QCFE Reflection – Our First Year
As we begin the New Year I feel grateful that I have the pleasure of revisiting a past year full of positive professional outcomes.
First and foremost we launched the Queens Center for Excellence—a 2-year pilot program created by the New York Council on Problem Gambling and aimed at addressing problem gambling in Queens County. Creation of the QCFE was inspired by recognition of the need for an increase of awareness, treatment and services for problem gambling within the borough.
Secondly, we got connected. That is, we connected and partnered with community stakeholders who had shared and overlapping interests and through these connections established a network promoting awareness of the QCFE’s launch and services. And it has been, in large part, these partnerships and increased awareness that has enabled the many individuals looking for help to receive it from the QCFE.
Thirdly, we established (and continually revised and reestablished) an innovative program model utilizing the center as a resource for information, a platform for increasing awareness and an administrative coordinator setting up and collaborating with a caring team of certified private practitioners with offices helpfully located throughout Queens County.
Fourthly, we learned. As outlined above, we learned about how to launch a program, connect to the community, establish and evolve a new concept. But we also learned more about problem gambling, about the role of the brain in this disorder, about who is being affected, what is being done and what should be done… in short we learned and continually learn how to best help people struggling with problem gambling.
Finally, as mentioned and implied throughout this nostalgic but instructive recollection we helped people. Slowly but surely and then more and more steadily, we began receiving calls, texts and even emails from individuals seeking help for situations pervaded by problem gambling addiction and all the related problems that grow from it. These communications came not only from problem gamblers themselves but also from the family, friends, spouses, parents and children of problem gamblers—and these people were able to receive help.
This help was specifically delivered in various ways, from outreach and education to assessment, treatment and recovery—each element supported by quality service and a sincere focus on helping clients, families and friends find their own personal positive outcome.