News / New Jersey News

Youth Services Insider will delve further into the first budget proposed by President Joe Biden in the coming weeks, but wanted to list off a few notable items that jumped off the page from child welfare and juvenile justice. Juvenile Justice Major boost to state grants: States receive a portion of what’s called the Title II formula grants each year in exchange for their participation in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). Biden is calling for $250 million under this...

New Jersey plans to spend a staggering $445,504 per incarcerated youth in 2022 to house them in facilities that are almost 80% empty. The time is now for New Jersey to close its youth prisons and invest in community-based alternatives. The current system, with its focus wholly on punishment rather than rehabilitation, the current system leaves whole communities — as well as the families of both victims and offenders — with unresolved trauma that continues to reverberate long after the...

Viola Ford Fletcher is also still waiting for justice. By TONY NORMAN • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette America has been telling Viola Ford Fletcher to wait for justice ever since she was 7 years old. Now a spry 107, Fletcher is running out of patience with America. Delivered by midwife on a farm in Lawton, Okla., on May 10, 1914, Fletcher was born 138 years after the American experiment commenced in 1776. As a Black daughter of Oklahoma, she had no more reason to believe in America’s promises than...

(CNN) Throughout Olivia Thompson's 12-hour shift as a cardiac and Covid-19 nurse in Chandler, Arizona, she closely monitors the oxygen levels of several patients at a time and works with other medical specialists to heal them. For some, no amount of care Thompson gives prevents them from being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. "There were times where I was dreading going to work because of the unknown," Thompson said. "Am I going to be a good nurse for my patients? Am I going to make a...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill that would withhold funding from schools teaching about systemic racism and white privilege. HB 0580/SB 0623 officially cleared the General Assembly Wednesday, one of several to pass on the day lawmakers adjourned for the year . The bill centers on restricting what concepts on institutional racism can be taught in school, and attracted some of the most impassioned debates. While most of the majority-white GOP caucuses in the House and...

NEW YORK (WABC) -- On Saturday, May 8, WABC-TV will air a special entitled "PROTECT OUR CHILDREN: EFFECTS OF THE PANDEMIC" at 7 p.m. ET. The program is hosted by Eyewitness News Anchor Shirleen Allicot, and will focus on the continued impact the pandemic has had on youth, with advice from professionals on how we can address and improve the mental, emotional and physical health of youth. Despite the ongoing pandemic, the special shares stories of individuals who faced difficult challenges and...

Adela Ames-Lopez, a former director at the state Department of Children and Families, was confirmed Tuesday night as health director in a sweeping 7-0 vote. She had been serving in an interim capacity since being appointed in January to replace Shakira Abdul-Ali, who left for another job. “You’re gonna learn about me,” Amez-Lopez told legislators. “I’m the voice.” Amez-Lopez faced no opposition but a flurry of questions from West Ward councilwoman Robin Vaughn. Vaughn wanted to ensure that...

JOHN MOONEY, EDUCATION WRITER | APRIL 27, 2021 | EDUCATION This time NJ’s Supreme Court considers if Newark’s seven charter schools should have expanded. A Newark-based advocacy group, challenging the recent expansion in charter school enrollments in Newark, argues the state failed to consider the effect of the expansion on the district’s finances and the potential worsening of school segregation by race, disability and other needs. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on...

BY ELIZABETH AMON | The Imprint Shortly before Christmas of 2019, Cheryl Beaver loaded her 6-year-old grandson Keyon onto the school bus, as she did each weekday morning. Beaver, who had cared for the first-grader since he was a baby, was leaving Seattle to attend a niece’s graduation. In her place, she had arranged for her adult son to pick Keyon up from his after-school program. But when the boy’s uncle arrived later that day, Keyon was gone. In a panic, Beaver and his mom, Salina Simpson,...

NEW JERSEY – Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal issued a statewide directive to law enforcement Monday, instructing prosecutors to waive mandatory parole disqualifiers—commonly known as mandatory minimum prison terms—for non-violent drug offenses. "We cannot stand by and ignore the unjust and racially disparate impact of these mandatory minimum terms on non-violent drug offenders—primarily young persons of color," Governor Phil Murphy said. "It's been well over a year since the Criminal...

Black children have long suffered from racial disparities in the U.S. foster care system Cheri Williams looks back with regret at the start of her career as a child welfare caseworker in 1998. Systemic racism is a major reason why. “I removed probably about 100 kids from their homes in the 15 months I was an investigator … a lot of them were children of color,” said Williams, who's now a vice president of one of the largest adoption and foster care agencies in the United States. “Decades...

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