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The OOR Police-Youth Initiative was highlighted in the newest issue of The NJ Police Chief Magazine. Community navigator Tim Woody authored an article – look for it on page 25 on this link: The NJ Police Chief Magazine - Volume 30, Number 5 FEB 2024 MAG (joomag.com)

Program Name: Champions For Life RAC: Give a Kid a Dream Person of Contact: Jacklyn Atkins In her long professional career, Jacklyn Atkins has a diverse background. From being the Executive Director of Research and Development at AT&T to working with at-risk youth in Long Branch, to traveling to India for similar work. Her travel required long absences from her clients in New Jersey, which became increasingly difficult, eventually leading her to build her own program- Champions for Life.

In July 2021, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law P.L.2021, c.187 to create a statewide, universal home visiting (UHV) program for newborns in the State of New Jersey.1 The program has been branded in New Jersey as Family Connects NJ. New Jersey is the second state in the country to legislate a statewide program through which families with a newborn can have a specially trained nurse visit their home in the first few weeks after the child’s birth. The services are free, voluntary, and meant...

LILO H. STAINTON, HEALTH CARE WRITER | MAY 13, 2022 | HEALTH CARE Private funds paid his salary. NJ taxes covered the staff. Now he’s gone New Jersey generated a national buzz among child welfare experts when in June 2020 it launched the first state-level office devoted to childhood resilience and arranged for private foundations to pay the salary of the director. Two years later acclaimed director Dave Ellis is leaving the Department of Children and Families Office of Resilience. The...

COVID-related ‘acting out’ is a growing problem in NJ schools David Matthau | NJ1015 It’s been more than two years since the start of the pandemic and the vast New Jersey schools resumed in-person learning last September, but the effects of COVID continue to reverberate with students statewide. “As I speak with school superintendents throughout the state they are indeed affirming that there are many more issues post-COVID, coming back to school, than there were pre-COVID,” said Rich Bozza,...

TAYLOR JUNG | NJ Spotlight More people of color borrow than white counterparts, adding to racial wealth gap. For New Jersey school psychologist Norma Reyes, not having to make her student loan payments the last two years has been a “blessing.” While the Biden administration pushed back payments to the end of August and is expected to make a student loan announcement in the coming weeks, the looming and unclear future of her debt is unsettling. “However, those loans are still there. And it’s...

Staff Writers | LiveNewsVault.com Foster youngsters and younger folks transitioning out of the kid welfare system incessantly encounter obstacles to ample housing, which some healthcare suppliers and medical insurance firms try to handle with novel applications. This curiosity in foster youths stems from the elevated give attention to social determinants of well being, together with housing, over the previous decade. Along with the potential societal good, these organizations see...

Patrick Lavery | NJ1015 The fourth annual State of Babies Yearbook, released Tuesday by the Washington, D.C.-based organization Zero To Three, places New Jersey in the top 12 states in the nation for infants and toddlers, but also offers evidence the Garden State should continue to make improvements for its youngest residents. The rankings in the study are classified by the letters G-R-O-W: getting started, reaching forward, improving outcomes, or working effectively. In two categories, for...

The latest edition of the Medical Association of Georgia’s (MAG) ‘Top Docs Radio’ show addresses adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and “systemic empathy” – which is designed to integrate empathy into our health care experience/system to improve patient outcomes. It features Stan Sonu, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of internal medicine, pediatrics, and preventative medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine and an associate program director for Emory’s Internal Medicine...

A Statement from the Center for the Study of Social Policy Children and youth need to be affirmed in their identities in order to be healthy and to thrive. This is a statement of fact and not contested opinion; it is backed by research, and it is supported by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In spite of this, Governor Abbott of Texas is using his power to intentionally harm children and youth by doing the exact opposite of what we all know...