an administrative assistant twenty years ago, she was moved by the profound impact the organization’s programs had on people’s lives, and decided she wanted to be on the front lines. While still working for VNSNY, she went back to college to complete her Bachelor’s Degree, then proceeded to earn her Master’s Degree and become a social worker. With her new credentials, she happily accepted an offer to lead CHMS programs in the Bronx, despite the long commute from her Brooklyn home. Since then, Debra has gone on to earn the clinical component of her LCSW in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

“Her journey has been extraordinary,” says Devon Bandison, CMHS’s Director of Children’s Services. “Debra is always willing to put the work in, make sacrifices, and go above and beyond. She’s such a team player, and she’s the most empathetic person I’ve ever known. She’s inspiring!”

Now, with schools closed and services being delivered remotely whenever possible, Debra and her teams are continuing to meet the everyday needs of children and families who are struggling with mental health challenges as well as new challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Stay-at-home orders can make anxiety and depression worse in at-risk teenagers now separated from friends, school, and daily routines. The pandemic can also trigger anxiety in younger children, as it did recently for a youngster who had a panic attack from encountering other people in a grocery store. Debra’s teams can link these children and their families to care, teach them coping skills, and brainstorm solutions such as holding a family game night or FaceTiming friends to help alleviate isolation and depression.

“On the news, they’re talking all the time now about mental health,” Debra says, noting that the emotional component of the COVID-19 pandemic and related shut-down is getting national attention. “But in fact, mental health issues have been around forever—and we’ve been working all along to get people what they need most, when they need it most.”