*This invite is nationwide and open to community members and youth! The NJ People’s Gathering is a first of its kind, open, online learning collaborative conference, being held on September 22, 2022, to bring together people from all walks of life to discuss healing solutions to the big issues affecting New Jersey’s communities: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Collective trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic Youth mental health and wellbeing Material Needs (homelessness, hunger) being...

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...

CANCER PREVENTION ACROSS THE LIFESPAN Thursday, May 19 | 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. ET Hear the perspectives of two states about their state plans to address Adverse Childhood Experiences, implementation strategies and coalition building. Register Now

Thank you, to all the administrators and behind the scene folks at PACES Connection This platform would not be possible without you.

Lyra Walsh Fuchs | DissentMagazine.org Over 630,000 children, who are disproportionately Black and Indigenous, were “served by the foster care system” in 2020, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. That number doesn’t account for the many families placed under informal supervisory plans, or who received surprise knocks on their doors from caseworkers, often accompanied by police. Dorothy Roberts and a growing number of activists across the country have another...

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2022 THE PALACE AT SOMERSET PARK 333 DAVIDSON AVENUE FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, NJ 08873 Click here to register Join us at the 2022 Early Relational Health (ERH) Summit to hear from national experts and learn how foundational relationships between young children and their caregivers impact physical health, child development, social well-being, and resilience. This summit is designed to bring together forward-thinking pediatric healthcare professionals, early childcare providers,...

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...

Agenda: · Commissioner welcome · National debate about whether to screen for ACEs in the clinical setting. · Risks associated with ACEs screening in pediatric primary care settings · ACEs through an equity lens

We are pleased to invite you to attend the 2022 Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Indigenous Programs Conference! This exciting event will be held virtually via Zoom, starting Tuesday, March 22 through Thursday, March 24, 2022 , with each day starting at 1:30 PM (EST) and ending at 7:30 PM (EST). Below, you will find a copy of the agenda to review the full list of plenary, workshop, and networking sessions. Event Overview & Agenda The meeting will include outstanding Native...

Click here for cover photo credit Remembering The Historic Black Miami Community Destroyed To Build A Whites-Only School At least 200 Black towns and communities had been formed across the United States by 1888. According to a Washington Post article, several of these towns were modeled after Black communities founded during the American Revolution and during the antebellum period, which lasted from the late 1700s until 1860. Some settlements vanished completely as time passed. Others were...

Meet African War Hero Who Sank A German Ship With Bomb Made From Milk-Can But Was Refused Highest Decoration During World War II, Job Maseko , a South African war hero, sunk an enemy ship with an improvised bomb hidden in a milk container. Maseko, a member of the South African Native Military Corps (NMC), was awarded the Military Medal for his “meritorious and courageous” action, which he described as demonstrating “ingenuity, resolve, and full disregard for personal safety.” The Military...

Afternoon Keynote Speaker — Dave Ellis: “What’s Strong With You? A Conversation About Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) versus (ACEs)" Dave Ellis, executive director of the NJ Office of Resilience, gave an enthralling talk about community and what it takes to build it meaningfully, inviting audience members to get to know each other better. "I know a whole bunch of folks who don't agree with the world according to data, and the biggest conversation that I like having with them is, 'Help...

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have faced increased stress over the cost, availability and quality of health care, and distrust in our health system has heightened. This webinar will provide a deep dive into the impact that COVID-19 has had on the health care system, particularly in marginalized communities, and solutions to build and rebuild trust. Kathleen Noonan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, a nonprofit healthcare...

Trenton – New Jersey’s ACEs Collaborative today announced that screening for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by care providers should be used as a means to provide assistance and referrals to children and families, not as a diagnostic or treatment tool. In a position paper released today, the Collaborative – a coalition of state-based foundations, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, and its Office of Resilience – advised that ACE screening results are an opportunity for...

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...

Funding Up to $3,000,000 available for community collaboration and innovation microgrants over two (2) years. Each RAC shall receive up to $425,000 per year for community innovation microgrants There will be a Non-Mandatory Informational Bidders Conference for this RFP On October 19, 2021 at 12:00PM on Zoom. Questions are due by October 15, 2021 at 12:00 PM Bids are due: November 10, 2021 at 12:00 PM https://www.nj.gov/dcf/providers/notices/requests/2021_RFP-ACES.Innovation.Grant.10.8.21.pdf

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021 CUMAC’s two-story facility in Northern New Jersey has the look and feel of a standard food bank, with a warehouse, a handful of trucks, a client-choice pantry, and even a small garden. In practice, the operation has a mission that goes much further than giving out food or even addressing the root causes of hunger. In the view of Executive Director Mark Dinglasan, problems related to food insecurity go back — way back — to childhood traumas and the harmful impacts they...

By Sixto Cancel Mr. Cancel is the founder of an organization dedicated to changing foster care in America. When I was 15, an usher at my church offered to become my foster parent. Hers was one of the best foster homes I lived in. But she wanted a son. It was more than I was able to give. I had been in foster care since I was 11 months old because of my mother’s drug addiction and poverty. Adopted at age 9 by a racist and abusive woman, I was locked out of the house at age 13. For two years,...

The study found that scores assessing childhood trauma exposure among adults with substance misuse issues were 24% higher than previous estimates for other adults in the child welfare system, and 108% higher than the general population. While many parents and caregivers involved in the child welfare system suffered trauma as children, new research suggests that those with substance misuse issues as adults may have had particularly difficult childhoods. Not surprisingly, children in these...

Watch the virtual press conference in which representatives from the NJ ACEs Collaborative, along with State and community leaders, kicked off an exciting new public awareness campaign designed to highlight how we all can play a part to reduce the effects of childhood adversity, through actions both large and small that demonstrate compassion and promote a sense of emotional safety. How will you act to address ACEs in your community? Visit https://www.actions4aces.com/ and help amplify 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...

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...

Before Breonna Taylor's name became synonymous with police violence against Black Americans, she was an emergency medical technician in Louisville, Ky. The 26-year-old Black woman's friends and family say she was beloved, and relished the opportunity to brighten someone else's day. Exactly one year ago, Louisville police gunned her down in her home. Now, her name is a ubiquitous rallying cry at protests calling for police reforms, and many social justice advocates point to her story as an...

Getting into college for disadvantaged students is only half the battle. Anthony Abraham Jack, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, reveals how and why they struggle and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive. He urges us to grapple with a simple fact: access is not inclusion. A nthony Abraham Jack is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and Assistant Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

I've been with DCF for nearly 15 years and for the first 10 years or so I was a child protection worker, and while in that role, I sent numerous children to YMCA Camp Huguenot . The experiences had by my kids at Camp Huguenot was LIFE CHANGING! It saddens me to know that so many children will no longer be able to attend Camp Huguenot and reconnect with friends especially during these trying times. The Greater New York YMCA said that because of pandemic losses to the tune of $100 million, the...

Last month New Jersey unveiled a unique action plan to help families and communities protect against and heal from the effects of adverse childhood experiences that can cause harm to individuals and families for generations. After a year of living under intense pandemic pressures, the need has likely never been so great. Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, impact four of ten youngsters in New Jersey across racial and economic lines according to a 2019 report . These traumas – such as...

Building relationships of healing, redemption and reconciliation in families and communities impacted by crime and mass incarceration. We cannot talk about healing communities without talking about restorative justice.