we will announce this again but per our open meetings law and for the state every meeting must be live streamed currently we are live streaming on YouTube and we will be recording the meeting as well we will announce it
again but e uh double checking can we confirm does everyone hear me right now yes okay thank you yes yes I hear you co-president Christy angel thank you
so much we'll give it one more minute and then we'll go ahead and start the session thank you guys so much e e e e Al righty thank you everyone for joining us tonight we are still waiting for a
few people to join the meeting however we do want to go ahead and move forward um in the space of the meeting this is recorded and it is live on YouTube we do have interpretation for
Spanish tonight in addition this meeting is an Outreach meeting for the Divine Angels wellness program and this is a program that is for excuse
me it creates a safe environment for younger youths from Age 5 to 24 and their families and they call it a safe haven of expression highlighting Freedom self-care self-expression self-awareness
creativity and adversity with that being said it's only a brief introduction we do have Spanish interpretation and at this point I will call the meeting to order at 608 p.m. this is an Outreach meeting for
cc75 in addition to Divine Wellness we also will have cidny who will help us with a few additional resources um after Divine Wellness in addition to housing with that that being said I will pass the floor over to our
Spanish interpretator Juan and Karen um either of you have the floor to give your instructions sure thank you thank you so much we have our interpretation we have our instructions if there are any other questions please
do let us know within the chat we will look back for that while we give our questions you can ask them along the way and we will have have a QA um along the way as well so our first presenter is Miss Joy Williams Joy are you able to
I've made you a co-host are you able to screen share um let's see hi hi how you doing pretty good guys also know that this program is based in Brooklyn but it is for all five burrows
and we are working on adding this as a program for self-direction where if you have a budget you would also be able to use the programming um so at the end of the meeting if you would give us your information we can make sure that you have what you would need to have for self-direction with
opwdd all right Joy let me know if you have what you need to go ahead also members that are joined we did send you the PDF so that you can follow along and that you have access to what Miss Williams will be presenting tonight
it's not letting me screen share okay one moment why let's see here I just made you a co-host again can you try if not I can screen share for you and help you along
the way okay let me try one more time okay cuz it it has like on the it says it's in green so I can screen share but it's just not allowing me I don't know is that going to be too much of an issue for you to try to do it oh absolutely
not was that you or me that's you this is me so just let me know how I can help you and if this works you're more than welcome and at this point I will give the floor open to miss Joy William who is a CEO and founder of divine Angel
Wellness Center in Brook thank you so much for the introduction I appreciate that um hello everyone good evening uh my name is Joy Williams I am the co-founder of divine Angels Wellness Center um I'm really excited to be here with you guys tonight um if you guys can
hopefully everyone can see um I'm gonna go through the brief description of what who we are and what we do uh we do um have our programs in a couple of different schools and we also
have them in group homes um we were excited to hear that we could possibly get our programs with uh with you guys and see if it will work for what the needs are of your children or your students um but for now I'll go ahead
and go through what we have so far I'll just give you a brief update of what we who we are um so we do have 13 workshops and what we do is we do educate young students on healthy habits and we
prepare them for independent living and uh our workshops consist of uh vision board um tree of life we actually help young students um go through um courses
of some counseling to see where they are in life what they have going on and we pretty much try to use some of our workshops to get to know them and help them break down whatever they have going on a lot of it is emotional and social um and
we decided to do these workshops because we see that it actually helps young students uh thrive in high schools junior high schools and also Elementary um now what I'll do is I'll go through everything since you have that up I'll go ahead and I guess
read um So Divine Angel well the center uh creates a safe environment for the younger youth ages 5 to 24 and their families to call home a safe haven of expression I know you did already go over that I'll just uh reiterate again highlighting freedom of self-care self- evaluation
self-awareness creativity and adversity uh we strive to break the cycle of generational patterns and develop future entrepreneurs and Community leaders Divine Angels participants develop self-confidence make ethical decisions healthy life choices and Excel academically through our educational
programs um now when we come in we did find that a lot of the younger youth are very interested in their appearance so Janine and I she's she should also be on here too she's the uh the co-founder uh
we come in and we notice that when we start off with a beauty science in a day of beauty it actually helps the girls or uh the young men or whomever to gravitate towards us and actually open up so you know a lot of people don't really
like a lot of um you know we evaluate the situation cuz some people don't like to be touched or they don't like uh um to be really uh I don't know any attention on them so sometimes we just kind of just let them you know watch and
see and then eventually they'll come around so when it comes to the beauty science we come in and we start off with that so we'll wash their hair we'll massage their Temple um we'll ask them what kind of hairstyle they would like and we kind of just groom them and um make them feel beautiful or make them feel you know handsome what have
you uh so I'll just let you guys see what we have here so the objective is to uh practice presence and how you feel when you walk in the room we build your capacity and give and give yourself
permission to be in the process take risk and make mistakes and clarify and the lesson is pretty much to provide basic skills on maintaining your hair skin and nails and we have professionals who come in who are licensed uh we also have insurance obviously we don't use
any chemicals or anything like that um but some of the students want to actually be entrepreneurs and they want to become licensed hair stylist and we have our other co-founder she's actually licensed to teach and she's also a licensed Hair Skin and nails so uh we
just educate the students on how to maintain their hair how to you know how to feel beautiful and feel presentable um and we kind of start off that way our program is a six-month program and we come in once a month um so we start off
that way and we see that it actually helps the students kind of gravitate towards us and let us come in and you know do the work because we're there for six months and we're building their confidence we're making them themselves aware of how they show up um what we notice when we go to schools I'll just
throw it out there Weston House when we go to schools um the Young young women love this so we'll they'll we first started off when we'll go in and it's like maybe 30 girls and then while we're in there all of the counselors and all
of the social workers they're like okay we need this program so we'll go the second time we came in they gave us all four of the grades so we had ninth 10th and 11th 12th grade and they scheduled out some time for us to come in and
perform these things um they did want to do one offs like for uh what was it for it was for I forgot what month it was for was it women's month I'm not sure what it was but we came in and they asked us to do they asked us to do um a day of
beauty skin care so we have two parts so day of beauty one is for your hair and day of beauty two is for your skin and on either one of those days you can also get your makeup done and um we give gift bags every class that we do if it has to
do with like hygiene or if we're doing a segment on sex education uh we'll come in and we'll give all these different uh gifts it depends on whatever class it is we'll just kind of Labor it towards or cater towards whatever class we're doing and
then after that we'll come in and we'll do the tree of life so the tree of life is about self-awareness and healthy relationships the tree of helps you identify as an individual knowing who you are as a part of self-love and loving is the best relationship you will
ever have in life um so the lesson there is you're going to draw a tree and you're going to create a story a storyline behind your identity so when we came into I give another another example of this the tree of life is you know you're like what's truee of life so
basically we use this method to get the young women to connect because the counselor called us and said the girls are fighting they're not getting along they don't like each other we need the 11th graders and the 12th graders to get along or we need the nth graders and the 10th graders to get along so we came up
with a method to the the Tree of Life what it does is it makes you recognize that oh we have more in common than we think we do so when you go around and you talk about the root of who your family is where your family comes from would y'all eat growing up um you know
what language did you speak in your home they usually say oh we have that in common I'm I'm from Trinity or you know I'm so and so and then they connect and then boom problem solved and then they realize okay maybe
we can be friends so you know there's a method to our Madness and um it n's out of 10 it works and so after that we'll come in and do a vision board so while we got the girls getting along um and they're trusting us and they're letting
us in you know they start kind of participating in a way where you know Janine and I are looking around like oh my God it's working it's working so we love that you know it's a lot of Eureka moments so with the vision board um the objective is you know it's a vision
board it's a collage of images pictures and affirmations of your dreams and desires designed to serve as a source of inspiration and motivation um and in the lesson we just gather a bunch of newspaper articles magazines clippings you know you past it
on construction paper I know we all know what a vision board is but believe it or not if you guys would ever go on to our social media you'll see the sequence of it and how it goes it's a great little party we have for them um we bring all the materials in and they do a vision
board and it's exciting you know we just did one a couple of weeks ago at the Boys and Girls Club in uh in Brooklyn and it was amazing we had you know 10 year olds 14 year olds 16 year olds moms dads you know they're coming in and
they're all doing vision boards and they're connecting with their children and then the the Young youth they're just like excited you know arts and craft is always a way to bring people together so it just gives them an idea of okay maybe this is my circumstance but this is not really what I would like
I would like this this this and this and we like to follow up six months later to see if they're working towards their goals um we'll move on and then the journals the journals is something that we always give out as a package deal we give all of our students journals
because we like to teach them about journaling because um obviously young people go through all of these ups and downs and emotions and changes in life and learning how to cope and things like that so we actually have um a person who
is very uh she's an artist she's a poet and she'll come in and she'll teach the young kids or the young adults about writing down your emotions and your feelings and how this actually is a a good way of self-expression and if you want to share it you don't if you want
to read over it again you don't have to you can put it away but we always give out journals and we really really really uh try to force people to you know are encourage to uh Journal um and the objective is mindful relaxation so the lesson is you're journaling it gives you
a different perspective on life it broadens your Horizon and improves your writing skills um let's see here then we have pain and by anxiety this is a huge huge Workshop the Pain by anxiety we actually go out to different
communities and we do this outside for the young students um we basically just have pre-drawn um canvases and we have we have paint and we have you know your easel and we let them take this home as well and we usually try to connect the
paint and by anxiety by the book club that we have we'll pick a book and um I'll give an example in one of the group homes um and as you as you can tell this these programs are not just for group homes um it's also for students it's
also for high schools and junior high schools and elementaries I'm not sure if I mentioned that but I'll give an example at the group home um we have a book club so we'll come on come in with the book for young women to read and I like to read the
book while they're painting because it's a very calm and then like play like really like meditation music and calm music um because it kind of relaxes them I don't know what what everyone's um uh relation to or what everyone's uh I want
to say experience on anxiety is but if you know anything about anxiety um it gets you kind of like out of your out of you know out of your mind a little bit and you kind of like can't really breathe you know you have heavy breathing in your chest things like that so we realize that painting actually
calms that down and there's a lot of kids nowadays with anxiety unfortunately I know when we was growing up we never really had a name to it and I won't go into that I mean I'm I'm saying my age now I'm 42 however we didn't talk about
anxiety but now but now it's the thing so we realized this um really calmed uh the students down um so the objective is emotional awareness identifying and expressing your feelings while being creative in releasing anxiety and in the
lesson you basically just utilize unique colors to express your feelings so what I was say before about the book with the book we were reading the coldest wi to ever uh with some of the high school kids and we were reading it aloud and
it's basically helps them to kind of like think about someone else's life other than their own and then what we'll do is we'll say okay the main character in the book these are pre-drawn canvases this is the girl we're talking about let's paint her and what do you
think she would look like what do you how do you think let's just think about about her and you know just give them ideas like that sometimes you don't always have to do that but we sometimes like to relate the book to the paintings so um we'll see we'll go past that and then
we have Fitness in nutrition and we also have yoga so we have an instructor that comes in um and basically we have mats we have yoga mats and then we have an instructor come in and either stretch them or um teach
them how to stress their bodies or teach them about how to calm down and mindful relaxation and things like that we'll have like a yoga session and sometimes we'll just do like uh a workout session and uh we give them t-shirts we have our own t-shirts we give all the girls or
whomever's going to join we give them t-shirts and um we also have yoga pants because I'll give an example sometimes we go to high schools and group homes and they don't always have the appropriate apprpriate clothes to wear
so we provide that and we'll give them stretch pants and we'll give them one of our t-shirts and we'll give them a yoga mat a really we have a bunch of colorful yoga masks they can pick them out and it's exciting and then we also give a a gift bag for that we let them keep their t-shirts and their yoga pants because our hope is that we're going to see them
again and we're going to do this again because uh we like them to keep their yoga mat and then also take it home and possibly go in their living room and stretch and we teach them how to kind of like sit still and be quiet and calm themselves because um you know like I
was saying like growing up we never really had someone teach us how to have quiet time and to relax our mind so the OB objective there is to maintain healthy habits through your body through body movements such as stretching and breathing which reduces feelings of
anxiety and depression so we'll move forward from that oh and then that picture that's a actually as that's us at in the house at one of the group homes it's so funny it's a mother and child group home you see the little baby there in the center little kids everywhere so the kids are like joining
and these are all young moms so all of these girls are like 16 and they're also um from fost care so and they also have our t-shirts on as you can see and then the yoga mat that I mean the yoga Mas that we get them and then also the
stretch pants um and then we have cosmetology this part is the Skin Care part so this is beauty Science 2 so remember I talked about beauty science one that's when we come in and we wash their hair we give them maybe like a braid or a ponytail or
a blowout you know whatever they would like we like to keep it kind of simple but they get so excited about these little simple things so the cosmetology prod is a skincare so the objective there is to learn how to maintain and identify your skin type which helps with appearances
and boost your confidence um so we're applying facials and we're using face masks and moisturizers uh in a makeup tutorial so we did something like this for children center I'm not sure if you guys are aware of that that's kind of
where young kids go when they're pulled from their home um and so you know we want to go in we want to chill them up and we want to make sure that they have something to look forward to and feel beautiful and feel you know cared for and loved and you know just taken care of so we like
to love on him a little bit um they're very private uh the Children's Center though there's like no pictures or anything um because of the circumstance of what they just experienced so when we went in there we separated the young girls because we had elementary girls
who love being pampered we was like whoa look at them they were ready we put on it was so cute because we gave them like little facial mask and we come in we have Steamers as well so this was great for them they loved it so we separated Elementary then we had junior high
school and then we had high school girls our girls above 16 or whatever and so um they just sat back and they got pampered we massaged their skin we washed their skin off we had um a little towel warmer so it's like really warm and of course
all of the counsil is like well can we do it we always get that because you know as an older woman you know we like facials we like that so you know we teaching them at a young age how to take care of their hair skin and Nails um and that was a great segment with them because they love the Steamers and they
love the the mud MK that that's what we use and then we do like a little um like a toner like a spray serum but all of it is like natural it's all you know we don't like to use anything with like chemicals and stuff in it like that so everything is natural and they love it
they come out glowing and then we also give a gift bag for that that's like a cutesy little gift bag that's like lip gloss um moisturizer so whatever we use we keep little plastic capsules like little plastic uh containers so we can
give it to them so they can continue the same and we tell them exactly what we use so they can continue the same routine on a daily uh basis we give them lotions and like little snow good perfumes you know cutesy things like that um and then we also have sorry I
don't know am I running out of time here am I going too fast or everybody's good okay good um and then after that we have financial literacy that's more for our older crowd but you'll be surprised the young kids love it too because they love piggy banks and they love asking for a
dollar are they like saying oh I found 25 cents so we teach them how to kind of save and budget and we learn like everyday skills on how to M manage your money so they love that and um that's a great class and depends on what the ages
are is how in depth we'll go in about money um and let's see here then we have job Readiness so this is moving more towards the third stage I don't know if I explained this before but we have three different stages um we have the self-confidence and then we have
self-awareness and then we have leadership so in this part this is the leadership area this is where we help um young teens or young adults get ready for um interviewing and jobs so what we'll do is we'll give them a stien or
we'll give them a gift card and say hey I want to see what you would wear to an interview what would you wear so we give them this is for our old our older crowd obviously this is for our 11th and 12th graders um they would go and they would go and you know maybe
to go to Old Navy and get like a button- down shirt and some slacks and then what we'll do is we'll do mock interviews and we'll have them interview each other so that was great we did one of those with a company we were working for that actually used Weston housee High School
um but it was a totally different nonprofit it was for actual homeless kids so um our temporary house children and we helped them get jobs and teach them how to conduct themselves and how to do a resume and you know how to go
out there and have confidence and you know all of it kind of plays into it to each other when it comes to you know your appearance and then your inner feelings about how you feel about yourself and then how you show up and then also how you speak so we just teach them how to conduct themselves in a in a
job interview so that's actually very successful um and then we sometimes want to teach etiquette right so we have like a etiquette banquet lunch for the girls to come and sit down and you know and kind of teach them how to be socially in different environments and how to conduct themselves and we just do like a
table setting and we monitor them and we you know they show up and they dress you know a certain way and then it's almost like going to a fancy restaurant and how do you conduct yourself when you go out into the public so that's always fun course you know girls love that it's like tea time and then we have
hygiene so we have a registered RN nurse she's actually here M shell that's her um she comes in and she conducts a class about a hygiene routine um for young from young women and young males on how to like pretty much groom yourself you
know hygiene products what to use what not to use what works best for you how you know about going to you know the doctor and asking questions and not being afraid of your body because your body's going to do all kinds of things that you're
gonna like the sex education because we don't really go that far but um we do teach them about hygiene and then we also give a nice gift bag with all type of hygiene products we talking about toothpaste um toothbrushes uh sanitary
napkins or sanitary uh things for young uh women hygiene products uh deodorant things like that um and all of this comes about when we start realizing what the the students need you know I mean what we do is we pretty much tap into
when we was children and when we were young and that's why we developed this because when Janine and I were young we were 16 and we met in high school and the high school that we went to it just it created an environment for us
to feel comfortable about talking about what was going on at home and things like that so we kind of just pulled from that and we created this because it was a lot of questions that we had that we never got answered so that's pretty much what we always ask volunteers whoever
come and work with us is just to tap in tap in to when you were younger and what you needed and then just you know move from there because a lot of people like to feel far removed from things like this especially if you're dealing with trauma you kind of want to act as if you don't need any type of assistance
because you've made it through your trauma but we like to bring you back in and say okay since you know believe it or not this it's a lot of counseling even within yourself and sometimes you kind of tap in and it's a little emotional you know but you know we're here to help you get through it you know
um but then we also have parenting classes now these parenting classes are associated with uh some of the young moms so we notice that a lot of the young moms have ACS cases so what
happens is um we are associated with um their social workers and their case workers and they sometimes have to take our program in order to show that they're in good standing and they're doing the right things and then you know we TR to help them get their kids back
and we teach them healthy habits because if you know anything about group homes a lot of them are waiting or mother and child they're all waiting for a placement in Nicha so they're all waiting for an apartment in Nicha or you know wherever but they're wait for their voucher most of them go to niter though
and they need to learn how to live on their own because in group homes uh the mother and child homes they have babysitting I have people looking out for their new children their newborns and their little toddlers but when you get in the night apartment you're you're
alone so now you have to learn how to live with your Child by yourself and um so these parenting classes the objective here is to provide support and guidance by helping um expected parents our parents and youth build strong healthy
bonds with their infants and todlers um that will lay the foundation for their social and emotional development and the lesson there is just basic skills healthy food clean air water clothing physical activity sleep creating a safe environment introduces a five stage of
development stages of childhood decision making communication problem solving and appropriate discipline um let's see here and then we also a of our alumni who actually
graduate um we just had something of them came and she taught everyone how to cook rice she was like she got a little plate a little hot plate and she taught girls like when I got in the home by myself I had to cook for my child so she taught everyone how to make rice and how it
could be so just given the basic uh cooking skills um and the objective there is to provide techniques that are simple and help perform tasks that are related to preparation um basic skills boiling cutting seasoning cleanness and food
safety um and then we also have a segment for we do have a lot of women um Tech who actually volunteer and come and like to each and talk about this objective is to
build problem solving collaboration and Innovation um provide I think we may have lost your audio Jo got disconnected chrisy all right right give us one second to fix this problem thank you guys so much he's
back all right Jo I have made you a coost again I see that she's here but I'm not sure that her audio is working one moment oh hi there sorry I don't know what happened I guess I got kicked off can
you guys hear me EK yes we can hear you okay um I'll wrap it up guys um I guess that was uh you know Jesus saying okay enough of you Joy you talk too much
um but hopefully you guys have a good understanding of what we do I'll just let you guys know that at the end we do have a ceremony because we like to applaud the young ladies you know we like to go visit them when they graduate we like to go to their graduations encourage them to go to college and um
we have a great rate for our young ladies all of them attend college they always come back and tell us about it so it's a beautiful thing uh we do give them a certificate of completion and they love it and that's that's it thank you guys for your time
you guys have any questions I'm happy to answer anything that you I may have um went too fast in a couple of these things if you guys had any questions that you wrote down I'm happy to I I'll leave you off thank you so much for providing information on this program I know that
it is Brooklyn based and you do offer spaces for anyone outside of Brooklyn with our five burs um I do know that you do have a level of Spanish interpretation that's also attached with it for our families could you explain
how maybe we move through you guys working with students with special needs um actually if you don't mind could you answer my question secondary I'd like to give the parent um the first question Miss Aisha husband uh you may unmute and ask your
question good evening I was actually going in the same direction thank you um with the question that Christy Angel was asking and if you if if you have plans to have it like an integraded um
sessions with typically um developing um young girls and young people as well as neurodivergent um young people absolutely yes absolutely we actually
work with um some students um in that capacity as well what really helps them is the pain and by anxiety um they love that you know that gets them to but we we definitely we can
go out to you or you guys can come to us it totally depends on what the need is and what they would gravitate towards I would suggest the painting by anxiety class so
yeah and I have one more question I'm sorry is there an age limit I no no okay no age limit nope there's no age limit um our target audience um will be uh it's pretty much from 5: to 24 but we
also get things like um when we do like PTA meetings some of the moms want to do it with their children and some of the dads want to do it with their daughters or their sons so it's a variety there's no cap here it just it it pretty much is
open to all okay it sounds like a very interesting program and I think I I'll contact you regarding my daughter and um see where it goes from there and I live in Brooklyn so when I heard that I you know my eyes open I don't have to travel that
far I app of course that would be great you can give me um your information and here I'll put in the chat my information is that okay did you want me to like that
abely please do sure and the information in the chat I want to let you guys know coloring is a healthy way to revive to relieve stress and it calms the brain and it helps your body and this can improve sleep and fatigue while incre while decreasing
body aches heart rate respiration feelings depression and anxiety this is not just for your children you can color too it Rel Stress and Anxiety on both sides of it so they do cater to parents and children think of like Mommy and Me
in a different way and this is what they provide um in different spaces for our children we're additionally trying to um move them into spaces of support within District 75 within my sister's keeper and so if you have different fathers
that are single parents or fathers that are doing a lot with their daughters we we would also ask you to encourage them to look into this programming and to work with District 75 as well so that we can include our dads and our daughters or our moms and our daughters and our
families and our children um to get additional resources that you may need let me I'm going to stop screen sharing now um at this point do we have any additional questions or comments from
parents that may be in the chat uh Miss Williams has put her information for Angel Wellness Center into the chat additionally if you have questions or concerns you can always reach out to d75 council at
schools.nyc.gov we always have resources and things that we can help you guys with additionally I want to check in with our interpretation line do we have any questions Juan or Karen on the interpretation line
no okay no I'm asking no not yet okay thank Joy do you have any additional information that you would like to provide we did uh email everyone who registered the PDF from this meeting so that you have additional information you
may reach out to uh Miss Williams or the council so that we can hook you up with the resource because you know art and art therapy it's really big for our children and for just children period and we want to make sure they have access to different
levels of vocation whether it's for a job whether it's for Hygiene whether it's for art or things of that nature we want to make sure that our children do have access um to those proponents do we have any other questions before we move on to our
additional presenter if not we can always put a pen in it and come back in a moment after we allow Miss um louette Lopez to speak Lily is from the Manhattan and Brooklyn
Outreach specialist space for New York City connects she's a part of cidny Lily are you available to take point for the meeting yes and you want me to speak um in Spanish or I could do
both right yes you honestly we we have two people that will interpret in Spanish for you so you can speak in English and speak about CID and Y and the different resources that you additionally have to offer to our parents of course good
evening everyone um thank you Christy for the introduction Lily um could you u pull your camera down so that your face is in frame is it fine is it better like this it's just your lips pull it up a little
bit up up up up up up yes there we go awesome thank you and good evening everyone thank you Christie for the introduction uh as she stated my name is Lily Lopez I'm an Outreach specialist for night connects at Sydney Center
Independence for the disabled they manage different programs but I'm going to be speaking about night connects only tonight um so what is night connects night connects is a free of charge program that is throughout the five
borrows um is free of charge and we assist with different um things uh we assist with housing applications I also wanted be um to be very transparent and say that we can guide people through the
process but we don't provide nor approve any um assistance uh so housing applications we can assist you with um the apping foot stamps application whether you need to certify
or apply for the first time Medicaid applications Social Security applications um we also if you behind and rent we can assist you completing the one chot deal application which is known as rent
aers um and everything that you speak to a counselor is completely confidential doesn't impact anything if you guys have a social worker in a hospital or somewhere else and you need to speak to
us about Heap which he will open in October you could still do so um if you need let's say resources um like I need resources within my area I I need food pantries where are the food pantries in my area
you can still call us for that and then if the next next month you need something else like you decided to apply for housing you could still call the counselor and we will gladly assist you
the program is in the five borrow like I said and is free of charge and um we do work with any disability it doesn't matter the age um we will not turn you um down and
we also if if we cannot help you we will tell you okay this is an organization like if Christie right now tells me I'm being a victim from my apartment what can I do we will connect her with legal services um organizations that would
definitely try to advise you on what to do um in regarding an eviction you have questions about medical equipment we can also assist with that accessor right applications um with access the right applications
there aat you have to call the MTA first to request the application as they are no longer allowing it's been a few years um allowing people to get the application online they mail the application and when they mail the
application to the person they send a date of the assessment so that application has to be completed before the assessment appointment um n Conex is not taking Walkins we were taking walks in before the pandemic um
it's only with appointments and um you can call us if you want to schedule an appointment and we'll gladly um work with you I'm putting my my contact
information in case you need to contact me for later I put in my email my cell phone number my office number and the night connect direct line now when you call this number you need to choose the borrow of your
choice and the language if the counselor doesn't speak the language we will use a language line that's not an issue um are any questions so far before I keep going how you doing my name is Samantha
uhhuh CH invited me thank you Christie um you said you said that you um help people find um housing in any at any age no we help people with the housing process like if you need to apply for housing we can
assist you now if you would like to find an apartment we also can provide you with a list of Brokers but we will not be able to call for you um you would have to call yourself um each broker if that's your need um but if you need to
apply for housing we will gladly assist you with the application process okay and that goes with a disability the person is disability no it doesn't matter the disability no it does matter the disability for us to work with you now
if you're applying for Social Security and you stating that you have a disability then you will need to prove it to them but for us the councelor will ask you if you have a disability but you don't need to submit documentation unless you're applying for Medicaid or uh Social
Security in housing you need to submit documents uh I also want to mention that for Nicha applications um we will need that date of birth of the person and the Social Security and that's not that's not
because we want it it's Nisha asking for this Lily quick question just piggyback um you were speaking about medical equipment Etc are there any boundaries to receiving medical equipment or adaptations in the home and does
self-direction with opwdd affect the help that can be received with C ID no no because it's totally separate like medical equipment you know like for instance um what I'm referring to I just had case the other
day like this person needed a walker and didn't know what to do about it so the counselor gave that this person guidance and what to do and um the person told me that the doctor already started the process um so the doctor just had to you
know do a prescription and send it to the insurance so a lot of people don't don't know like you know the steps to take it's not that we provide it but if you need guidance on it we will gladly assist you even even if you have
questions regarding home care and City path is there's a difference between both our whatever services that we provide doesn't impact you um when what you getting somewhere else because we don't we're not charging
anyone for our services is there a age range on who you serve no we can work with Children of course you know we work with a parent cuz the child is a minor but if a but if a parent has a child that has out this
they could still call us um a senior can still call us um an adult veterans we work with any disability doesn't matter at the age and they don't need to be on a Medicaid waiver they can
just call you to just ask questions to find information yeah because we don't charge doesn't matter if they have medic Med you know unless they are needing services medical services that's another story you know but for us
no quick question we do have a lot of parents um who are either in Nicha or um wanting to get a home in Nicha Etc and I know that they have like accessibility people that help them out for children
who have special needs Etc or adults um do you guys assist in helping people with the Nicha application or moving through getting placed we do assist with the Nicha applications and that's what I was referring because a lot of people
when once they you ask them for the date of burth or Social Security they're like I'm not giving I'm not giving it to you but it's not as asking if you want to apply for Nicha um there is an application online to my understanding but you do need um
they do ask for the name Social Security and datea of birth in order to apply and regarding transfers um we do provide guidance on how to transfer if the person live within
Nicha um on what to do um could you expound U you I know that CNY does employment food access peer counseling Health Care Youth Services there's like a lot of things that you do so these are different
programs yes um if the person is looking for uh employment then night PEX will refer uh you know to the employment person uh it's another program that we have in um
Sydney I believe that they work with children that um with youth who are out of school um they they have I know they have workshops so um if that's what they need we can
gladly parti you know send it to to the other program within Sydney okay thank you so much Li but night conect is basically I call it like a One-Stop shop you can get everything at once without you know unless you need
legal services or food pantries that's another story but if they need to apply for food stamps bu of deals benefits that we can assist with ourselves employment somebody that works with employment then we will send it to
the other program within Sydney Lily can you explain like I I can be honest I know a lot of people who've had one shot deals and things of that nature how do you guys assist um with the oneshot deals and can you explain what a oneshot deal is in case we have parents who
don't understand one deal is for people who owe rent if you have fallen high on your rent um there is this program called renters or known as wad deal that will pay for um the rent now there's a
cash to this program because if the person is an SSI they might not be ask to pay but if the person is on SSDI a social security um they would request for you to pay
back I know you know cases that they have gotten up to like 8,000 10,000 paid um but it but it's a long process and it's a tedious process as well but the counselors will help you
upload the documents tell you what you need um and yeah it's pretty much that's what it is it's like you you behind and rent you you have the opportunity to apply for this program and it's through HRA so with the HRA you guys help people
with SNAP yes and okay so we have snap social is it so is it snap Social Security and other benefits that are government based that you guys can help if someone I don't know what I'm doing we can say hey go to C and Y and they can night connect and um because I'm going to send you all the documents we
have a referral form I also put my contact information feel free to share it okay so my program in particular because um I can only speak regarding this program in particular tonight um is is we help with all of that if Christie
needs to apply for food stamps for the first time then we could help her if Christie needs to certify we can also assist to certify for for for fot stamps or known as snap Lily is there a difference um when
like my son is 18 he's about to be 19 do you help parents differentiate between like we have people who our children go up to 22 would you help people whose children are over 18 where it may be slightly different when they're an adult to apply for these programs as well yes
yes because there is a difference like you stated um I believe that there are you know I have um because I also go a lot on the field um parents that have told me oh my child is going to just turn 18 in Social Security or the doctor doesn't want to
speak to me uh because they 18 yes because is considered like an adult already so um we need if you receiveing Social Security or snap you need to definitely call us so we can tell you
what you know the process because it's going to be the the child getting the SSI well the adult now 18 okay so we want to let everyone know that cidny means the Center for Independence for the disabled in New
York so Lily um thank you for joining us I don't want to cut you short I do want to the chat and ask if any parents or caregivers have additional questions for Lily and or the Divine Angels Wellness
Center the floor is yours now thank you Miss Lily no you're welcome and uh feel free to contact me directly in the chat I po I put um my cell phone number you can call me directly if you call me I will take your name number and you know
um make sure that you get a counselor assign to help you um if you want to call night connects directly you can do so at the 844 number that is on the chat as well for for New York City um connects this means preschoolers and children
coming into turning five we canone anyone perfect thank you doesn't matter the age doesn't matter the disability um like I said is if we could still help you do you help um people find care
coordinators or care managers as well with opwdd yeah if that's what they need because we we're not a case you you know we don't do case management but if the person needs case management we will connect them with those resources we'll know we'll tell you chrisy okay we have
five agencies um that do what you are seeking for and then Christie would choose from those let's say five we won't tell her this is what know call this agency no
we'll tell her okay we have five part you know partners that do what you are um taking for okay perfect so do we have any other questions for um Miss Lily Lopez or Miss Joy Williams Joy I did want to ask did
you speak about the age range for your programming for divine Wellness um yes all ages can join um we do pretty much Target from 5 years old to 24 and then also we work with the
parents as well and I do want to say Joy you as far as uh language interpretation we're only on Spanish right now right correct okay so we're only on Spanish so it is all five burrows you are able to
reach out um the company is working on becoming a um vendor in order to be uh a part of self-direction if your families have gone through the front door where you would not have to pay out of pocket but
you would be able to use your budgets um is there anything else um question wise I do want to I I I talk a lot so I want to make sure that our parents are able to ask any additional questions that
they may have um for our children do yes and we are vendors we are vendors perfect y that's how we're able to work at UH work in the schools actually we have to be Joy do you guys work in like group homes and things of that nature as well
or is it just yeah we work in group homes um we actually just got a call today we're going to be working in lgbtq uh group homes in Brooklyn then we also work in the children's center and we also have Bethany house and um it's
it's a it's a lot of is there a specific way that people should reach out to you if they're with group homes versus schools or it's just the same information and then you'll reach out to people and let them know how to move forward well it's um we can do individually um we also have a space
at the boys and girls uh Center so we right now we have something each month on a Saturday I think the next one that's coming up we just had one last Saturday so the next one that's coming up is in um September then we have one in October I guess I can email you guys
the schedule for that as well um but yeah well I do want to say this uh Joy thank you for joining Lily thank you for joining Lily is going to be coming back because we know that they have a workshop that has to do with advocacy uh
for parents and for children and different things of that nature so we want to make sure that we cover every base that we did not cover tonight to make sure that our parents know what these different resource are and the different spaces that are healing especially when it comes to arts for our
children and you know as we work with our children we're a part of them so you're included with this parents if you go and we're talking about coloring and painting or mommy and me you will also get something from it as you work with your children um and that's for the
Divine Wellness Center in regard to C and Y this is for special education resources and they do have a lot of different resources and a lot of different spaces to help Lily would you be able to speak um I know what FSS
forgive me for not knowing the acronym name um when you need to have adaptations to your home and things of that oh yes we can connect them with um programs that um assist with
modification can you speak more about the different types of modifications well if the person needs a on their home um to get in or um modifications on the home whether you know I'm making making the house
accessible um if the house had a step but you can climb the steps and you need a ramp there are programs with we don't have the funding for that but we there are programs within other um
organizations that we had refer people it takes a while um like everything you know unfortunately um but there are programs available that you know that the person could apply um to do a home um
modification thank you so much well you guys we do have Lily Lopez's and Miss Joy Williams information in the chat this is uh being live streamed it is also going to be on CCD 75 Outreach committee on YouTube so you guys will be
able to replay this listen to whatever information you need additionally always reach out to cc75 which is d75 council at schools.nyc.gov we are here to connect you with our community- based
organizations and spaces for you to have resources I will um check back in with our interpretation line do we have any additional questions from any parents on the line Juan Karen do we have anything on your
Lines no nothing all right with that being said I do not see um anything further on this line I do know that Miss Samantha cousins does work in group homes she is the champion of our children and so we do want to make sure that she has access to different
resources to continue to help out parents and families and we do want to thank uh Miss Lily Lopez and uh Miss Joy Williams for being here from Divine Wellness uh we will make sure to send you additional information so you guys can continue to keep in touch with um
both of these resources and both of these agencies if we do not have additional questions I would like to say thank you uh to both of our presenters thank you you for your resources thank you for your time uh we will make sure
to give you the list of the people who have come to this meeting and who would like further information and I just want to ask one more time if we do have any additional questions if we do not then I will resolve the floor and I
will close out the meeting for today but I will look into the chat just to see if I've missed anything let's see and I will send you the m material um I share it but I also um going to send
you electronic BR show and a referral form absolutely thank you so much now guys remember that this we have programming and resources for our children for etiquette cosmetology for different things with socialization if
you need help with Nicha with Resources with uh anything that you may need for our children with District 75 you can definitely reach out to Lil Lopez with um C and Y if it's something that's Arts related culturally related uh getting
your children into etiquette and different levels of socialization and inclusion we would like to move you forward to the Divine Angel Wellness Center um with that being said uh we do have Lily's information and Miss
Williams information in the chat as I did say if you do need additional information d75 Council at schools.nyc.gov and if there are no additional questions at 7:10 p.m. I will release our
interpreters and close the meeting out and thank you for your time I wish you guys a really great and excellent night please do email us I understand that sometimes you might have forgotten a question it doesn't matter we will make sure that you're covered and you are given to the right person to move
forward uh in your journey thank you everyone nice meeting everyone very nice meeting thank you if there aren't any questions we are gonna go ahead and join the meeting as I said on cc75 Outreach on YouTube you'll be able
to watch this back for any additional information and thank you for information too you're welcome thank you everyone have a great night thank you Joy thank you Lily