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 department is now searching for a new director to lead the work implementing a statewide plan Ellis helped create to enable New Jersey to better understand the lasting impact of trauma and promote options for recovery.
“We’re incredibly grateful to Dave Ellis for sharing his wisdom and expertise with us and for setting New Jersey on course to mitigate adverse childhood experiences and trauma,” commissioner Christine Norbut Beyer said. “Thanks in part to his work, New Jersey is emerging as a national leader in responding to ACEs and healing our residents.”
Advocates use the word “resilience” to mean adapting to or overcoming adversities and trauma. Studies show that some two in five New Jersey youngsters experience ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences — things like poverty, homelessness, racism, violence and parental addiction or incarceration — that can have lifelong impacts on their health and welfare. Children who face multiple traumas are far more likely to struggle in school, encounter legal trouble and experience addictions or chronic health issues like asthma, obesity and cancer, compared with those who don’t.
Private partners to fight trauma
In 2018 a trio of New Jersey-based foundations — the Nicholson Foundation, Burke Foundation and Turrell Fund — joined forces to advance work here on such childhood experiences. They partnered with the department to create what they said is the nation’s first state-level office focused on helping children, families and communities heal from trauma. They tapped Ellis, a Minnesota native with decades of experience, to spearhead the initiative under what the department called a “new government-staffing paradigm.” Ellis’s salary — a number state officials could not provide Thursday — was paid by two of the foundations, Nicholson and Burke, while the state funded a five-member staff and office infrastructure.
“Preventing ACES means changing lives — literally changing the trajectory of generational adversity,” Ellis said when hired. (He was unavailable for comment Thursday.) “We’re talking about shifting a culture here. And that’s going to take time.”
Ellis’s contract is set to expire at the end of this month, though state officials said it is likely he will continue to serve as a consultant in New Jersey and elsewhere. The Nicholson Foundation, which focused on health care access in low-income communities, ended its participation in 2021, after distributing nearly $150 million over two decades to improve health outcomes for low-income New Jerseyans.
The Burke Foundation has shifted its investment to maternal health, an issue that has gained momentum under the leadership of first lady Tammy Murphy and her Nurture NJ advocacy campaign, which the organization has supported. Burke said Thursday that what it learned through the ACEs collaborative prompted a “strategic pivot” to focus on supporting babies and caregivers during the first 1,000 days of life, an approach designed to prevent and reduce trauma’s lasting impacts.
“We’ve been so grateful to be part of this groundbreaking initiative to raise awareness of, prevent and mitigate the impact of ACES to improve long-term health and wellbeing in New Jersey,” Burke executive director Atiya Weiss said.
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