Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Family and Community Partnerships' Office of Early Childhood Services (OECS) works across state government and with state and local advocates to ensure child abuse and neglect prevention services and supports reach families before a child is born. Early childhood services are available up to a child’s sixth birthday.
Programs
New Jersey’s network of service hubs dedicated to providing essential services that help families, and care for children, primarily from pregnancy to age five. Connecting NJ agencies, partners and support systems offer access to information and referrals to local wellness services, including healthcare for mothers and children, early education programs, domestic violence support, addiction treatment, financial assistance, home visiting programs, behavioral health services, and more.
County Councils for Young Children (CCYC) is a social service planning community organization. It strengthens collaboration between parents, families, and local community providers. These community members come together to promote parent leadership and support on the local level.
Help Me Grow (HMG) promotes infant and child health, development, and social-emotional well-being; early learning and school readiness; and helps to prevent child neglect and abuse. HMG works with partners to improve the quality and availability of services at the state and local level, and eliminate disparities through early childhood systems integration.
Since 2007, New Jersey has more than doubled its support for evidence-based home visiting programs. We now have an expanded statewide capacity to reach over 5,000 families of infants and young children with three core home visiting models - Healthy Families, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Parents as Teachers. These three models are now available to families in all 21 counties. We also fund the Home Instruction to Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program in Bergen County.
The overall mission of the Home Visitation Initiative is to improve the physical and emotional well-being of infants, children, and their families in New Jersey by providing community-based education and in-home support to parents.
HV Programs also focus on early learning, language development and early literacy:
- Evidenced Based Home Visitation programs incorporate formal parenting education curricula that explain early brain development and emphasize the role that parents play as their child's first and most important teacher.
- Home visitors teach and model observation skills for parents, and give them simple activities and strategies to stimulate early learning at home.
- Home visits include on-going routine assessments of infant/child growth and development, and social-emotional health (Ages & Stages Questionnaire), as well as assessment of the home environment in promoting early learning.
- Infants with secure and nurturing parent-child relationships are more resilient and better positioned to interact with the world- to play, explore, and learn.
New Jersey’s Home Visitation Initiative is measured by Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) target areas:
- Improving Maternal and Newborn Health
- Reducing Child Injuries, Child Abuse, Neglect and Maltreatment
- Improving School Readiness & Achievement
- Reducing Domestic Violence (DV)
- Strengthening Family Economic Self-Sufficiency
- Improving Coordination & Referral Linkages for Community Resources
In an innovative and successful public-private partnership New Jersey’s Home Visiting Initiative has built a state and local system to improve early service linkages to pregnant woman, parents and families. Home Visiting in New Jersey is founded on building relationships and a shared vision to…
Serve Families
- Community-based Engagement & Outreach
Ensure High Quality
- Ongoing Training & Technical Assistance
- Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)
- Fidelity/ Data Analysis
- Standards and Performance Indicators
- Impact and Outcome Measures
Coordinate Care & Integrate Systems
- Central Intake
- Community Health Workers
- Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS)/Help Me Grow (HMG)
Empower Communities
- NJ County Councils - 51% parent driven
- Workgroups and Advisory Boards
Collaborate with Partners
- State – DCF (lead implementing agency), DHS (TANF funding), DOH (administrative lead for MIECHV funding)
- Nonprofit sector – service providers/grantees
- John Hopkins University (Evaluation)
- Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey
- National Service Office
Population Focus
HV focuses on supporting families of infants and young children (0-5 years).
During pregnancy and at birth, home visitors encourage positive behaviors and healthy nutrition to prevent poor pregnancy outcomes (e.g. preterm births, low birth weight).
They also have a unique opportunity to identify and address health or social concerns earlier to help promote a strong foundation for child resilience and health. Important outcomes for HV programs include parent-child attachment, child health (physical, social-emotional and cognitive), and infant/ child safety, security and well-being.
Services focus on the following:
- Parent education on healthy child development
- Parent-Child activities
- Ongoing child developmental screening and monitoring
- Parent education health and nutrition
- Promotion of the protective factors
- Family goal planning
- Support for self-sufficiency
- Linkages to social and family support services (for example, perinatal depression, substance abuse, domestic violence services, housing support, etc.)
To access Home Visiting services in your county, call the following links will help you to learn more about available services:
Click HERE for a listing of all state funded HV programs in New Jersey.
For answers to frequently asked questions, click HERE.
For more information contact:
Administrator
Office of Early Childhood Services
Department of Children and Families
Phone: 609-888-7400
With the support of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Project LAUNCH links and enhances efforts to improve the overall wellness of young children in Essex County.
Strengthening Families (SF) is an evidence-based approach to reduce child abuse and neglect through training and guidance to child care and family child care providers.
Partnering with the New Jersey Department of Human Services’ (DHS) Division of Family Development (DFD), Strengthening Families (SF) works closely with Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) Agencies to conduct trainings that build on the SF approach in child care centers and family child care providers throughout the State. SF is an evidence-based approach that helps reduce child abuse and neglect through training and guidance to child care and family child care providers.
SF uses the Protective Factors Framework, which describes conditions or attributes of individuals, families, communities, or the larger society to reduce or eliminate risk. This Framework promotes healthy development and the well-being of children and families. Additionally, the Framework helps to ensure that children and youth function well at home, in school, at work, and in the community.
The Department of Children and Families (DCF) partnered with the Institute for Families (IFF) at Rutgers University School of Social Work to implement “Bringing the Protective Factors Framework to Life” - a two-day training that was developed by the National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds. SF Trainers provide this two-day training to early care professionals throughout the state, encouraging them to integrate the Protective Factors Framework into their daily practice and interactions within all early childhood programs.
This approach can be implemented in any program that works with families.
Strengthening Families seeks to promote healthy development and the well-being of children and families who are enrolled in the child-care/family-child care setting through the Protective Factors Framework.
What is included in the training?
The SF Approach encourages providers to interact with families to support them in building protective factors and protective capacities.
The 5 Protective Factors are:
- Parental Resilience
- Social Connections
- Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development
- Concrete Support in Times of Need
- Social and Emotional Competence of Children
The protective capacities are the actions of parents/caregivers take to ensure that the child is safe and able to thrive.
These factors are tools that provide parents/caregivers with the supports they need to face the challenges they encounter in life and while raising a family.
Who provides the training?
The Child Care Resource Referral agencies (CCR&R) in each county are the trainers who work with the childcare and family-child care providers to incorporate the five Protective Factors and seven program strategies in the program’s daily activities.
Who receives the training?
Child-care providers learn new approaches on how to partner with parents and families in protecting, educating, and caring for young children while promoting their social and emotional development.
What strategies implement the protective factors?
Through seven key strategies, providers can become well positioned to help families build the protective factors that have proven to be effective in preventing child abuse and neglect.
Specific strategies that build protective factors are:
- Facilitate friendships and mutual support
- Strengthen parenting
- Respond to family crises
- Link families to services and opportunities
- Value and support parents
- Facilitate the social and emotional development of children
- Observe and respond to early warning signs of child abuse or neglect
Population Focus
Infants, young children, and their families.
Strengthening Families Project Manager
Office of Early Childhood Services
Department of Children and Families
Phone: 609-888-7400
Find more information about your local SF in our program directory, click HERE.