What we want to do in 2024

With your continued generous support, in 2024, the Children’s Hope Initiative (CHI) will be able to help Somerset County’s abused, neglected, and traumatized youth in the following ways:

Continue these programs at spending levels provided in 2023:

  • CASA Tutoring – at-home tutoring for children in out-of-home placements ($7,500)
  • Provide paid mentors for up to thirty (30) elementary and middle school children through Middle Earth Lunchtime Mentoring ($10,000)
  • Serve up to nine (9) at-risk high school students in the Promise Plus Program offered by Middle Earth ($10,000)
  • Serve up to eight (8) 18-21-year-old young adults who have “aged out” of the child welfare system through the Middle Earth Visions Plus program ($9,000)
  • Provide “Fun Trips” for up to 100 abused and neglected children to a ropes adventure course, Dorney Park/Great Adventure, and/or Schaffer Farm ($5,000)
  • Cut waiting time in half for children to begin treatment at Family & Community Services in Bound Brook ($4,000)
  • Immigrant Children groups at Family and Community Services ($2,000)
  • Paid Mentoring for five (5) young people under the care of the Somerset County Family Crisis Intervention Unit first using unexpended funds from 2023 ($10,000)
  • Mentoring seven (7) children in out-of-home placements through the CASA Fostering Futures Program first using unexpended funds from 2023 ($9,500)
  • Grant Visions and Pathways $5,000 to continue behavioral and wellness programs and year-end events.

And meet the following needs we identified during our 2023 needs assessment:

  • Adjunctive art and animal therapies for Middle Earth and Visions and Pathways.
  • Train the trainer program for Youth Serving Organizations (YSO’s) to help children and young people they serve deal with their losses and the resulting grief and changed behaviors.
  • Food insecurity as identified by the Department of Child Protection and Permanency (DCPP) and CASA, both who work solely with abused and neglected children to help ensure that a child is not separated from the family simply because of lack of food.
  • Re-start the Positive Parenting Program we supported years ago through the Family Support Organization that has ceased to function.
  • Sponsor a one-day training to help YSO’s work with young people manifesting aggressive behaviors in a trauma informed way.
  • Services for children who have suffered abuse/neglect
  • Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect
  • Child Abuse Statistics

Services for children who have suffered abuse/neglect

Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect

Child Abuse Statistics

Children who experience abuse and neglect are 11 times more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 2.7 times more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 3.1 times more likely to commit a violent crime. (1)

About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse. (1)

Five children die every day as a result of child abuse in America. (2)

A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds. (3)

4,154 New Jersey children were in out-of-home placements and not in their own homes in October 2020 (4)

NOTES:

(1) https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/statistics/can/can-stats/

(2) http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11599.pdf (at page 1)

(3) http://www.childhelp.org

(4) https://www.nj.gov/dcf/childdata/continuous/Commissioners.Monthly.Report_10.20.pdf

US Government Statistics on Child Abuse & Neglect
Using information collected through various monitoring and reporting systems, the Children’s Bureau analyzes and reports data on a variety of topics, including adoption, foster care, child abuse, and neglect.
https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/statistics/

New Jersey Child Abuse & Neglect Statistics
Here you will find helpful information about the types of children involved with the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, DCP&P (formerly the Division of Youth and Family Services), including kids who are served in the homes of their birth parents and those who had to be removed into an out-of-home placement. You will also find up-to-date information about efforts to recruit new foster and adoptive families.
http://www.state.nj.us/dcf/ (look at “Data” tab)