A Healthy Collaboration: GSNC & North Shore-LIJ Health System

Girl Scouts of Nassau County Salutes Our Community Partners

GSNC has hundreds of community partners, including every public school district, most private and religious schools, local colleges and universities, other not-for-profit organizations, as well as government and corporate supporters and many small businesses. This is the second in a series of articles that will focus on some of our partner organizations.

Healthy Collaboration: Girl Scouts of Nassau County & North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System (NS-LIJ)

Advancing STEM careers for young women, promoting healthy lifestyles and instilling good, healthy habits is a goal of Girl Scouts of Nassau County (GSNC). The partnership GSNC has formed with the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System [NS-LIJ] has brought together two organizations with very similar missions, creating programs that impact the lives of thousands of young women in Nassau County.

“Several years ago we identified an opportunity for collaboration,” said Deborah Schiff, Executive Director and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Strategy and Business Development at NS-LIJ, and also Vice President of the GSNC Board of Directors. “NS-LIJ has a long history of a commitment to the promotion of healthy lifestyles. By partnering with GSNC, we have the chance to speak to 20% of young women, and their families, in Nassau about healthy living and the diverse opportunities for healthcare careers.”

The Career Exploration Camp and Advancing Women in Science and Medicine (AWSM) programs have brought young women into the hospital and to the Feinstein Research Institute to hear about careers in healthcare and research. Through an informal mentorship and networking program, young women are provided with access to high-level professionals to learn about STEM careers and the paths they took toward success. Getting to see how a hospital works over the course of a week, or a full summer doing direct research are added bonuses for the girls selected!

While those initiatives focus on careers, programs such as Scouting out Time for You and the Heart Health Patch provide opportunities to form healthy habits and ultimately live a healthy life. By raising awareness early, challenges later in life can be prevented.

“When we developed the program, we wanted to offer young women what’s important to them,” said Leslie Kang, Senior Director at The Katz Institute for Women’s Health. “When we were thinking about what girls deal with in middle and high school and how they can best form healthy habits, we came up with three focus areas:

• Eating healthy
• Adequate physical fitness
• Emotional health

“Because our main focus is promoting health and wellness at an early age, this partnership is perfect for us,” said Ms. Kang. “A healthy outlook early in life continues into the future. The Girl Scouts have been such a pleasure to work with because what they’re instilling in their girls and their families is so closely tied to our core mission.”