Tagged With "Microgrant Moment"
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Weekly Highlights
Murphy signs bill to release thousands of N.J. prisoners early beginning the day after Election Day On October 19th, Governor Murphy signed legislation to free those trapped inside New Jersey jails, prisons, and halfway houses, where they face the worst COVID-19 outbreak of any prison system in the country. We anticipate that over 2,000 men and women within 8 months of their release date will gain relief from Public Health Emergency Credits, and will be released in the first week of...
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Self-Healing Communities Model, Co-Hosted with CTIPP, Second in a series
Self-Healing Communities Model, co hosted with CTIPP Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019, 3-4:00 ET (Noon-1:00 PT) Second in a series on state-to-state best practices featuring the self-healing community model Self-Healing Community Model , Washington, developed networks that promoted collaboration across sectors and empowered local leaders to think about whole systems. The use of data helped prioritize efforts and learn what was working. Beyond Washington State, numerous other states are using the...
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U.S. Coast Guard honors Black veteran, NFL great
Above is U.S. Coast Guard photo of Emlen Tunnell, who served in the Coast Guard during and after World War II, was the first Black player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Before he became the first Black player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Emlen Tunnell served in the U.S. Coast Guard during and after World War II, where he was credited with saving the lives of two shipmates. Now, a Coast Guard cutter and an athletic building on the Coast Guard Academy campus are...
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Black history explains why COVID-19 has ravaged that community | Opinion
By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist By Hamid Shaaban Black History Month is often observed by commemorating Black excellence and honoring the remarkable achievements and contributions of Black people in the United States and around the world. This month, I propose to all my colleagues in healthcare and medicine to promote and advance education about the history of medical racism. That history is Black history and it is often neglected and remains largely unacknowledged. It’s important to...
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New Jersey's Own Whitney Houston
Today marks nine years since we lost an icon, the indelible mark Whitney Houston left on this world continues on today! With over 200 million combined album, singles and videos sold worldwide during her career with Arista Records, Whitney Houston has established a benchmark for superstardom that will quite simply never be eclipsed in the modern era. She is a singer’s singer who has influenced countless other vocalists female and male. Music historians cite Whitney’s record-setting...
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Healing From Childhood Trauma
NEWS POSTED ON SEP 13, 2018 Childhood trauma can really shake you up, but you can heal from it. ACEs are adverse (harmful) childhood experiences that impact brain development. They can damage immune systems and change how people respond to stress. The physical effects of ACEs can show up even decades after the occurrences of toxic experiences themselves. The groundbreaking CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study showed that ACEs are often at the root of some mental illnesses, violence, social 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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Black History NJ: The Complete Series
Jersey Joe Walcott Arnold Raymond Cream, aka Jersey Joe Walcott, was born in Merchantville, NJ, on Jan. 31, 1914. He held the record for the oldest heavyweight champion for more than four decades. His father, an immigrant from Barbados, died when Walcott was 15, which forced him to go to work to provide for his mother and younger siblings. At 16-years-old, he began boxing professionally and adopted Jersey Joe Walcott as his moniker… Carla Harris Montclair resident Carla Harris is an author,...
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50,000 members strong! ACEs Connection invites you to celebrate, reminisce and commemorate our collective growth
On March 4th at 12 pm PT (3 pm ET), we’re stopping for an hour to gather around Zoom screens to celebrate the work of ACEs Connection. We’d love for you to join us to share stories about how we learned about ACEs science, what happened in our personal and work lives as a result of joining ACEs Connection, and what we hope the long-term impact of this knowledge will be. In addition to you who celebrate with us, we'll have other guests, including Ann Borowiec (NJ Resiliency Coalition member) ,...
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Juliette Hampton
Healthy racial identity development among older white youth is a bit more complex. Often, white students must come to understand that society attaches meaning to their whiteness and that they have a choice about how to be white in a multicultural society. The American Civil Rights Movement was a movement of the people. Black and white, male and female, Jew and Christian, rich and poor -- ordinary people who came together across differences to advance this nation's core value of equality and...
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Just Belonging: Finding the Courage to Interrupt Bias | Kori Carew
A moment of racial tension presents a choice. Will we be silent about implicit and unconscious bias, or will we interrupt bias for ourselves and others? Justice, belonging, and community are at stake. Kori Carew is a community builder who generates awareness and understanding of critical human issues by creating the space and climate for open dialogue that is meaningful, enables people to expand their perspective and drive positive change. With grace and truth, she is a disruptor, womanist...
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The Relentless School Nurse: I am a School Nurse in an Urban Rich Community
The urban richness of Camden, New Jersey Whenever I am asked where I work, I describe my community as urban. Starting today, I will use the term urban rich, thanks to a conversation I had with Dwana Young, a new colleague from the New Jersey Office of Resilience . We were engaged in a lively conversation about the exciting work happening in New Jersey and envisioning possibilities for innovative collaborations. Once again, I described my Camden, New Jersey school community as an urban...
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Advocates push for yearly screenings of NJ students for drugs, depression
Not many young students will volunteer information, unprompted, about feelings of depression or their recent experimentation with drugs. That's why advocates, school employees and lawmakers are pushing for regular screenings of students at the middle- and high-school levels, as long as their parents consent. With a caseload of 400 students, counselor Cristina Puri at Lincoln Park Middle School typically wouldn't end up seeing a troubled student until someone else sensed an issue or the...
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Many say now is the time to fight racial bias in foster care | By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer
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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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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Finding Peace in the Midst of Brokenness: Anonymous Blogger
In honor of mental health month I ask myself this question: What is something you need to start saying “yes” to? To most individuals the answer is very simple; minute. Unfortunately for an over thinker and self-doubter like I this is a loaded questions which constitutes a complex answer. My old self wants to run as fast as I can and hide until the question goes away, but the new me is ready to face it head on. So here it goes. I need to start saying yes to MYSELF! Over the past few months,...
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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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West Point statue honors famed Buffalo Soldiers
Black cavalry unit taught horsemanship to white cadets, suffered racism. By SARAHMASLIN NIR and PRECIOUS FONDREN New York Times WEST POINT, N.Y. – A large crowd watched expectantly as a soldier tugged at a black cloth spread over a monumental statue on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Friday. As it fell away, it revealed a bronze statue of a Black soldier sitting astride a stallion, a tribute to the U.S. Army’s famed Black cavalry — the Buffalo Soldiers — who for...
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Your Brain Makes You a Different Person Every Day Our brains are wired for new sensations.
BY STEVE PAULSON OCTOBER 14, 2020 Brain “plasticity” is one of the great discoveries in modern science, but neuroscientist David Eagleman thinks the word is misleading. Unlike plastic, which molds and then retains a particular shape, the brain’s physical structure is continually in flux. But Eagleman can’t avoid the word. “The whole literature uses that term plasticity, so I use it sparingly,” he says. Eagleman also discounts computer analogies to the brain. He’s coined the term “livewired”...
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RFP - THREE REGIONAL ACES COLLABORATIVES (RAC) FOR COMMUNITY INNOVATION MICROGRANTS
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
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Need to fund your resilience initiative? Here’s how.
Chart is sample page from county-by-county funding allocated as part of ARPA. Information is available by clicking here. This is the first of several articles on the importance of any resilience-focused entity, including your PACEs Connection community, seeking out the people in your area allocating ARPA funding and asking for money. Organizations do not necessarily have to be 501 C-3 nonprofits to receive funding. Thanks to federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to states in April...
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EARLY RELATIONAL HEALTH SUMMIT: JOINING HANDS TO PROMOTE FOUNDATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS FOR EVERY CHILD
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,...
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What is racial healing?
We join our fellow community members in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in solidarity and sorrow after the police killing of Patrick Lyoya , who was a father and son. In media coverage, we saw the gut-wrenching grief of his family reflected on his mother’s face. Mrs. Lyoya’s expression is a stark visual reminder of the way systemic racial violence disrupts the lives of children, families and communities every day . All our communities confront crises born of racism, which is embedded in all of our...
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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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Microgrant Moment - Be Inc. Collective
It was a Thursday evening around 6pm, and the youth center at UrbanPromise Ministries in Camden, NJ was a hive of activity. Kids buzzed with energy as parents signed in at the greeter table, while down the hall a line of eager possibly people were being served a hot meal before finding seats in the main room. Further down the hall was the childcare room bright with colors and activities awaiting little hands to use them. Welcome to the Be Inc. Collective Family Café! Brainchild of Siomara...
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Microgrant Moment - Build 360
Everything starts with a vision! The vision of one organization was curated with passion, dedication, persistence, and drive. NWON Opportunities, has been in business for years. Staff there are creating opportunities for young people, people of color, and women who have building construction skills and are between 18–25-years-old. In 2022, the Office of Resilience within the NJ Department of Children and Families created a microgrant program for communities to design programs that help to...
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Microgrant Moment - Holy Family Parrish
A small purple ukulele sat inside Deacon Nelson’s office, waiting for its next musician. Deacon Nelson picked it up and started to play. “ The ukulele is easy to play. It is a soft instrument.” Deacon Nelson’s connection to music is clear – music has the ability to heal, to calm the noise all around. A guitar player himself, Deacon Nelson wanted to give this same gift of music to the youth of his community. He landed on the ukulele because of its relative affordability and ease of playing.
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Microgrant Moment: Career Academy at Trenton Central High School
Dress for Success- Central New Jersey is dedicated to empowering women and teen girls by providing them with clothing and essential workforce development tools. Their mission is to instill confidence through effective communication, personal branding, and image enhancement, guiding these individuals to the next level of their academic and professional journeys. Dress for Success Mercer County began modestly in 2007 as a small affiliate, primarily focused on providing clothing to women...
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Microgrant Moment: Makers Place- YOU FIRST!
Makers Place, launched in July 2018, was founded on the principles of asset-based community development, emphasizing the value of building relationships and fostering a sense of community strength. Instead of focusing on what a community lacks, Makers Place recognizes and celebrates the inherent gifts within each individual. The organization is committed to bringing people together and leveraging community support to create a more unified and empowered environment. The challenges posed by...
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Microgrant Moment: Makers Place- YOU FIRST!
Makers Place, launched in July 2018, was founded on the principles of asset-based community development, emphasizing the value of building relationships and fostering a sense of community strength. Instead of focusing on what a community lacks, Makers Place recognizes and celebrates the inherent gifts within each individual. The organization is committed to bringing people together and leveraging community support to create a more unified and empowered environment. The challenges posed by...
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Microgrant Moment- Bloom Project
The Bloom Project, initiated by Sanar Institute to address the profound impact of adverse childhood experiences, particularly violence, stands as a beacon of hope and healing. Established with a prevention-oriented mindset, the project provides trauma healing services to youth and young adults who have endured adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). By facilitating their journey towards holistic well-being, the Bloom Project aspires to heal existing trauma and also to mitigate the risk of...
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Microgrant Moment: Expressive Art Therapy
Program Name: Expressive Art Therapy RAC: CUMAC Organization name: Aspire NJ Person of Contact: Davida Hunter Davida Hunter was a longtime school counselor about to start Expressive Art Therapy, a program for children, when the pandemic disrupted her plans. What she found was that during COVID, while it was easy enough to provide online therapy, she was finding it difficult to keep the attention of the children with which she worked. To address this, Davida and her coworker, a former art...
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Microgrant Moment: Champions For Life
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.
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Microgrant Moment – Center for Prevention and Counseling’s Toolkits and the Education for Success Initiative Program
At the Center for Prevention and Counseling (CPC), staff are committed to seamlessly integrating strategies and education on healthy youth development They saw a natural alignment between Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets for youth and the importance of raising awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), including strategies to prevent and mitigate their impact. Using funding from the Department of Children and Families’ Office of Resilience microgrants, CPC staff developed...
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CRC Accelerator Hiatus Reminder & April “Hour of Power” to Support CRC Participants With Only One Event to Completion Learn CRC Fellowship Next Steps
As we’ve recently announced, the CRC Accelerator is taking an indefinite hiatus, but this moment of growth is anything but goodbye. Two years into this unique program, we are aware of the incredible impact access can have on PACEs initiatives and we now have a CRC Fellowship that grows with each CRC graduate.
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A Trenton nonprofit is helping elementary school students improve their reading skills DAVID MATTHAU | NJ Spotlight
The Community Schools Reading Intervention program was developed by elementary school officials and Mercer Street Friends during the pandemic. A nonprofit in Trenton, N.J., is helping younger students read at grade level. Bernie Flynn, the CEO of Mercer Street Friends, said the Community Schools Reading Intervention program was developed in partnership with elementary school officials during the pandemic. During a ceremony at Trenton’s Luis Muñoz-Rivera Elementary School, first and second...
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Ways to Help Heal Hidden Wounds of Trauma
“What if I was made for evil?” These are the words of a 15-year-old African American male that I will never forget. He was in an alternative to incarceration program. As a social worker, in my usual capacity of trying to encourage and uplift this young man, I told him that he was made for good and he countered with the aforementioned question. He said, ‘If someone was made for good, then someone had to be made for evil.’ He asked, what if that was him? It stopped me in the middle of my...
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What’s Your Election Day/Day(s) After Resilience Plan?
Do you have a plan in place to manage your thoughts and emotions next week? Here are some practices that are helping me to take a “resiliency pause”: