Working Together to Build Healthy Communities Video

The APA and the Y of the USA have produced a video, on their partnership programs, which includes interviews with local Y staff and psychologists who work with their local Ys.

This page requires Flash Player version 10.0.2 or higher.

Dr. Katherine Nordal

We’ve had a partnership now for a couple of years with the Y and it’s just a natural forum to have psychologists be able to present information to families that help them around the behavioral aspects of getting more healthy and then the Y has their own teams of experts. This is just a natural partnership of two organizations that want to see families and kids get healthier.

Jonathan Lever

The American Psychological Association and the Y share a common belief in the whole person.  It’s not just about the body, it’s about spirit, mind and body.  The expertise that local psychologists bring in helping people deal with behavior change and understanding barriers really leverages the expertise of the psychologist and plays to the strengths of the Y.

John Benigni

When I heard that there was going to be a national partnership it was wonderful.  They came, they did great events for us, great lecture series – it was an added benefit to our members.

Dr. Barbara Ward-Zimmerman

I think that the Ys do have a number of people of all different ages who come to participate in programs and that this allows us a great opportunity through collaboration to do early intervention and prevention kind of work.

Carrie Marquardt

They do provide a wealth of information to our members who otherwise wouldn’t really know where to seek out that type of information.

Joan Goodman

We trust psychologists to come into our YMCA because the psychologists have the expertise to help our members with the behavioral changes that they need for healthier living.

John Benigni

The mind is something that psychologists know, they’re trained to know and here at the Y we want to incorporate all forms of health.

Dr. Elaine Ducharme

There is a Y in every community. So it provides a wonderful opportunity for psychologists to reach out to large group and their community and achieve recognition as someone who can provide great information on mental health issues and mind/body health.

Joan Goodman

We are able to get the word out about new and different things we are doing and bring people in here that don’t normally have memberships.  It really isn’t extra work.  When we do an event like this we use all the tools that we normally use.  We write press releases that we send out to the media from the YMCA exchange site or we write from scratch.  We use e-newsletters, we use evites it doesn’t cost us anything to have a psychologist come in to do the workshops.

John Begnini

It’s really been an added benefit to our organization, especially in these tough times. When you can add a benefit to your members at zero or next to nothing, it really sends the right message.

Jonathan Lever

We at the Y feel like if we can strengthen the foundation of community by promoting health we are advancing both our mission and advancing the interest of our nation.

Dr. Wheaton Griffin

Working with organizations like APA brings a whole other sense of knowledge a whole other intellectual understanding of what we’re doing and we can use evidence based programs to help our families be more  healthy.

Dr. Elaine Ducharme

We’ve done a few workshops on mind, body, health with children and their parents on healthy eating and the response has been terrific.

Joan Goodman

Our members response to these workshops has been great.  They really appreciate us bringing in outside experts to help them with their everyday lives.

John Benigni

It’s nice to even hear members after the event still talking about the event.

Female Y Member

It’s given us information you know that we probably didn’t have for some of us and understanding and compassion for your fellow man.

Female Y Member

I was very stressed before I started coming to the Y and now as I go through my different programs and work outs and do the personal trainer I’m easier to get along with.  I’m less stressed.

Dr. Barbara Ward-Zimmerman

What I find is that the trust that the families have developed in the Y personnel has been transferred onto us.

Joan Goodman

We’re very excited about this partnership with the APA and we thank you for coming to our Y.