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NORTHSIDE

Northside Center for Child Development was founded 30 years ago, in 1946, in response to the almost total lack of clinical services to the residents of the Harlem community. Today, it is still one of the only providers of service to this community answering the special needs of emotionally troubled children and their families.

Northside Center provides an umbrella of services including psychiatric treatment, psychological counseling, skilled psychiatric casework, medical and neurological services, a unique therapeutic day school for children too disturbed for regular school, consultation with schools and teachers, and community volunteer services. Since 1946, over 12,000 children and their families have received direct service while many more have received indirect services through education and consultation.

Founded by Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark and Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, the Center began operating in one basement room of a Harlem housing project with one paid employee and seventeen professional volunteers. Then it was the first full-time interracial, private, non-profit facility in the Harlem area and one of the very few such in the city or country. At the time of the Center's establishment, the climate in the Harlem and East Harlem community was one of skepticism about mental illness — a labeling of the mentally ill as "crazy" —and a reluctance to use mental health facilities. To compound the situation, many of the large service organizations in Harlem began phasing out all of their social services, leaving wide gaps in supportive programs for families who needed help.

Northside Center, however, steadily increased its commitment to the community. It was aided by a softening of attitude toward psychiatric services at the community level, and increased awareness and financial support of mental health on the part of the city, state and federal governments. By 1948, Northside Center was a licensed child guidance center, soon to receive support from the New York City Youth Board (later the New York City Department of Mental Health), and had a paid staff and a functioning Board of Directors. It also moved to larger quarters where it was able to expand its services.

Today, the goal of help for children and parents with problems remains the same, the philosophy has changed. Its approach is neither purely psychiatric,

[[images - 5 black & white photographs of scenes from Northside Center dinner]]