CHILDREN AND FAMILIES INITIATIVE

Supporting Families, Strengthening Communities, Making Kids Count

It is the Mission of the Children and Families Initiative to respond to the Kid's Count reports by providing children and families with a comprehensive, community based service delivery system to strengthen the local community, to ensure healthy child development and healthy family functioning and to reduce barriers to achievement and self sufficiency.

The Problem
In 1991 the Annie E. Casey Foundation (click here for more information) began releasing its Kid’s Count reports. These state and county profiles include 13 indicators of child well being such as incidence of child abuse, juvenile arrest rate, out-of-home placements, and infant mortality. Community leaders were deeply concerned upon learning that Atlantic County was next to last in the state in the Kid’s Count ranking. The serious problems identified in the Kid’s Count reports were prevalent in the lives of far too many of our children.

The Response
Analysis of our community showed that local service delivery systems for children and their families were fragmented and unwieldy. Critical services, if available, were either poorly publicized, too costly or inaccessible to the families who had the greatest need. A new model was needed, one that would make better use of existing services while making access to those services as easy as possible for families. In 1993 the Children and Families Initiative was established to meet these objectives.

The Initiative’s first efforts focused on the development of a new, collaborative approach to addressing the problems of our children and families. Utilizing a combination of state and local resources, five Family Centers were established in the Atlantic County communities with the greatest need: Atlantic City, Pleasantville, Egg Harbor Township and Hammonton. The Family Centers are designed as ‘one stop’ multi service sites, providing access to a wide range of services and utilizing case management as a key tool for helping families resolve their problems. Each Family Center identifies community needs and plans services with the help of a local citizen Advisory Board. Centers are located in schools, storefronts and community service centers. They bring comprehensive services to children and their families in a client-friendly manner as well as provide programs specifically targeted toward community problems identified in the Kid’s Count reports.

Progress
Ranked 20th of 21 counties in New Jersey in 1991, Atlantic County had climbed to 16th position by the time the Kid’s Count report was issued in 1995. While the report showed the well being of children remained otherwise unchanged state-wide, the Association for Children In New Jersey called Atlantic County’s progress “one of the few bright spots” of the 1995 report (The Press of Atlantic City, Dec. 30, 1995). In the six-month period from Jan. 1 to June 30, 1996 over 4000 people from more than 2200 families received services from the Atlantic County Family Centers. As of June 2006, over 77,690 people from more than 59,344 families have been served at a level of 7,032,622 units of service.

The Children and Families Initiative is operated by Atlantic County Government, New Jersey through funding provided by the New Jersey State Department of Children and Families.

For more information contact Leesa Seymour, Project Coordinator at (609) 645 7700 ext. 4332 (CLICK HERE to email Leesa), or Cindy Hamer, Project Director at (609) 645 7700 ext. 4529 (CLICK HERE to email Cindy)