AMENIA — In a region like northeast Dutchess County, where health care options are limited and changing all the time, a more centralized, “wraparound” approach, at least for the children in a family, can be a major time-, money- and academic life- saver. Such is the case with the School-Based Health Center (SBHC), the first in Dutchess County, in the Webutuck Central School District (WCSD).
Located in a hallway between Eugene Brooks Intermediate School (EBIS) and Webutuck High School, the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) was initially set up in May 2022, and has been running full steam since September. It is a fully functioning facility open to all students residing in WCSD.
Officially known as part of the Nita M. Lowey Center for Health in Schools, reflecting the Westchester congresswoman’s efforts on behalf of children’s health, the Center is accepting enrollment on an ongoing basis. Currently at about 35% of the district’s total of 625 students, the staff hopes to reach 70% in the near future.
What are FQHCs?
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are facilities that offer health care to individuals in local communities without regard to whether or not those patients can pay for services or are insured. For some students, the school-based FQHCs replace primary care providers, while for others, their primary care providers still provide much of their care.
On March 30, Livia Santiago-Rosado, MD, FACEP, commissioner of Dutchess County’s Department of Behavioral & Community Health, paid a visit to Webutuck’s SBHC. An emergency physician for about 20 years in Queens, Manhattan, Long Island and recently at Vassar Brothers, Santiago has seen the health care system from many angles.
In the early days of her tenure as commissioner, Santiago was dismayed to note the incidence of school absenteeism in some communities, and set about seeking reasons and remedies. The burdens on parents to find providers who have appointments available, take time off work to take their children to the appointments, and other delays result in loss of academic and work time. Her research led her to Open Door Medical Center and its community and school-based models.
In New York state, it’s children-only in SBHCs
To the commissioner’s query as to whether parents and teachers partake of services, operations director Sara Hodgdon of Open Door — with centers in Westchester, Putnam, Ulster and now Dutchess counties — noted that New York state mandates that school-based centers treat only students, with some exceptions.
Several years ago during an outbreak of bird flu, SBHCs were permitted to vaccinate parents and other family members as well as teachers against that. At present, students may get all their vaccinations at school.
The commissioner, expressing that it would be even better if all family members could take advantage of such convenience, noted that the same issues of access to health care, productivity and efficiency apply also to other family members, especially in rural areas. If the parent is ill, the child may not be able to go to school, and a child’s illness may prevent a parent from going to work.
WCSD Superintendent Ray Castellani admitted that easily available health care for everyone is a good goal to aim for, but that schools are generally shut down after the extended school day, so access would be problematic. Both agreed that for purposes of whole-family access to medical care, stand-alone facilities are doubtless better.
One such facility is currently being built in North Canaan, Connecticut, conveniently sited near a supermarket and other stores. There are a few in Dutchess County.
Hodgdon elaborated on that theme, noting that many of Open Door’s current providers are pediatric nurse practitioners (NP), whereas in a whole-family facility, “a whole different model of employment” would be required.
Currently, other staff include Lindsay Neptune, a nurse practitioner and director of SBHC clinical services; Angela Sinon, NP, who is relatively new on the job; and in the school nurse’s office adjacent, Brandice Roberts and Colleen Hazelton. Other providers may be brought in as needed.
Services students receive encompass what they would receive from a primary care provider and include once-yearly wellness visits, in which individual needs are determined; rapid testing for strep, influenza, and samples for PCR COVID-19 tests; pregnancy testing, with assured confidentiality for older students; management and forestalling of asthma attacks; arranging prescriptions, if needed, to be immediately available to parents; and other services.
Occasionally it is as simple as supplying a place for a student to rest a while, then sending them back to class.
Parents need to sign a one-time consent form and enroll their children via a link on the website or at community events.
Mental health services
Another exception to the students-only rule is in mental health services available at the Webutuck location. Families may be brought in to figure out whole-family solutions to issues that present in children and teens.
On its first day of operation, Karen Fink, of Family Services of Westchester, which works in tandem with Open Door, introduced social worker Brooklyn Talarico, recently arrived from Poughkeepsie where she worked with children as well as adults and is glad to be surrounded by young people in this “satellite” mental health clinic at the Center. When adults are included in sessions, the focus in on the family as a whole.
All present agreed that “it’s a brilliant use of space” when students can have their physical and mental/social-emotional health needs met in the place where they spend most of their waking hours.
Santiago pointed to future efforts as Medicaid rules are expected to change later this year. A true Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) network would be able to identify all the aspects that affect a person’s mental and physical health, refer that person to the appropriate providers, and then assure that the services they need are provided — that last point being the new angle, so that all along the line, providers and agencies are “on the hook,” and nobody falls through the cracks.
Webutuck’s School-Based Health Center is the first SBHC in Dutchess County, in an effort to provide a more seamless approach to health care equity for all.
Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.
In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.
Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”
Houston has shared the stage with stars ranging from Barbra Streisand to Motown great Mary Wells. “I have had the honor of portraying Elizabeth Freeman for three years in “Meet Elizabeth Freeman” by Teresa Miller. Our first reading of “1781” is in celebration of Juneteenth, which is wonderfully symbolic and poignant.” Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery. Two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, word of their freedom finally reached slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865.
Tombstone of Elizabeth Freeman in the “Sedgewick Pie” family burial ground in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Lonnie carter
MumBet, born in 1742 to African enslaved parents, was purchased at age six months by Colonel John Ashley of Sheffield, Massachusetts, for whom she worked until her thirties. Ashley helped write the 1773 Sheffield Declaration which stated, “Mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.” Rumor has it that MumBet overheard a reading of the document. After a traumatic household experience, MumBet left the Ashley home in Bartholomew’s Cobble, walked four miles to Sheffield, and asked attorney and abolitionist Theodore Sedgwick to help her gain her freedom.
Houston shared, “I live in Sheffield near where she was enslaved, in a house she would have passed on her walk from Ashley Falls to Sheffield. I am humbled by the fortitude and inner strength it must have taken for this woman to defy norms and take a stand for her own freedom.We Americans must still stand and fight for our rights to live free.”
Elizabeth Freeman spent her years as a free woman working for wages in the Sedgewick household, saving money to buy her own home in Stockbridge, where she was a midwife and healer. She died in 1829 and is buried in “Sedgewick Pie,” the family burial plot in Stockbridge. One of her great-grandchildren, W.E.B. DuBois, born in Great Barrington, was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. DuBois founded the NAACP.
Her tombstone reads: “She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a trust nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper, and the tenderest friend. Good mother, farewell.”
The performance of “1781” will take place Thursday, June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main (103 Main St., Falls Village).Admission is free, donations gratefully accepted.
The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.
Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.
The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.
“When Susan and Gerald brought this to me, I immediately saw it as a chance for my students to make something meaningful and lasting,” said Martinelli. “It wasn’t just about painting a wall, it was about teaching kids to serve their community through their art.”
Martinelli introduced the project as an after-school club for grades four through eight. “I wanted students who were truly committed,” she explained. Interest was so high that she had to divide participants into rotating grade-level groups, with occasional full-team days for collaboration. The mural became a long-term endeavor, stretching across a school year and a half.
The painting was created on canvas, a nearly 4’ x 27’ roll, donated by Incandela. The paint came courtesy of school principal Ed Goad. With materials secured, the students dove into research, studying maps, landmarks, and city history to inform their designs. “They worked to capture the spirit of Torrington,” Martinelli said. “But also, to match the whimsy of a candy shop.”
The result is a mural that features a playful “candyland” version of the city, where important buildings and landmarks are sized according to their importance to both the client and the community. “They created this hierarchy of bubbles and buildings, this joyful visual story,” Martinelli said. “It’s full of life.”
Beyond art skills, Martinelli witnessed her students develop qualities often harder to teach: teamwork, communication, resilience. “They learned to scale up sketches, mix large batches of paint for consistency, and adapt their work when it overlapped with someone else’s. They really respected each other’s contributions.”
The project also reflected the Academy’s Catholic STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, and Math) approach to education. “This was STREAM in action,” Martinelli explained. “They used technology to scale and transfer designs, applied math for proportions and spacing, and worked collaboratively to problem-solve. But they also lived their faith — through service, solidarity, and joy.”
Martinelli believes the mural speaks as much to the process as it does to the final product. “Some of the kids who worked on it have already graduated, but they’re coming back for the unveiling. That says something.”
The unveiling of the mural will take place at The Nutmeg Fudge Company on June 11, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., where families, friends, and community members are invited to celebrate the students’ achievement.
Asked what stood out most from the experience, Martinelli said, “For me, the most rewarding part was watching a diverse group of kids work together — different grades, different friend groups — all collaborating with respect, flexibility, and positivity. They created something beautiful, together.”
Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute
For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.
Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”
Curator and owner Klimowicz and both artists spoke of the physicality of making art, revealing an abounding intimacy with their materials. Podmore recounted seeking the perfect bare branches to use in her “Fall,” the piece that dominates the center of the space.She would find those that most suggested figures slipping into a fall, and mimic them herself, as animators do for accuracy, before admitting them into the crew now lying on the floor.Each isunique, but all are united by their red-socked feet, which, though tiny, are touchingly rendered in adult proportions. For art professor Podmore, they signal how “failing in public” is a phenomenon today’s students must learn to navigate.
For Varadi, whose background is Rusyn-Carpathian, the main medium is Karakul sheep’s wool, a particularly robust variety used in Persian carpets. Her process of felting the fiber involves extremely hard labor; she wryly expressed hope that technology would ease the burden of this long-term project, best seen in her huge wall piece, “With Their Backs to the Mountains.” The title refers to the staunch resilience of her ancestors — stateless but proud, subject to historical violence.
In Varadi’s video “Hunia-Permission to Be,” the color red amid the chiaroscuro of snowy winter forests offers a mesmerizing counterpart to Podmore’s floorpiece.Wearing the traditional, oversized red felted coat called the Hunia, the artist silently plods through the lovely scene, suggesting cycles of effort, disappearing and reappearing.
Podmore’s video adds the aural element, with the creaking of trees rubbing against each other at various tilts.The title “Fifteen Degrees” indicates a tree’s maximum safe angle from vertical. Reflecting this, two silhouetted jointed figures lean against each other — by turns intimate and aggressive — a shockingly apt metaphor for current society.
“As a younger artist,” Podmore observed, “I was very serious about the human condition; now I see that it is just bizarre.”
Another of Podmore’s works, “Audience” — now on view at Mass MoCA — gives a nod and a wink to our strange time.Hundreds of unique plaster-cast baskets mounted along an 85-foot wall, some fitted with single mechanical eyes, offer viewers the experience of being viewed, to the quiet cacophony of eyes popping open.A must-see through Nov. 30.
The Re Institute exhibition can be seen through July 5, with hours Saturdays 1 to 4 p.m. and by appointment.More information at the reinstitute.com.
