天美传媒

Jamie Kay, Ph.D. 鈥�92, knows from personal and professional experience the hurdles New York City families鈥攅specially those with low incomes鈥攆ace in finding appropriate school settings for children with learning disabilities. Obtaining the right school placement typically requires expensive neuropsychological testing and legal advocacy. 听provides those services exclusively for low-income families, and, as the center鈥檚 director for seven years, Dr. Kay set out to serve even more children.

Of course, helping people is the heart of any psychologist鈥檚 work, but Dr. Kay credits with showing students what that might look like in practice. 鈥淭he relationship that you build with your patient was extremely important at Derner鈥攔eally understanding and empathizing,鈥� she said, adding that it was just as crucial as the theories that informed therapeutic decisions. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think you get the combination everywhere.鈥�

At Lenox Hill, Dr. Kay put those lessons into practice鈥攁nd met her goals too. She tripled the program鈥檚 staff and went from testing about 50 children to 250 children a year. Dr. Kay found new funding sources, including the 鈥擭ew York City鈥檚 largest and arguably most prestigious poverty-fighting organization.

鈥淚 said that if we make the program Robin Hood-acceptable, then we know that we are doing very good work,鈥� she recalled. 鈥淭hey are extremely demanding when it comes to metrics and keeping track of what you are doing. Within eight months we had a grant, and they renewed it every year.鈥�

To keep those grants coming, Dr. Kay tracked the children who came through the program to show they鈥檇 been helped. Graduation rates were one metric, and the numbers were high. 鈥淥f the kids who were eligible for high school graduation, 85 percent of them graduated, and that鈥檚 great,鈥� she said.

Last November, Dr. Kay decided it was time to move on. 鈥淚 had achieved everything I wanted to achieve there, and there was no more room for expanding the program, which had been a big part of my job,鈥� she said. Seeing a need among parents of children with learning issues, she decided to take on a consulting role to guide them through the system.

鈥淭oo often, parents receive poor advice with regard to their choices and options, such as what kind of tutoring is best, do they need a subject tutor, do they need somebody who knows about executive functioning skills,鈥� she said.