NYC NOW - March 13, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

New York State is settling a class-action lawsuit brought by low-income homeowners who claimed they were denied access to free legal assistance while battling foreclosure. Meanwhile, police say they've arrested a 17-year-old boy for the shooting and killing of another 17-old last week in the Bronx. Plus, it's been four years since Covid officially became a global pandemic and so much has changed in all of our lives in terms of how we work, live, communicate and how we grieve. In response, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill into law this past January that mandates high schools teach students about grief and loss. But schools like Union Catholic in Scotch Plains, have already been teaching their students about grief for years. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Dr. Jennifer Dixon, who directs Union Catholic High School’s counseling program, and 17 year old student Ava Pickering to learn about the process.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, March 13th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. New York State is settling a class action lawsuit brought by low-income homeowners who say they were denied access to free legal assistance. WNYC's David Brand reports on what the settlements mean for New Yorkers in danger of losing their home. Under state law, low-income homeowners facing foreclosure are supposed to get free legal help, but court records show most of them don't have lawyers at the start of their cases. The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the courts on behalf of Brooklyn homeowners last year.

They accused court referees of speeding through hundreds of foreclosure cases without checking whether the owners qualified for free counsel during an initial settlement conference. The Office of Court Administration agreed to settle the lawsuit. They say going forward, they'll assess the court. of homeowners qualify for free legal assistance if they appear at the first conference without a lawyer. Police say they've arrested a 17-year-old boy for the shooting and killing of another 17-year-old last week in the Bronx. Police say they've charged Tyro Williams with murdering LaQuai Dash last Friday in Melrose. As a dispute between the two teens led to the crime, the shooting took place barely a block

from Legacy College Prep Charter High School where Dash was a student. Dash has granted. Grandmother says he was on track to graduate and attend Sunni Buffalo in the fall. Information for Williams' lawyer was not immediately available. 57 with sunshine now, sunny today and spring like a high temperature of 68, and then tomorrow even warmer, sunny and 71, Friday, afternoon showers likely, clouds, and high temperature in the mid-60s. Stay close. There's more after the break. In the now four years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic,

so much has changed about how we live, how we work, communicate, and how we grieve. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy this year acknowledged this new reality by signing a bill into law that mandates schools teach students about grief and loss starting in high school. But some schools already have been teaching their students about grief for years, like Union Catholic High School in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Dr. Jennifer Dixon direct school counseling at Union Catholic. 17-year-old Ava Pickering is a student there. They both join us now to walk us through with eight years of educating students

about the ends and outs of grief looks like in practice. Let's jump right into it. Dr. Dixon, how does grief education work at Union Catholic? So we work through an organization called Imagine, and they come in with their expertise and lead this session. we actually have peer mentors who are trained beforehand, which are our Union Catholic students who share their stories of grief and loss and help co-educate the classes. Dr. Dixon, I'm curious about something.

How many students have gone through the grief and loss education at Union Catholic over the last eight years or so? I'm not a mathematician. However, what I can tell you is that every freshman and every junior goes through it each year. So every student at Union Catholic for the last eight or nine years has had that training, both their freshman year and junior year. As you pointed out, students such as Ava are a key part of how you get information out to the rest of the student body. Ava, would you tell us a little bit about how you got involved? Yes. So in my freshman year, they had a presentation, and I wasn't exactly sure what it was at first.

I was just told that we were having an assembly. But after it, having sat through it, I was really, like, shocked. I had never really been subjected to any sort of class or assembly about grief. And I was really impressed that we were being taught about it. Abe, I'm curious about something. Had you ever given grief any thought before that assembly? Not as much as I do now. But it is something that definitely I had to deal with, but I had never really learned how to deal with it or the right ways to deal with it.

What was your experience in learning about grief? Describe that for us. One of the things that we do with the peer mentors is sometimes they'll have people go around the room and write on a piece of paper things that they've gone through. and hearing how all these other people that I know that I've gone to class with have also experienced similar things, that was pretty incredible to me because when you're grieving, it feels like I'm the only person that feels this way and no one has ever felt like this before. But to warn that so many other people have dealt with it makes it easier in a way. How did you learn to deal with it in the teaching of it? Whenever I'm going through a hardship, I oftentimes try to lock myself away and just be by myself. But I was taught that that's not the right thing to do. And it's okay to ask for help because a lot of the time when you're hurting, you feel like it would burden other people.

But people want to help you. People who truly care about you want to be there for you. So I want to never be afraid to ask for help or talk to anyone when you're going through something. Dr. Dixon, what does grief education at Union Catholic hope to teach students? I think I have an idea here after listening to Ava. That we're a good morning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G community, that it's okay to be vulnerable. It brings us together. I believe a lot of the grief education that we've done has also helped our teachers understand

how to handle students who are dealing with grief, how to handle their own grief. So we're coming together as a more open, vulnerable community with each other. Dr. Dixon, thanks to this new state law, students across the state will get to dive into the same topics as your students. Now, what skills has grief education given the young people you think at Union Catholic? We dig into really concrete examples of how people grieve, how people might want to be supported when they grieve. So students come out of that, being able to talk about it, being able to know in some way what to do when someone is grieving and how to handle a friend. And we talk a lot about grief, not just being the death of someone, but the loss of ability to play a sport if someone gets injured,

divorce, loss of friendship. There's so many kinds of loss. And so it's really helping students recognize that their friend might be grieving and how to handle that. You know, I'm referred to, you know, four years since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic with COVID-19, how do you think that helped your students during that tragic time, the four years since it was declared? We're talking about loss on a much grander scale. Many people reach out to me asking what we had done, knowing, already working with Imagine, recognizing that the pandemic is a collective loss.

And we don't even know the outcomes of that. You know, Eva came into high school as a freshman, you know, when she was in once a week and our students were socially distanced. So we're just beginning to see how that's affected our students. And we hope that by normalizing that and talking about it, that it's helped our students to some degree. When you start introducing people in general, but certainly young people, where hormones are raging and all kinds of things are going on, distractions, in life and social media and so forth. I would imagine you have a better functioning student body after going through this type of, for lack of a better word, almost therapy, education, counseling. That's the hope. You know, we survey the students each year. And one of the questions that I ask,

hearing the student mentors speak about their personal experiences may help me in dealing with my own loss or help me assist my friends through grief and loss. And 85% of the students who answered the survey last year said that it's going to help them. And, you know, the truth is, you know, 85% of students have experienced some kind of a loss. And, you know, sometimes a little bit higher, lower, depending on their community. But we know that students in classrooms are grieving. And so it's important. And the students say that it's important.

When we ask, you know, should grief and lost education be offered in school? last year, 84% of our students said yes. Wow. Dr. Jennifer Dixon direct school counseling at Union Catholic High School. Ava Pickering is a 12th grader there. Thank you both for sharing this with us. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep hours.

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