NYC NOW - August 22, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin is issuing new guidelines for police interactions with individuals in mental health crises, advocating for a more measured response to those barricading themselves. Meanwhile, a Journal of Urban Health study reveals that female bus workers were three times more likely to be assaulted than female subway workers during the pandemic. But female subway workers were five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than female bus drivers. Finally, WNYC’s Michaell Hill talks with Horizons-Newark Executive Director Joanna Carroll and Swim Director Jeff Porter about a program teaching students and their teachers how to swim.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, August 22nd. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. New Jersey's top legal officer is issuing new rules on how police officers must engage with people experiencing mental health crises. State Attorney General Matthew Platt can. says law enforcement officials must take what he calls a more measured approach when dealing with people in mental distress who are barricading themselves inside a location. The new rules mandate

that police identify available mental health professionals to help negotiate with people in distress. Police should consider delaying their contact with people in crisis in some situations. They also say tactical teams must have less lethal weapons like tasers available. The new rules come after a series of fatal encounters between police and people experiencing mental health crises in New Jersey. A new study shows that female bus workers were three times more likely to be assaulted than female subway workers during the pandemic. But female subway workers were five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than female bus drivers. The study was published in the Journal of Urban Health yesterday. The authors from NYU's Global Public Health surveyed over

a thousand of the MTA's nearly 50,000 transit workers. Robin Gershahn is a co-author. But they're the question, why? Why are they a target? Why is it happening? And what can you do? The majority of the self-selected groups say they've been harassed and assaulted while on the job. But the MTA calls the report flawed and says that 19% of all transit workers have been assaulted. Stay close. There's more after the break.

Michael Hill. For some kids, learning to swim can be the difference between life and death. And with back to school season right around the corner, our next guest say, when kids learn water skills, they also walk away with skills they can use in the classroom. We'll explore this now with Joanna Carroll, the executive director of Horizons, Newark, New Jersey. It's part of a national nonprofit that, among other things, offers free summer swim lessons. Also joining us is the Swim and Director Jeff Porter. Joanna, swim lessons are part of the core curriculum at Horizons. How important is it to get free swim lessons to kids in places like Newark specifically?

So Horizons, Newark is a nonprofit organization that serves students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. And so we serve students year long in grades pre-K through eight. What we do is we offer academic enrichment. We do health and wellness. So that's in the form of gardening, sports, mindfulness, yoga. 100% of the students who Horizons Newark serves are from low-income families. And what we see historically is that students who come from those backgrounds don't typically have access to free swim lessons.

There's also this family history component. If my mom doesn't know how to swim and she doesn't swim, I'm not going to learn. If her mom didn't know how to swim, I'm not going to learn. one of our main funders, the Cara Kennedy Fund, would say we're really, you know, implementing generational change here. Jeff, give us a sense of what kind of relationship the kids have with swimming or even just waiting in the water before the summer swim lessons. So during that first week, we had a lot of anxiety in the pool.

A lot of the students were very scared. They were afraid of drowning. They were afraid of, you know, being let go. A lot of gripping the instructors. but over time in those upwards of 15 sessions, every student was able to improve in one way or another. And what kinds of water skills do they learn and how can the skills save their lives?

We start with the basics. Something I always tell my instructors to remember is bubbles, bobbs, floats, glides, kick, strokes. So starting from the beginning and then working your way up. A lot of things that people take for granted while swimming because they don't think about it is getting your head underwater. A lot of kids are very, very hesitant to do that. I talk a lot about trying to trick the children. I'm like, oh, yeah, tell them to look at your feet.

You know, like, tell them, oh, there's something on the ground. Can you go look at that? Does that work? Oh, absolutely. You just, you know, you got to figure out, you got to figure out what you're going to trick them with. and the headbobbs and the blowing of the bubbles, breathing control is huge in swimming. And then we usually move on to floating. And that is, floating's definitely the tricky one.

That is, they don't feel the ground at all. They are fully at the mercy of their instructor. So we have to find that place where they are comfortable enough that we can, you know, we'll usually start with our hand on their back while they go out into their, what we call the starfish float. they look like Patrick the Starfish. I'm a little dated in my references. The kids don't know who Patrick the Starfish is anymore.

Jeff, what are some of the changes other than maybe a new ability to swim? Do you notice in the kids after they become more confident in the water? Three of the big benefits of swimming are cognitive, physical, and psychological. As far as the cognitive benefits, the coordination that is required for swimming engages multiple brain areas. and that can help with problem-solving skills and spatial awareness for the children going forward. Physically, swimming can build strength and endurance while being low impact on, and it improves their motor skills.

And then as we spoke about, a huge key benefit for Horizons, specifically is the psychological component where learning to swim helps the children's self-esteem. If they're able to take on and master this skill in swimming, it can give the confidence to try and learn other skills. We also encourage our teachers to get into the water and in years past. They have, and what that builds is a really strong rapport between the student and the teacher. So when they go back into the classroom, and let's say they're doing reading or they're doing math or even just listening in class, right, I respect my teacher.

My teacher did something really scary with me and got through it with me. And our teachers come from the many of them, I would say majority, of them come from the same neighborhoods as our students, and they don't know how to swim either. So they're learning alongside the students. And again, the relationship that gets built from that is really impactful. Our guests have been Joanna Carroll, Executive Director of Horizons, Newark, and Horizon Swim Director, Jeff Porter. I love this conversation. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC.

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