Jeffrey Reynolds, Ph.D.
Smacked By the Storm: How Long Island Can Recover From Its Heroin Crisis
A lifelong advocate for Long Island’s vulnerable kids, families and communities, Jeffrey Reynolds is the president/CEO of Family and Children’s Association (FCA). One of Long Island’s oldest and largest nonprofits, FCA serves 20,000 Long Islanders annually with multiple programs, including two addiction treatment centers, transitional housing for runaway and homeless teens and a newly constructed community recovery center.
Reynolds holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree in public administration and a doctorate in social welfare. He worked for the Long Island Association for AIDS Care for 19 years, where he started out doing case management and finished as vice president for public affairs. From 2009–2014, Reynolds was the executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. There he helped launch evidence-based K–12 substance abuse prevention programs in Long Island schools, initiated a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents and increased the number of families served each month nine-fold.
The current heroin crisis brings Reynolds’ career full circle, from working with older African-American and Hispanic injection drug users in the 1980’s to assisting young white and more affluent addicts over the course of the last decade. Those cumulative experiences shaped his work on Governor Cuomo’s Heroin and Opioids Task Force, which released sweeping recommendations last year that resulted in the passage of a dozen pieces of legislation designed to address the drug crisis.
Follow Jeff at @DrJeffReynolds