Blank Slate Media will host a virtual forum on the mental health crisis and the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on individuals.
According to research conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization focusing on national health issues, roughly 40 percent of adults throughout the country have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
The forum, which will occur virtually on Jan. 20 at 7 p.m., will feature three experts, Dr. Liat Jarkon, Jeffrey Reynolds and Andrew Malekoff, who will discuss the issue of mental health and what could be done by elected officials and other organizations to remedy it.
Jarkon is the director of the Center for Behavioral Health and an assistant professor for NYIT’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. A graduate of the college in 1987, Jarkon has specialized in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry for three decades. Jarkon also trained at Zucker Hillside Hospital and Schneider Children’s Hospital.
During her time at the Center for Behavioral Health, Jarkon has sparked efforts to have a more open dialogue surrounding mental health and increasing awareness for various mental health conditions and diseases.
Reynolds is the president and CEO of the Family and Children’s Association. He is a man of many missions and one vocation: to help the underserved and the at-risk. Throughout his 25-year career, Reynolds has committed his efforts to strengthening not-for-profit organizations and creating programs that serve vulnerable and often invisible members of the Long Island community.
FCA is one of Long Island’s largest health and human organizations with 340 staff members, 200 volunteers and more than 30 programs. Reynolds, who was also named one of Blank Slate Media’s Top Business Leaders in Nassau County, has experience in fortifying not-for-profit organizations through management and securing increased funding.
Malekoff is the former executive director and CEO of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, where he has worked since 1977.
He is the editor-in-chief of Social Work with Groups: A Journal of Community and Clinical Practice, has taught as an adjunct professor at the Adelphi and New York University Schools of Social Work, and serves as a board member for the International Association for Social Work with Groups. He was named Social Work Community Practitioner of the Year by the New York State Social Work Education Association.
Widely published, Malekoff has presented his work and facilitated workshops across the United States and Canada. Malekoff has also written hundreds of newspaper columns and op-ed pieces, including for Blank Slate Media’s six publications.
The virtual event will be livestreamed on The Island Now YouTube page. Those interested can also join the panel on Zoom by following this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83427357932.
