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For Immediate Release Contact: Brian Murray
Monday, April 17, 2017 609-777-2600



Transcript:

Governor Christie: The good news that we’re celebrating today is not by happenstance. It’s by a lot of self-examination by everybody here in the department and an extraordinary amount of hard work and lastly and most importantly, an unmeasured degree of compassion. In the end, this job, the job that you all do every day, has to be done from a place of love. If it is not done from a place of love, it’s not going to happen the right way. This is not just a job for all of you. It is a mission and it is a mission that comes from the heart. Of course, all of you have extraordinary background and experience and training to do what you do, and I'm not minimizing that at all, but all of that background and experience and training can't be applied to the problems that you face here. The incredibly difficult problems that you face if ultimately your decisions and your judgements don’t come from the heart. Because we’re dealing, as Allison said in her introduction, with the most vulnerable people in our state, our children and the families that bring them into the world. And we all know, each and every one of us in this room, knows under the best circumstances, how challenging families can be. Coming off Easter yesterday, I’m reminded once again by having spent most of the day with my entire family, extended cousins and brothers and sisters, that families under the best of circumstance are both extraordinarily fulfilling but also really challenging. And when those circumstances are bad, it makes it even worse because all of that emotion that’s involved with being a member of a family can be turned from something that is positive to something that is much, much worse.