John Befus, First Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Social Services; Nora Nicholson, WCA Director of External Affairs; Renee Recchia, First Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Health; Limarie Cabrera, WCA Director of Data, Operations, and Finance; Allison Lake, WCA Executive Director; Elizabeth Oliveto, Program Administrator – Youth Development at Westchester-Putnam Career Center Network; Rocco A. Pozzi, Commissioner of the Department of Probation; and Michael Orth, Commissioner of the Department of Community Mental Health.
Photo Credit: Gabriella Nanna / Westchester Children’s Association
The Westchester Children’s Association (WCA), the only independent child advocacy organization in Westchester, hosted the second “Commissioners’ Conversation on Children” on Thursday, June 13th, at the Greenburgh Public Library. The event attracted over 100 attendees and included participation from several county officials in a panel discussion.
The second annual “Commissioners’ Conversation” brought together county officials to discuss the preliminary release of numbers and information from WCA’s “2024 Community Snapshots”. This marked the tenth year that WCA published this biannual report, providing a statistical portrait of children and families by school district in Westchester County. The event provided a platform for county officials from Social Services, Community Mental Health, Health, Probation, and Workforce Development to share their visions and updates on how their departments aim to work towards a better future for Westchester’s children, youth, and young adults.
“This year’s event was a tremendous success. The audience appreciated hearing directly from Commissioners’ their visions for kids across Westchester,” said Allison Lake, Executive Director of WCA. “Understanding the data can help us all work together to improve outcomes for Westchester’s children, youth, and young adults.”
Commissioner Michael Orth from the Department of Community Mental Health emphasized the importance of mental health sustainability, stating, “The key thing to sustainability is really the rates of mental health just like in any physical health, and those are issues that are beyond us, but we really encourage all of you and Westchester Children’s Association to be part of that discussion.”
Liz Oliveto, Program Administrator of Youth Development at Westchester Putnam Career Center Network, highlighted the importance of community feedback in shaping youth programs: “My greatest source of data is from the community. It’s from our community partners, from our young people. We learned what fields they want to go into; it doesn’t make a difference if we need more construction workers if the youth do not want to be construction workers.”
“We’ve seen nearly 5 years of significant declines in reducing the number of children in foster care [congregate care placement] from 102 in 2019 to only 36 in 2024…at the same time we have increased the number of kids in kinship foster homes from 55 to 118 so they’re with family,” said Department of Social Services, First Deputy Commissioner John Befus.
For more information about Westchester Children’s Association, visit their website at www.wca4kids.org.
