Central Jersey Family Health Consortium

Grow nj kids is the quality rating improvement system for licensed early childhood programs in the state of new Jersey. Its goals include coordinating a rating system for centers, school districts, head start and home-based care that will assist families in understanding and seeking the best program for their infant, toddler and preschool age children. Another goal is to improve the quality of the workforce in early childhood programs. Since 2015 there are three regional technical assistance centers (tac) in grow nj kids who are funded to provide coaching, mentoring, classroom resources, classroom environment feedback, professional development and curriculum support in order to reach a quality rating. To date, many centers and child care providers around nj have reached a quality rating with the assistance and mentoring of the tac's.cjfhc is funded to provide this technical assistance in seven northern counties: bergen, hunterdon, morris, passaic, sussex, union and warren. Gnjk tac north has 21 staff members that include technical assistance specialists (tas, managers and administrators. The tac works closely with early childhood partners in the state, including the child care Health consultants at cjfhc, and in other states as well.during the year ended december 31, 2023, cjfhc provided technical services to average of 317 child care providers through 2,800 technical assistance visits and 10 webinars. An estimated 1,000 child care providers participated in educational and support programs sponsored which included webinars, quarterly peer learning communities and several podcasts on early childhood topics. More than 60 child care provides were the beneficiaries of $287,850 expended by cjfhc in classroom enhancements and curriculum.

The mid-jersey cares regional early intervention collaborative is a program of cjfhc which works in partnership with families, service coordination units and early intervention providers to ensure high quality early intervention services for children with special needs (from birth to 3 years of age) living in Central new Jersey. Mid-jersey cares works to increase access to and availability of individualized early intervention services and assist families as they work to meet their child's needs. Over 8,500 infants/toddlers and their families were referred for services. Mid Jersey cares also offers training and technical assistance, Family support and advocacy, and data collection and analysis for a six-county region. In 2023 staff conducted over 40 trainings reaching early intervention professionals, community providers, and families participants and participated in Family activities & community events.

Operate a perinatal Health services grant which includes the following services:in 2023, cjfhc conducted a variety of public Health education and direct service programs under the auspices of the Health service grant. The perinatal mood disorder initiative provided training and education related to perinatal mood disorders and postpartum depression to physicians, nurses, social workers and other healthcare professionals. In 2023, staff facilitated groups in the 6 county region supporting women as they adjust to the new role of motherhood and conducted phone follow-up program, fielding about 13,500 calls made to "at risk" women referred by self, hospitals, clinics and providers. 474 support groups were held serving more than 4,000 individuals. They also offered over 75 community presentations for women.

Various programs including core Consortium services (regional planning, infant follow-up, maternal & neonatal transportation, quality assurance), healthy women healthy families, grow nj kids, new Jersey immunization information system training/quality assurance/education, teen outreach program, preconception peer education, Health families-tip, Central intake resource and referral, mercer service coordinator and various other Health promotion programs.