NJ parents' caucus statewide family network - new jersey parents' caucus statewide network new jersey youth under age 25 with SED are suffering from a silent mental health crisis

Without evidence-based care, they often present with challenging behavior, fail in school, and/or are at risk of escalating into the juvenile justice and/or child welfare systems. With samhsa funds, njpc can expand its resources to confront this crisis through a robust statewide family network that will guide parents, family members, caregivers, and other stakeholders to promote family-driven service system capability and infrastructure. Njpc will focus on transforming these systems for marginalized communities in all 21 counties across new jersey using techniques that are holistic, trauma-informed, culturally relevant, holistic, and resilience-oriented. Additional funding will allow US to reach an additional 820 new jersey families raising youth with SED and increase system capability and infrastructure in seven major ways by: 1)increasing the number of workshops that empower and train 540 more parents per year to be advocates for their children; 2)developing an advanced parent leadership training where 20 more parents each year acquire the skills to effect systemic change and/or become certified to join the workforce as peer support professionals; 3)contracting two staff professionals who will provide peer support for an additional 100 families each year; 4)building a public information campaign that heightens our target population's awareness via njpc, community, and school websites, email campaigns, listservs, social media, and neighborhood outreach and increases caregivers' use of mental health services; 5)upgrading njpc's partners in caring referral database to make IT easier for parents to navigate the resources they need; 6)establishing a respite care program for 180 youth ages 18-25 that will give caregivers a much-needed break to RE-energize and RE-focus each year and; 7)maintaining volunteer and staff participation in local, state, and national meetings with the goals of informing decision-makers about mental issues and providing them with feedback on proposed service and system design changes. Since 1990, njpc has been a fierce advocate and bright, shining light at local, state, and national levels in the field of mental health for families raising youth with SED. Key to our success has been our model of parent leadership which recognizes that caregivers instinctively and intimately understand each other's situations and are in an ideal position to train one another on how navigate the systems to get services they need. Njpc encourages parents who have completed training to pass the torch to the less experienced who, in turn, become volunteer trainers in their own right. To date, we have reached over 63,000 parents, caregivers, and family members, represented approximately 115,290 children and youth, and partnered with 19,800 professionals and providers in mental health, special education, juvenile justice, child welfare, dyfs, child special ED, and developmental disability, and a myriad of other organizations. We are unique among family-led organizations in our advocacy for youth with SED who are incarcerated or have otherwise become involved in the juvenile justice system.