Two new grants will allow Jewish Family Service of MetroWest to expand its services for at-risk young people.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey awarded JFS $122,500 to launch a new Children’s Mental Health Initiative. The funds will be used to hire additional licensed clinical social workers who specialize in children and adolescents at risk.

An additional endowment by the Sagner Family Foundation of Livingston will be used toward a dedicated space for play therapy at JFS’ Livingston facility; the organization also has offices in Florham Park, West Orange, Springfield, Jersey City, and Bayonne.

The National Institute of Mental Health reports that one in 10 children suffers from a mental disorder “severe enough to cause some level of impairment,” including, among others, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and eating disorders.

To combat the grim statistics, JFS MetroWest, a beneficiary agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, provides a wide range of social services — including counseling and case management — to residents of Essex and Morris counties and parts of Union, Warren, Sussex, and Hudson counties.

The CMHI program, which began Jan. 1, will expand JFS’ capacity to offer individual counseling for children, support groups for children and parents, and community outreach programs on children’s mental health issues.

“The agency is very honored and excited to be the recipient of both the naming gift of the Sagner Family Foundation as well as the grant for the Children’s Mental Health Initiative from the Healthcare Foundation,” JFS executive director Reuben D. Rotman told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview. “The purpose of both of these projects is really to reinforce and reestablish the agency’s role as a provider of children’s mental health services.”

The Ruth Sagner Center for Family Play Therapy is named in memory of Ruth Levin Sagner, a social worker, family therapist, and professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work.

“My mother was very interested in seeing people in the context of their families and not blaming people for their problems, but trying to understand them. That’s really what family therapy and family play therapy is about,” said her daughter, Deborah Sagner of the Sagner Family Foundation, in a statement.

“The Sagner Family Foundation has given this gift … because of a desire to support JFS, a real interest in helping JFS to strengthen child and family services, and because of my own personal interest in family and play therapy, which is a wonderful way to engage the child and family,” she said. “This gift is a wonderful opportunity to get world-class training for the JFS agency so that it will be a model of how play therapy should happen.”

The dedication of the center will take place April 5, when JFS will also acknowledge the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest, which will provide additional financial support for the renovation of the Livingston office in which the center will be housed.

For more information or to access services for families and children, call the JFS Intake Department at 973-765-9050. Private tours of the Ruth Sagner Center for Family Play Therapy can be arranged by contacting Judie Gerstein, LCSW, coordinator of clinical services, at 973-765-9050, ext. 232.