View source for Lifeline Center for Child Development

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox school
|name   = Lifeline Center <br />for Child Development
|image   = Lifeline center for child development side entrance.jpg
|caption  = Lifeline Campus
|location  =
|streetaddress  = 80-09 Winchester Blvd, Queens Village, NY <br />United States
|established  = 1959
|founder  = Ethel S. Wyner, Ed.D
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|principal  = Tanya Simon
|principal_label = Executive Director
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|grades   = Preschool - grade 12
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|website  = http://www.lifelinecenter.org
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The '''Lifeline Center for Child Development''' in [[Queens|Queens, NY]], is a non-profit State Office of Mental Health (SOMH) licensed children's day treatment center and [[Special education#Special schools|special school]] serving emotionally disturbed children and their families from the [[New York metropolitan area]]. Founded by Ethel Wyner in 1959, the Lifeline Center has grown and expanded over the years to include a [[New York State Education Department]] chartered [[K–12 (education)|K-12]] school, a preschool and evaluation program approved by both NYC and Nassau County, and a state-licensed day treatment center.<ref name="llweb">{{cite web|url=http://www.lifelinecenter.org/ |title=Lifeline Center for Child Development |publisher=Lifelinecenter.org |date= |accessdate=2019-06-23}}</ref>

Lifeline considers children exhibiting the following symptoms for admission: fearfulness, anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, impulsivity, [[language delay]]s (expressive and/or receptive), withdrawal, autistic-like and psychotic behavior, or those having difficulty getting along with people and the world around them. Lifeline serves seriously disturbed children with disabilities including [[pervasive developmental disorder]], [[Asperger syndrome]], [[psychosis]] [[attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder]], [[oppositional defiant disorder]] and severe [[adjustment disorder]]. Lifeline's campus consists of two buildings and a swimming pool set on three acres.<ref name="llfacts">{{cite web|url=http://www.lifelinecenter.org/fact.html |title=Facts |accessdate=2010-06-29 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100122233642/http://www.lifelinecenter.org/fact.html |archivedate=2010-01-22 }}</ref>

== History ==
Wyner founded the Lifeline Center in 1959, as the mental health therapeutic direction in the US was moving away from surgical solutions and toward social [[milieu therapy]].<ref name="omh">{{cite web|url=http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/research/res_topics_health_mh_timeline.shtml |title=Overview of Mental Health in New York and the Nation |accessdate=2010-06-29 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100617020530/http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/research/res_topics_health_mh_timeline.shtml |archivedate=2010-06-17 }}</ref> At this time there were few options for parents of mentally or emotionally challenged children who were seeking help. As Wyner stated for an interview with ''[[City Limits (New York magazine)|City Limits]]'' magazine in 1998, "The options back then were to put them in the state hospitals. Or you could take them to private clinics, which even back in the fifties cost something like $20,000 a year."<ref name="tim">{{cite web|url=https://citylimits.org/1998/02/01/trouble-in-mind/|title=Trouble in Mind|first=Glenn|last=Thrush|date=1 February 1998|website=City Limits}}</ref>

"Over the years, Wyner and her staff have created a model facility for educating and treating children from ages 4 through 16 (''sic'': current age range is 3-18) whose mental illness places them on the severe end of the spectrum of emotional disturbance. The students, who are referred by the Board of Education, are among the toughest cases to deal with--toddlers who are so deeply withdrawn they hardly notice when a visitor enters their classroom, hyperactive or aggressive grade-schoolers who frayed the nerves of their special ed teachers, psychotic teens who would be prone to hurting themselves if they didn't stick to a strict regimen of counseling and medication."<ref name="tim" />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

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[[Category:Special schools in New York (state)]]
[[Category:Educational institutions established in 1959]]
[[Category:1959 establishments in New York City]]
[[Category:Schools in Queens, New York]]


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