Tagged With "Center for Prevention and Counseling"
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A Welcome Message from the Commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Children and Families
Dear NJ Resiliency Coalition Community Members, One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou. She said “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” This statement gives permission and grace for us to change our thinking, change policies, and change the world we live in. During my earlier work as an Assistant Commissioner with the Department of Children and Families (NJ DCF), and then in my work at Casey Family Programs, research about adverse childhood...
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Addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences through a Coordinated Statewide Response in New Jersey
July 31, 2019, By Sana Hashim, MPH, CPH, CHES, Center for Health Care Strategies. States nationwide increasingly recognize the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on their communities, families, businesses, and workplaces. ACEs include all types of abuse, neglect, and other potentially traumatic experiences for children and youth under the age of 18. These exposures are linked to greater potential for risky health behaviors, chronic health conditions, and early death. With this...
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New Jersey Appoints National ACEs Expert to Head Office of Resilience
June 9, 2020, Trenton, NJ – The New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF) today announced that Dave Ellis has been named as Executive on Loan to the State of New Jersey, functioning as the first Executive Director for the Office of Resilience within DCF. Ellis will share his expertise with the state and coordinate statewide efforts to prevent, protect against, and heal from the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs are stressful or traumatic events, including...
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Weekly Highlights
Neighborhood conditions associated with children’s cognitive function November 4, 2020 U.S. National Institutes of Health A study published today in JAMA Network Open shows that children from poorer neighborhoods perform less well on a range of cognitive functions, such as verbal ability, reading skills, memory, and attention, and have smaller brain volumes in key cognitive regions compared to those from wealthier neighborhoods. While multiple studies have shown that household socioeconomic...
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A Statewide Vision to Address the Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences: A Conversation with New Jersey’s Office of Resilience Leadership
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — such as abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, family dysfunction, and racism — can negatively impact a child’s developing brain and body, as well as long-term health and social outcomes. In New Jersey, over 40 percent of children are estimated to have experienced at least one ACE, with 18 percent experiencing multiple ACEs. Given the prevalence of ACEs and their potential life-long consequences, New Jersey is coordinating a statewide strategy to...
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NJ medical school program requires all first-year students to learn about ACEs science
In 2015, Dr. Beth Pletcher, a pediatrician and associate professor specializing in genetics, was at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington D.C. when she heard two speakers that forever changed her work with medical students. Dr. Beth Pletcher “I went to two talks on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that were so mind-boggling to me that I decided on my drive back to New Jersey that I had to do something about it,”says Pletcher, director of the Division...
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Nicholson Foundation Funding Efforts to Address ACEs and Build Resilience in New Jersey on Multiple Fronts
Since 2018, The Nicholson Foundation has been working hard to make New Jersey a leader among states in how it addresses, treats, and prevents Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)—traumatic events that can cause children lifelong physical, mental, and social damage. Over the past two years, The Nicholson Foundation has invested $3.5 million in efforts that directly prevent ACEs or build resilience to their effects and complementary programs and services that support healthy child development...
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Nashville’s Purposeful Twist on ACEs: All Children Excel
In 2015, the pieces that became ACE Nashville began to fall into place. A five-year Community Health Improvement Plan included the support of mental and emotional health as one of its three goals. A core team of individuals from the Metro Public Health Department (MPHD), Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee and the Family Center, a non-profit focused on breaking generational cycles of child trauma, began to meet weekly. And a citywide “consensus workshop” in April of that year—drawing 44...
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The Turrell Fund is proud to present the first Turrell Town Hall featuring Dave Ellis, Office of Resilience, NJDCF discussing ACEs.
Welcome! Thank you for your interest in the first-ever Turrell Town Hall, a virtual discussion series for Turrell grantees, partners, and networks. Hosted and moderated by Evan Delgado, Vice President of Programs at the Turrell Fund, this Town Hall will feature Dave Ellis, Executive Director of the Office of Resilience at the New Jersey Department of Children & Families to discuss statewide developments around Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the key role of Turrell affiliates...
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ACEs Action Plan to make New Jersey a “trauma-informed/healing centered state” launched on February 4 by Governor Phil Murphy and other key officials
Growing up with trauma inextricably linked to racism in southern Illinois, working as a state employee in Minnesota, training folks about ACEs and diversity and equity in several states—these are just a few of the life experiences Dave Ellis brings to the work he is now doing as Executive Director of the New Jersey Office of Resilience. Seven months ago Ellis took the job to head the Office of Resilience with the assurance that there would be a deep and meaningful focus on community...
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ACEs Action Plan launched to make New Jersey a 'trauma-informed/ healing centered state'
Growing up with trauma inextricably linked to racism in southern Illinois, working as a state employee in Minnesota, training folks about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and diversity and equity in several states—these are just a few of the life experiences Dave Ellis brings to the work he is now doing as executive director of the New Jersey Office of Resilience. Seven months ago Ellis took the job to head the Office of Resilience with the assurance that there would be a deep and...
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Racial Equity and Philanthropy
“... Philanthropy is overlooking leaders of color who have the most lived experience with and understanding of the problems we are trying to solve.”
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John Lewis | American Civil rights Leader and Politician
John Lewis, in full John Robert Lewis, (born February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama, U.S.—died July 17, 2020, Atlanta, Georgia), American civil rights leader and politician best known for his chairmanship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and for leading the march that was halted by police violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, a landmark event in the history of the civil rights movement that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” A brief history of...
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she was a research associate and then...
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Dr. Gabor Maté – Trauma as disconnection from the self
“Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you” Scotland is in the midst of a growing grassroots movement aimed at increasing public awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). We now have glaring scientific evidence that childhood adversity can create harmful levels of stress, especially if a child is left to manage their responses to that adversity without emotionally reliable relationships. The vision for ACE Aware Nation is that...
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Connections Matter New Jersey - Join the Movement!
Eighteen months ago, nobody could have predicted how much the world would have changed, or how much we would have learned to appreciate the incredible power of connections. In October 2019, a group of 30 state and community leaders gathered together to be the first class of trained Connections Matter NJ facilitators leading the effort to spread this important message across the state. The message is this: Everyday connections are more important than we ever believed. Science tells us that...
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Murphy Administration Announces Second Phase of Rental Assistance Program for New Jersey Residents Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic
Program Devotes Approximately $353 Million to Help Low- to Moderate-Income Households, Including the Homeless TRENTON, NJ - Recognizing that New Jersey residents continue to need rental assistance during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Murphy Administration today announced that the application period for a second phase of the COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program will open on March 22, 2021. The federally-funded program will provide approximately $353 million in rental assistance...
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The Path Forward
A discussion on racial equity in housing and an inclusive economy One in three households — nearly 100 million people across the U.S. — struggle with housing costs that jeopardize their financial security, according to the Aspen Institute. As one of the biggest determinants of financial and physical health, housing can influence a person’s access to education, health care and job opportunities, and has the ability to transform entire communities and strengthen the economy. And yet, while the...
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Antonia Hernández
According to Antonia Hernández, she “went to law school for one reason: to use the law as a vehicle for social change.” Decades later, she can claim numerous legal victories for the Latinx community in the areas of voting rights, employment, education, and immigration. From legal aid work, to counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, to head of a major civil rights organization, Hernández has used the law to realize social change at every turn. Antonia Hernández was born in Torreón, Mexico...
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Show+Tell New Jersey: Innovations in Health and Early Childhood
Please join The Nicholson Foundation for Show+Tell New Jersey: Innovations in Health and Early Childhood Tuesday, April 20 1 PM - 2:30 PM EDT REGISTER The Nicholson Foundation is pleased to be partnering with Promise Venture Studio to bring you Show+Tell New Jersey: Innovations in Health and Early Childhood , a virtual event that will highlight 12 outstanding programs working to improve the health and well-being of children and families across New Jersey . In just 90 minutes, you’ll hear...
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Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM)
April is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Currently, the Division on Women (DOW) supports statewide community-level primary prevention efforts to prevent sexual violence. To advance these efforts, we work with non-traditional partners and consider them as experts in their own lives and community pillars for change . We believe that impactful primary prevention efforts begin with community engagement and providing tools to communities so they can empower themselves. As such, our...
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National Trauma Campaign
Join the Campaign Join this nationwide grassroots campaign to engage congressional offices and other federal leaders in supporting policies, programs, legislation, and appropriations that prevent and respond to childhood trauma and build resilience. Join here
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Law and Disability Conference 5/5 @ 9:30AM EST
The Law and Disability Conference is held each year at the New Jersey Law Center and is cosponsored with the Community Health Law Project . This year, we will be pivoting to an online format due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The topics for the 2021 Law and Disability Conference will include: supportive housing, special needs trusts, Medicaid eligibility and transition from children’s to adult system of care. The 2021 Conference will be held Wednesday, May 5, 2021 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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Interview with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris & Dave Ellis
We recently sat down with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s first surgeon general, and Dave Ellis, the first executive director of the Office of Resilience at the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. A pioneering voice on prevention, early identification, and treatment of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Dr. Burke Harris gained national prominence with her viral 2015 TED talk on this topic. Dave Ellis made his name as a national leader in providing trainings and...
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NJ spends $445K a year to lock a kid up. We’ve got a better idea. | Opinion By Charles Loflin | Star Ledger Guest Columnist
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...
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NJ Community of Care Consortium
Join us for a discussion with Dave Ellis, Executive Director for the Office of Resilience with the NJ Department of Children and Families (DCF). Hear about New Jersey’s efforts to prevent, protect against, and heal from the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACESs) and opportunities for collaboration and family engagement. Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2021 Time: 10:00 am to Noon Location: Virtual Register: https://tinyurl.com/8dp4ruzm More detailed agenda will soon follow. For any...
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Reclaiming the Narrative of Black Fatherhood
Fathers play a critical role in the healthy development of children and families. This is why it's important to address structural and systemic barriers that prevent Black men from being fully present in their children's lives—so that all families have a chance to thrive. My wife and I have been married since 2019, but we’ve known each other since we were 14-year-olds. We are raising a blended family. She has a daughter who is 9 and a 7-year-old son. I have a son who is 8, and together we...
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Think you know something about historical trauma? PACEs Connection's 'Historical Trauma in America' series promises to be an eye-opener
Per: Jane Stevens , PACEs Connection staff. The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 unleashed hundreds of articles, books, podcasts, film and online documentaries. It’s not that the roots of racism and inequity in historical trauma hadn’t been known about or written about previous to his death (Frederick Douglas, James Baldwin, anyone?), but the pressures of hundreds of years of injustice began a near explosive untangling from the massive twisted and angry knot they’d formed over generations.
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ED-GRANTS-071321-001
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Office of Indian Education (OIE): American Rescue Plan (ARP)-American Indian Resilience in Education (ARP-AIRE) Assistance Listing Number 84.299C Department of Education Click her for funding opportunity. Purpose: Provides grants to support local educational agencies (LEAs) in their efforts to reform elementary and secondary school programs that serve Indian students. Programs are to be based on challenging state content and student...
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There are no perfect parents!
"Parenting is a learned skill, but society says as parents we can only talk about the good things that happen while parenting. It judges parents based on the child’s behavior, clothing and their school attendance. Children are judged by their parent’s behavior, clothing and choices. There is no shortage of blame, shame and judgment to go around. So what happens when a parent has a high ACE score and they want to truly prevent their children from having the same? What happens when they want...
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Suicide Prevention Resources
Experts agree that the best way to prevent suicide is to talk about it, but people are often afraid to bring it up. Stigma plays a big role in our reluctance, but it’s also scary to acknowledge that someone you love might be feeling suicidal. People are understandably afraid of saying the wrong thing, too. In recognition of Suicide Prevention Awareness month, this week on childmind.org we share resources for families worried about suicide. Teenagers are notoriously prickly and teenagers...
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Position Statement: Social Equity In New Jersey Demands Appropriate Use of The ACE Study
The New Jersey ACES Collaborative1 is committed to pursuing a standard of excellence in the engagement, partnering, and servicing of New Jersey residents and communities. This commitment demands we continuously review and assess the unique and comprehensive ways we provide that service. In 2019, the Collaborative released Adverse Childhood Experiences: Opportunities to Prevent, Protect Against, and Heal from the Effects of ACEs in New Jersey. This report identified five areas of...
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October is Domestic Violence Awareness
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and while the unfortunate truth is that domestic violence occurs all year-round, this month offers us the opportunity to continue to engage others about the social, emotional and economic impact domestic violence has on individuals, families and communities. On Thursday, October 21 st , we’ll be raising awareness by wearing PURPLE , the color that represents support for domestic violence victims and survivors. Resources can be found here DCF...
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FREE 2-Day Conference on The Body Keeps The Score
Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk is offering a 2-day virtual conference on his landmark presentation, The Body Keeps the Score, on 13th and 14th December 2021. The fact that it is free and open to everyone makes it even more exciting. "I’m presenting this training to serve as both a guide and an invitation—an invitation to dedicate ourselves to facing the reality of trauma, to explore how best to treat it, and to commit ourselves, as a society, to using every means we have to prevent it." - Dr. Bessel...
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State Actions To Prevent And Mitigate Adverse Childhood Experiences [National Governors Association]
The National Governors Association along with the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy and the National Academy for State Health Policy, released today, December 9, the report "State Actions To Prevent And Mitigate Adverse Childhood Experiences." The Executive Summary is included below. To read the entire report, click here. An article about the NGA Learning Collaborative and this report will be posted soon on PACEs Connection. Preventing and mitigating adverse childhood experiences and...
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Project Self-Sufficiency program supports trauma survivors, promotes prevention
By Community Bulletin The Newton-based Project Self-Sufficiency will continue the workshop and discussion series, “PACEs at PSS”, designed to facilitate the conversation about issues surrounding Positive & Adverse Childhood Experiences (PACEs), with a virtual session on Monday, Feb. 7 at 5 p.m. Participants are invited to explore the Connections Matter curriculum, a program funded by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families and led by Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey designed to...
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Register now! Building the Movement in the Child Welfare and Justice Systems February 4, 2022
Starting February 4th, 2022 - 1pm-5pm ET/10am-2pm PT - Building the Movement in the Child Welfare and Justice Systems UP NEXT: Workshop #4 Building the Movement through Transformative Justice and Faith-Based Communities February 18, 2022 - 1pm-5pm ET/10am-2pm PT Breakout Zoom Room Info: Click here to join Meeting ID: 817 9558 1220 Passcode: 177960 Making these sectors trauma-informed, prevention-focused, and healing-centered You’re invited to participate in the third of eight remarkable...
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Connections Matter NJ Facilitator Training Announcement
Everyday connections are more important than we ever believed. Science tells us that relationships have the power to shape our brains. Relationships help us learn better, work better, parent better. When we experience tough times, they help us heal. With each connection, we develop a healthier, stronger community. Connections Matter is a healing-centered curriculum that teaches adults how to use the power of connections to help develop healthy brains and supportive relationships, prevent and...
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Systemically Neglected How Racism Structures Public Systems to Produce Child Neglect
In recent years, more than a quarter of a million children each year have been removed from their families and placed in foster care because of alleged neglect and these children are disproportionately Black or Indigenous. Too often, circumstances stemming from poverty are construed as neglect, but underlying both poverty and neglect is historic and present-day racism. This report outlines the history of how child protective services developed to over-surveil families of color, examines how...
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Latest News
We must combat the myth of declining homelessness — in New Jersey and beyond | Opinion Paul R. Shackford | The Bergen Record via Yahoo.com Last fall, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge announced the “House America” program to fund the rehousing of 100,000 families and the building of 20,000 affordable housing units. The goal is admirable but the reality here in Bergen County is that affordable rentals are a myth. The opportunity for local working families to find...
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'Perfect timing' for CDC funding to take PACEs work in New Jersey to next level with focus on prevention
@Kamala Allen , vice president, program operations and child health quality, Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) and principal investigator, CDC PACEs: D2A award to CHCS. Liz Buck is project director. _____________________________ “The timing couldn’t have been more perfect,” says Kamala Allen, principal investigator for the New Jersey-based Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS). She was referring to the award from CDC’s Preventing ACEs: Data to Action (PACE: D2A) of $400,000 per...
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Pioneering child-advocacy office loses its leader
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...
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Office Announcement
As you may already be aware, the two year contract with Dave Ellis, DCF’s Executive on Loan (EOL) to coordinate statewide efforts to prevent, protect against, and heal from the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) has ended. I know this is disappointing to so many of us whose lives, organizations and philosophies, Dave touched and influenced, but the EOL role was always expected to be short term. Together with support from DCF and philanthropy (the Burke Foundation, The Nicholson...
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A Heads Up On The CROWN Act: Employees’ Natural Hairstyles Now Protected (natlawreview.com)
On July 3, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 188 also known as the Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act. The CROWN Act amends the California Education Code and the Fair Employment and Housing Act’s definition of race to include traits historically associated with race, including hair texture and protective hairstyles. Protective hairstyles include, but are not limited to, “braids, locks, and twists.” The legislation makes California the...
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FREE TRAUMA - INFORMED WORKSHOPS!!!
The Building a National Movement to Prevent Trauma and Foster Resilience: Workshop Series brought experts from sectors across the country to accelerate the movement by providing stakeholders, advocates and practitioners with the tools necessary to encourage and assist systems in every community in integrating trauma-informed, resilience-focused, and healing-centered approaches and principles into their daily operations, thereby making America trauma-informed. Click the link below to access...
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Welcome to the NJ Resiliency Coalition Community!
The NJ Resiliency Coalition is an online community where people living and working in New Jersey can come together to help lean into positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and help mitigate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to create a healthier and happier state. This public online learning group was created by the NJ ACEs Collaborative , the Office of Resilience , the Center for Health Care Strategies , and the New Jersey Education Association . This platform will be made stronger by the...
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The NJ Office of Resilience Wants to Hear from You
The NJ Office of Resilience wants to connect with you, in your community, to introduce or advance information and programs that help to prevent and heal the trauma that affects people’s ability to thrive! While traumatic experiences can occur at any age, I’m primarily referring to ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences, that happen to children and can have lasting effects into adulthood, especially if not countered with Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs). Together, positive, and adverse...
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It Takes a Village: Conference to Support Early Parenting
Together with the CJFHC, Prevent Child Abuse-NJ will be co-sponsoring a mini-conference entitled “It Takes a Village: Supporting Early Parenting” for anyone working with families in the early days of parenting. The early days of parenting can be filled will joy, excitement and also overwhelming stress as new parents adapt to all the changes a baby brings. Come learn about how to support new families to get off to a strong start! The event is free and will include breakfast. Register here: ...
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Re: The NJ Office of Resilience Has Shifted Its Focus from ACEs to PACEs
The Camarillo, CA nonprofit Advancing Parenting would like to share our free resource…sets of parenting norms bumper stickers. They can be put in holders and placed on counters so folks can choose one for their cars or they can be given away at meetings and events. Bumper stickers are an easy and powerful way for community members to promote positive childhood experiences and prevent adverse childhood experiences. Just one will be read thousands of times! Visit www.advancingparenting.org to...