WellLife Network, one of the region’s largest nonprofits, proudly announces that it is the recipient of the 2020 Platinum GuideStar Nonprofit Profile Seal of Transparency. This is the fourth consecutive year that WellLife Network has earned a platinum rating. This award is the highest level of recognition offered by GuideStar, the world’s largest source of nonprofit information. GuideStar’s evaluation method focuses on metrics related to progress and results based on a charity’s stated mission, and awards ratings resulting from the level of transparency in reporting. Only three percent of the more than 1.8 million nonprofits evaluated by GuideStar, nationwide, have achieved this Platinum rating. By updating our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile to earn a Platinum Seal, we can now easily share a wealth of up-to-date organizational metrics with our supporters as well as GuideStar's immense online audience, which includes donors, grantmakers and our peers.
“This award is timely as our agency is coping with the COVID-19 crisis,” said Sherry Tucker, CEO of WellLife Network. “Now in times of heightened awareness, operational efficiency is more important than ever. As WellLife Network faces the challenges of this pandemic, we pride ourselves in receiving the GuideStar Platinum Seal. This highly-regarded recognition is further validation of WellLife Network’s steadfast commitment to upholding operational transparency, accountability, and improved performance.”
In addition to transparency, the organization excels in the effective use of funds. Ninety percent of all expenses go directly to program services.
About WellLife Network
WellLife Network is proud of its services to 25,000 New Yorkers each year and its leadership role in the development of new models of care. Our broad network of high quality, outcome-based behavioral health, developmental disabilities, children and family, housing, addiction recovery and community education services are supported by a robust infrastructure and sophisticated technology platforms. WellLife Network will increase its scale and capabilities to thrive and grow in a changing health care environment, allowing it to compete more effectively and with sustainability in the health and human services arena.
Dear Friend of WellLife Network,
We hope this letter finds you and your loved ones in good health and safe.
Every year, we look forward to our Annual Gala to connect with our partners and volunteers in the corporate, public, and private sectors, to review our successes and challenges and share our vision for the future. But given the dire consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve made the decision to cancel our Annual Gala on June 3, 2020. The health and safety of our partners, employees, and presenters at the Gala come first.
Support WellLife through Our Annual Campaign Fund
In lieu of the dinner, we are initiating an Annual Campaign Fund that we ask you to support. Your donations will be part of an unrestricted fund that will help offset the extensive costs of emergency personal protective equipment, sanitizers, and disinfectants for the individuals and families we serve and for our heroic staff who continue to provide compassionate services during this unprecedented pandemic.
Your Support will also Help Us to Feed Hungry Families
Your contribution will also help to fund our four food pantries. We assist more than 500 low-income families who depend on us to feed their children. Your donation will also help us to continue to deliver baskets of food to shut-ins and frail seniors.
Your gift will also expand our electronic capabilities to keep in daily contact with those who depend on us. We also welcome a matching fund contribution if your company offers one.
Thank You for Your Generosity
I want to thank you in advance for your partnership and loyalty to WellLife Network. Your generosity helps us continue to provide to some 2,100 individuals and families the same outstanding services that we strive for each and every day.
Your Donation Helps People "Be Well for Life"
To contribute to the fund logon to: https://www.welllifenetwork.org/AnnualFund
or hit the blue donate button below.
To pay by check, please forward your contribution to:
WellLife Network
Annual Campaign Fund
142-02 20th Avenue, Flushing, NY 11351
Thank you in advance for your support.
Be well and stay healthy,
Sherry Tucker
CEO
In honor of Bring Your Child To Work Day April 23, 2020, whose theme this year is WorkPlace SuperStars, the children of WellLife Network created Thank You notes to WellLife Network's SuperStars. The notes are meant to offer encouragement and inspiration to our staff and acknowledge their unwavering dedication to those we serve.
Earth Day was a unified response to an environment in crisis — oil spills, smog, rivers so polluted they literally caught fire.
On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the streets, college campuses and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward for our planet.
The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement, and is now recognized as the planet’s largest civic event.
The decade that followed saw some of America’s most popular and powerful environmental legislation: updates to the Clean Air Act and the creation of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Dear Friend,
Our direct support staff at both the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities and our voluntary provider agencies are working on the front lines of this public health emergency every day, doing what they can to protect the health and well-being of the people we support. They do it with kindness, grace, professionalism and love. Their jobs are difficult and taxing on a normal day, but these most recent days are neither normal nor ordinary. What is being asked of our direct support staff now is unimaginable to most.
While we know there is no way to adequately thank our workers who are on the front lines, we can come together to let them know that we see them, we appreciate them, and we applaud them.
We’re asking you to join us by sharing our video message applauding direct support workers from our Facebook page. While we can’t be together physically to commend their dedication and resolve, we can lift their spirits by making sure they hear us. Direct Support workers are the definition of #NewYorkTough not just during this time, but all the time. Share the video to show your virtual applause using the hashtags #NewYorkTough and #ApplaudDirectSupport and don’t forget to let us know you shared it by tagging @NYSOPWDD
Thank you,
Theodore Kastner, MD, MS
Commissioner
Please click here to view our video message to Direct Support Workers.
If you are dealing with the trauma of COVID-19,
WellLife Network Can Help You!
With more than 50 years of experience, our addiction recovery treatment centers are dedicated to helping you to recover. We’ll show you how to clear your mind and concentrate on getting well.
Whether you need outpatient alcohol, drug, youth rehabilitation or dual diagnosis treatment, WellLife Network’s licensed professionals have a common goal for all of our clients – Helping you get your healthy life back.
We work to understand your personal beliefs and life experiences so that we can customize a treatment plan to meet your needs within the context of your life.
Our licensed professionals understand your beliefs and life experiences and customize a treatment plan to meet your needs. Our counselors offer outpatient services and sophisticated person-centered, evidence-based treatment that inspires a lasting change.
We offer SAME DAY ACCESS Walk-in-hours
We offer customized outpatient services focusing on education and support. Services are available up to 5 days per week.
Spanish speaking staff is offered in our Smithtown location.
Our services are conveniently located in Huntington, Smithtown, Coram, and Wyandanch.
For information or to begin getting your healthy life back, call:
631-920-8324
(It appears about 30 seconds in on the segment.)
We are sorry to hear that you are not feeling well.
We just heard about your coming down with the virus. Everyone is praying for your speedy recovery! You are the best and are a beloved icon to us and the entire New York community.
See our team video well wishes below - "Play Video."
We would like to share with you the White House Coronavirus Guidelines that were released on March 17, 2020. This is an evolving flow of information and will continue to develop rapidly. As new information is forwarded to us, we will send out updates to you. We are urging our staff, their families and our partners to follow these guidelines in hopes of stemming the spread of COVID-19.
- Listen to and follow the directions of your STATE AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES.
- IF YOU FEEL SICK, stay home. Do not go to work. Contact your medical provider.
- IF YOUR CHILDREN ARE SICK, keep them at home. Do not send them to school. Contact your medical provider.
- IF SOMEONE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD HAS TESTED POSITIVE for the keep the entire household at home. Do not go to work. Do not go to school. Contact your medical provider.
- IF YOU ARE AN OLDER PERSON, stay home and away from other people.
- IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A SERIOUS UNDERLYING HEALTH CONDITION that can put you at increased risk (for example, a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system), stay home and away from other people.
- Work or in schooling FROM HOME whenever possible.
- IF YOU WORK IN A CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE INDUSTRY, as defined by the Department of Homeland Security, such as healthcare services and pharmaceutical and food supply, you have a special responsibility to maintain your normal work schedule. You and your employers should follow to protect your health at work.
- AVOID SOCIAL GATHERINGS in groups of more than 10 people.
- Avoid eating or drinking at bars, restaurants, and food courts
USE DRIVE-THRU, PICKUP, OR DELIVERY OPTIONS.
- AVOID DISCRETIONARY TRAVEL, shopping trips, and social visits.
- DO NOT VISIT nursing homes or retirement or long-term care facilities unless to provide critical assistance.
- PRACTICE GOOD HYGIENE:
- Wash your hands, especially after touching any frequently used item or surface.
- Avoid touching your face.
- Sneeze or cough into a tissue, or the inside of your elbow.
- Disinfect frequently used items and surfaces as much as possible.
School operations can accelerate the spread of the Governors of states with evidence of community transmission should close schools in affected and surrounding areas. Governors should close schools in communities that are near areas of community transmission, even if those areas are in neighboring states. In addition, state and local officials should close schools where has been identified in the population associated with the school. States and localities that close schools need to address childcare needs of critical responders, as well as the nutritional needs of children. Older people are particularly at risk from the All states should follow and halt social visits to nursing homes and retirement and long-term care facilities. In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.
Please write to me at Sherry.Tucker@WellLifeNetwork.org
Whether cooking a meal at home, rapping at our day habilitation program or exploring the community with a "day on the town," the individuals we serve Network enjoy the freedom to define their goals and engage in meaningful activities to help them achieve them.
Assisting Some 700 Individuals Live with Greater
Independence and Dignity
March is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about the inclusion of people with developmental disabilities in all areas of community life, as well as awareness of the barriers that people with disabilities still sometimes face in connecting to the communities in which they live.
Each day, more than 700 people live with dignity and as independently as possible through family support and entitlement and eligibility programs throughout New York City.
Offering a Continuum of Residential Services
Our homes integrate care into the community and celebrate residents’ cultures and traditions. Using a person-centered approach, Network’s housing and residential programs cover a broad array of alternatives, from 24-hour staff supervised residences to serve those with the greatest needs, to apartment living with ongoing supports for those able to live more independently in the community.
Network’s model of care focuses on assisting residents to develop daily living skills, integrate within the community where they live, receive necessary medical care, develop pre-employment skills and become more self-reliant.
Each day, more than 400 individuals live with dignity in our housing alternatives. Residents have an active role in decorating their bedrooms with motifs of their choosing. Fred enjoys being surrounded by superheroes and his favorite sports teams.
Day Habilitation Programs Help Individuals to Flourish and Grow
At our day habilitation programs, Network recognizes that every individual is unique — having different strengths, challenges, and interests. We help individuals, with intellectual/ developmental disabilities, flourish where they can learn and grow while doing something that truly interests them. Network’s Community and Day Habilitation programs are structured around those principles.
This year individuals in our day habilitation programs raised more than $21,000 to purchase food for WellLife's four food pantries to provide Thanksgiving and holiday meals for some 500 indigent individuals on Long Island.
Whether activities take place in their home or in one of our five-day programs, we help adults with I/DD, reach their greatest social, educational, life and community potential by offering them a variety of activities that stimulate their interest and growth. We offer learning experiences through theater arts, computer skills, cooking classes, basic nutrition and wellness, physical fitness, preparing for work and helping others through volunteering. We assess each individual’s strengths and needs and help them to select activities that will help them achieve their goals and track their progress in the program.
Our programs are approved for service by the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) and the New York State Department of Health.
