David Williams fled violence in Belize in March 2022 with his oldest daughter, Aliah (their names have been changed for their protection). But he knew they couldn’t escape the trauma.
Aliah, then 10, was haunted by people she had seen get shot in Belize. During a stop at the Tijuana Airport, her father could sense Aliah get triggered when she saw armed men in the streets: “The same feel from Belize started to get in her, like she started to become afraid, because she sees all these guys with guns,” Williams said.
Her younger sister, Meera (whose name has also been changed) arrived in New York City with their mother four months later. She also bore scars: physical ones from a burning incident at 18 months old, and invisible ones due to social isolation and bullying.
Now Aliah and Meera, who are deaf and never learned sign language, have tools to process their trauma.
The Lexington School for the Deaf’s wraparound approach to family services — from free American Sign Language (ASL) classes for family members to assistance navigating the health, legal, and shelter systems — helps make it possible.
While Lexington isn’t a social service organization, the school’s family support helps serve its goal to ensure students attend and learn every day. For many recently immigrated deaf children in NYC, language barriers, health needs, and housing instability often stand in the way. They also compound existing mental health challenges. Lexington’s holistic model aims to reduce these obstacles.
A wake-up call for broader support
Lexington, a private, nonprofit school based in East Elmhurst — and the largest school for the deaf in New York — has a long history of serving immigrant children. Now, about 10% of Lexington’s students are recent immigrants.
The school’s broader support of immigrant families wasn’t by design. Lexington staff lack the funding or training to serve immigrants the way a social services agency or legal aid society might. But after the pandemic, absenteeism became a major issue. Lexington realized factors like caregivers losing their jobs were contributing to students’ absence. These issues were more pronounced in immigrant families, and more so in those newly arrived.
“We were like, ‘we don’t want the students to be absent because … [Aliah] needs her flu shot, and [her dad] is calling [but can’t get an appointment],’ ” said Laura Cruz, the director of pupil personnel services at Lexington. “So you know what? I’m going to have my social worker call, because my social worker is going to make sure they get an appointment tomorrow.”
A holistic approach to youth mental health
Before new deaf students even have the language skills to express their trauma, supporting stability at home addresses underlying factors affecting their mental health.
School staff offer legal referrals to caregivers navigating the asylum seeking and work permit processes. They help those with limited English language skills decipher bills and make medical appointments for their children. They write letters to help families avoid eviction from shelters. Williams says receiving a letter from Lexington every few months since enrollment has kept his family at the Roosevelt Hotel.
And whatever school staff can’t do, they connect caregivers to local organizations that can offer health, housing, and food security resources. Immigrant families in the city generally experience higher rates of food insecurity and housing insecurity and are more likely to be uninsured.
These gaps are linked to psychological distress, especially in immigrant children. It’s compounded in deaf children navigating a new city with language limitations. Community-based supports addressing these gaps have been linked to improved mental health outcomes for immigrant families.
From free snacks to clothes and camp gear
Staff also address students’ basic needs more directly. For instance, they liaison with the DOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation to coordinate the free bussing every deaf student is entitled to as part of their Individualized Education Plan (IEP).
Family needs like food insecurity trickle down to students’ social-emotional needs at school. When new students lack snacks during designated breaks, they’re unwittingly socially excluded. It’s why Lexington teachers started a snack pantry in the spring of 2021, when students returned to in-person learning.
Similar gaps sparked the growth of the Giving Closet, where families can drop by and choose the clothes they need. “It’s very discreet, but that is an option,” said Meggi Smith, the family liaison at Lexington. “Especially for solving the short-term needs while we get them connected to the bigger resources.”
Aliah and Meera have both gotten sweaters from the Giving Closet. When Aliah first enrolled at the school, Lexington staff chipped in to buy her gear for a summer camp in the city. It was important for Aliah’s adjustment. But there wasn’t enough time for her dad to raise the money to buy all her camp needs.
“She had just gotten here, she was living in these conditions, and [staff] said, ‘let’s bring her to camp for another week, with students that she met here,’ ” Cruz said. “We were happy that the father [allowed sleep-away camp] — he was so worried about her and her emotional state and everything that she had been through, and she was so attached to him.”
While staff pitching in for special cases like Aliah’s might not sound like a sustainable solution, it’s this culture of communal support that keeps initiatives like the snack pantry and the Giving Closet operating year-round. And some studies have seen low-income New Yorkers’ mental health improve after participating in unconditional cash payment programs.
Advocacy training for families
A key aspect of Lexington’s model is empowering families to advocate for themselves. The school provides resources to help caregivers navigate New York City’s education and healthcare systems. Staff emphasizes services their children are due because of their special needs.
A more stable home situation makes regular attendance and family engagement in school more likely. Williams, who co-parents, helps with homework until their mother gets home from work.
“Every time we have parent-teacher night, those families are here. Every time we have an event, those families are here,” said Cruz, adding that immigrant families have some of the highest engagement levels.
Learn a language, process trauma
With the family’s overall needs mostly met, Lexington has set up students like Aliah and Meera for success in language learning and social skills. Once they learned American Sign Language, Aliah and Meera taught it to their father, who also uses a language app. The school also offers free online ASL classes for family members.
When students’ language skills develop, they begin to express their trauma, Cruz says: “They come here with very limited language, and they don’t know how to tell a story and express what they’ve seen,” she said. “And then they start to learn language, and then they’re able to communicate the story.”
Sometimes it’s a sign they’re ready for in-school counseling: “We always kind of wait for that — you don’t see the trauma right away,” Cruz said. “It’s the honeymoon period.”
Aliah quickly picked up basic skills, like writing her name, which she hadn’t learned all her years in Belize. But she adjusted more slowly to sitting in a classroom for long periods. In-person learning tired out Aliah so much, she would leave school at 2:30 pm and fall asleep almost as soon as she got home.
When occupational therapy at school helped Aliah focus at a desk and strengthen her upper body enough to write for longer periods, she also started drawing more. It offered a route to process her trauma.
“She drew gunmen with guns … she drew things that she sees,” Williams said. “It hurts me most of the time to see her go through those stuff. Sometimes she asks me, ‘Dad’ (in sign language), are you okay?’ like if a gunman’s gonna come at me.”
Williams sometimes feels it literally. While Aliah expresses her trauma through art and sign language, she occasionally punches her father. During those tough times, Williams has texted Cruz’s team, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m done. I give up.” Staff coach him through it.
Inclusive socializing to improve self-esteem
Socializing might sound like a no-brainer when it comes to boosting youth mental health. But it’s not always a linear correlation. Deaf children are more likely to be bullied by peers and neglected or misunderstood by adults.
The bullying Meera faced due to her facial burns was so bad in Belize, Williams says, that even her sister didn’t want to be near her in public. He tried to shield Meera from further social pain by keeping her home.
But for the first time in their lives, his daughters are excited to attend school, even on weekends. Meera’s teachers have also helped rebuild her self-esteem, Williams says.
“My little girl that got burned — she dances in the train, she do all types of stuff in front of everyone,” Williams said. “She doesn’t hide her face anymore. She just look in everyone’s face with a smile, a bright smile.”
Challenges to a family social services model
There’s only so much that Lexington’s support can do. Shelter stay limits have fluctuated. Public support for migrants has also declined in the city, which has taken its toll on funding for the kinds of organizations Lexington relies on to support newly arrived families.
These past few years, citywide school bus staffing shortages means sometimes families like Williams’ have had to transport their children by public transit instead of the bus they qualify for. (In those cases, the school distributes DOE-issued metro cards as a stopgap.)
These issues stack on top of others faced by families at shelters — the long wait lines in and out of shelters, for instance. Williams and his daughters used to wait up to two hours, until Williams secured a doctor’s letter expressing the danger of Meera getting sunburned.
And as much as Lexington offers the structures, culture, and language to integrate students into the deaf school community, asylum seekers like Williams find it hard to integrate in society when they’re not authorized to work.
“That’s very stressful, because a couple of weeks ago, he said ‘I’m getting my work permit,’ and now, ‘I don’t know, it’s up in the air,’ ” Cruz said. “That’s frustrating.”
Hope for changes
Still, by helping care for their newly arrived students’ caregivers, Lexington creates an environment that sets up the most vulnerable students to thrive.
Its model offers insights for other schools grappling with how to support immigrant students with disabilities, even as challenges remain around migrant policy and social safety net programs.
For the Williams family, that success is measured in daily “miracles.” It’s Aliah, showing her father the sign for “beautiful.” It’s Meera, smiling at strangers on the subway.
“This school … it bring back my family,” Williams said. “Although I’m going through other stuff, this school bring me hope.”
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