Our social worker, Jacqueline Lefkowitz, offers individual supportive counseling to all patients and families, including play therapy for younger children, to enable them to help them work through complex emotions invoked by their illness situations. She also runs support groups for patients and families to provide a forum of mutual exchange of feelings and ideas and reduce potential feelings of helplessness and isolation. Several groups have featured guest speakers with expertise in a particular area of the psychosocial aspects of chronic illness. She has organized several educational forums on topics of interest to the bleeding disorders and larger communities.

Some of the recent programs coordinated by our social worker have included:

• New parents' support and discussion group for parents of children with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders from birth to age three.
• Pizza night for teens - a support and discussion group for adolescents with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders.
• Parents of adolescents with hemophilia support and discussion group.
• Genetic counseling issues discussion group.
• Support and discussion group for men with hemophilia and HIV
• "School and the Child with Hemophilia": A discussion group for parents of school-aged children.
• "Women with Bleeding Disorders: A Panel Discussion"

For more information contact Jacqueline Lefkowitz, ACSW, 212-746-3418.