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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with Kate Endries, who's National Director of Trauma-Informed Practice at Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and her colleague Susan Haspel, state Director of Boys and Girls Clubs in New Jersey.

Kate and Susan, good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Thanks for having us.

- Kate, help us on this, and particularly with your background, your professional background in social work and understanding complex issues like trauma.

Define trauma for us first, and then let's talk about what Boys and Girls Clubs in New Jersey, Newark and America are doing to address trauma among countless young men and women.

- Yeah, that's a really great question, Steve.

So trauma is defined as an experience that is perceived as harmful or life threatening to the individual that has experienced it, and so that's gonna look extremely different depending on the person.

So something that is perceived by me as life threatening might be different than something as perceived by you.

And we know that two thirds of young people have experienced at least one traumatic event by the age of 16, and we also know from the ACE study that those childhood adversities and traumatic events correlate to challenges in later life.

And so in order to better serve our young people, we need to work to become trauma-informed in our service delivery model.

- Susan, talk about the role of Boys and Girls Clubs in New Jersey, but also the Newark Clubs.

And, let me disclose, my late grandfather was one of the first directors of the boys, at the time, the Boys Club in Newark, and also I was a member at the Broadway branch which, as you know Susan, does not exist anymore.

- That is true.

- Sadly.

Talk about the role of Boys and Girls Clubs in New Jersey, but particularly Newark as it relates to this trauma informed practice, please.

- Yes, yes.

So we have 22 Boys and Girls Clubs across the state of New Jersey.

- 70,000 young people.

- Serving actually more than 55,000 young people through membership and community outreach.

And every day in New Jersey, more than 200,000 kids have nowhere to go after school.

So the clubs play a critical role in providing a safe place for kids to go and participate in life-changing programs.

The Newark club is actually the leader for the whole Northeast region, in the work that they're doing in the trauma and informed care.

It's just tremendous what they're doing to support their community and the club kids, and the work that's being done there is tremendous.

- Let's be more specific.

By the way, apologize for saying 70,000, it's 55,000 young people.

- Yeah, true.

- But help us on this, Kate, be more specific, what exactly are Boys and Girls Clubs doing to assist these young people dealing with trauma?

- Yeah, so we're working to become a trauma-informed organization at every single one of our Boys and Girls Clubs, and what that looks like is it's a service delivery model that understands that the impact of childhood adversity disrupts development and can lead to later life challenges.

And so it really seeks to look at what are the specific challenges of my community, whether that youth, families or staff that are coming to the clubs and working there, and how can my organization be super responsive to that?

And so it looks like investing in staff development so that we understand signs and symptoms and we're able to be responsive to needs, it looks like building community partnerships to addressing access to important services like mental health services or food or housing services.

So there's a lot of ways that this shows up, and it's gonna be specific to that specific community.

- So Susan, I'm curious about this, in all seriousness, going all the way "back in the day" when I was a member of the Boys Club before it was appropriately Boys and Girls Club.

The issue of mental health, I mean not on the table in the '60s and '70s, who was talking about that?

Susan, help us, why is this the responsibility of Boys and Girls Clubs, A, and, B, where does the funding come from to support these efforts?

- I mean, supporting mental health for youth is more important than ever before and kids are just going through such challenging times, but it's because of partners like Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and many other supporters in the country, that understand that this is critical now more than ever.

And we know that there are clubs in the state where there are kids that have seen tremendous trauma; homelessness, no parents, I mean there are just so many issues that they're facing and they really need these supports, and our clubs are being trained intensively to provide the resources that they need to have a trusted voice that kids can turn to.

- Horizon Foundation has been a leader in this regard, also lemme disclose, an underwriter of our programming as well.

- Yes.

- But I wanna follow up on something.

So for people who are watching saying, "Well, wait a minute, Boys and Girls Clubs, that's where kids gonna play basketball, some of us learn to swim."

Yeah, that's what they do, they play the after school, keep them out of trouble.

Kate, those things are all true but it's not nearly enough, is it?

- Yeah, kids are showing up their whole selves.

They're showing up with their experiences and their experiences in childhood shape the way that they understand and interact with the world.

In order to do our jobs as Boys and Girls Clubs professionals, and build all the amazing skills we want kids to have, whether that be life and workforce skills or academic success, we need to make sure that they first feel safe.

And in order to feel safe, that means they need to have inclusive and emotionally safe experiences at our Boys and Girls Clubs, which is a core part of the trauma-informed model.

- So Susan first, again, a large part of our audience in suburban communities, "wealthier communities", they often do not have Boys and Girls Clubs.

They just don't, they're disproportionately in urban areas.

Susan, is that fair to say?

- Yes, that is fair to say.

I mean, we have clubs from Jersey City to Atlantic City, all across the state, but in the more affluent communities clubs do not exist.

- So for those watching saying, "Well really, why would you even need that?

I mean, we have all kinds of extracurricular programs after school, on the weekends, there are all kinds of activities that our town supports."

Yes, with a lot of economic support and strength.

That is not the case disproportionately in Black and brown urban communities.

Susan, please talk to that.

- Yes, I mean, absolutely.

I mean, the most important thing that clubs, the biggest priority of our clubs is to provide a safe place where kids can go and have trusted people that they can look up to at the clubs, and there are trained youth development staff at all of our clubs, and now we have trauma informed people at the clubs that are leading the way- - What does that mean?

I'm sorry for interrupting, what does it mean to have trauma informed folks at the clubs who are trained?

trained to do what, see what?

- They're trained, Kate, if you wanna speak to this a little bit more- - Please, Kate.

- Specific training.

- Yeah, so we train all of our staff in the basics of trauma, so why is this related to youth development?

Why is this related to the jobs that they do and practices that they can do to make kids feel included and safe?

And there's three Boys and Girls Clubs in New Jersey specifically that have a certified trauma-informed specialist.

So that person has gone through six months of certification training with the BGCA trauma-informed team, to be able to advise their colleagues and other Boys and Girls Clubs in New Jersey around practices that are gonna create that really emotionally safe and inclusive environment for the young people and the staff, and the families that interact with them.

- Right, and Steve, just- - Go ahead, Susan.

- Sorry.

So the Newark Club, the Garfield Club and the Monmouth County Club all have BGCA trauma informed staff- - What does that mean, the acronym?

- Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

- Okay.

- They've gone through the six months of training and the club in Newark, which is the leader in this space, our Garfield Club and our Monmouth County Club all have people that are trained in this space, that can do training at the local club in the state and in the whole northeast region.

- To Kate and to Susan, thank you so much.

Also, the websites have been up the entire program, both on the state level and the national level of Boys and Girls Clubs.

Please check it out, find out more.

Cannot thank you for the difference that you and your colleagues are making every day.

Thank you, Susan.

Thank you, Kate.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Jason Hernandez, who is managing attorney and adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School.

Jason, good to see you.

- Good to be with you today.

- Put in perspective the immigration initiative you're involved in at the university.

What is it called exactly?

- Sure, so I run the Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project, and it provides campus-based immigration legal services to students enrolled throughout Rutgers University.

This basically includes providing students with free legal consultations about their immigration matters, or immigration situation, and in some cases, representing them in immigration cases before USCIS, or Immigration Court, if they're in removal proceedings.

- Let me ask you this, Jason, as we do this program at the end of April, 2024, the migrant crisis, first of all, is it a crisis from your perspective?

People can decide for themselves.

Second of all, how has it influenced public sentiment and discourse?

Not to mention the politics of immigration.

Loaded question, I know, but that's what's been playing on my mind in preparation for you coming on.

- So I guess it depends on what you mean when you say "the migrant crisis".

If we're talking- - Do you think there's a migrant crisis of communities being overrun by people who are coming into the country, the border issue, if you will, again, and taking away services and creating problems in urban communities throughout this country.

Do you think that's a crisis?

- I do not think that's a crisis.

I think that is, I guess, you know, par for the course, for probably the past 30 years that there have been migrants in the United States.

I don't know that they have been taking resources away from US citizens.

In large part, the Federal Government prefaces eligibility for immigration, for federal benefits or resources on having lawful status in the United States.

Certainly there has been an acute situation that was reported in New York of late, or in certain urban centers.

And yes, you know, December 2023 reports of, you know, the largest population of migrants at the border.

But in 2000 there were 220,000 migrants at the border, only 30,000 more than in December.

And during the Bush administration, the largest number of undocumented individuals ever were living in the United States, close to 12 million.

Whereas today, we're around 11 million.

- What's the impact in New Jersey?

- So New Jersey does have a very large immigrant population, and immigrants do definitely contribute to the very rich economy of New Jersey.

New Jersey definitely has a very, has large urban centers, and also large agricultural areas where many employers rely on immigrants to do work, to provide, you know, food to the people of New Jersey, to provide healthcare services to the people of New Jersey, and to just generally enrich the State of New Jersey.

- Jason, along those lines, how do you respond to the quote, "anti-immigrant, anti-migrant sentiment" in which is not, you don't need me to tell you that there is that sentiment, regardless of what the numbers are, and the facts are, as you described, there's a sentiment, there's an emotional feeling on the part of, I don't know how many, but not an insignificant number of folks.

What do you say to those folks?

- I say, like, I hear your, like what you are feeling.

I think that a lot of this discussion around immigration is heavily politicized.

- Why?

- And encouraged, because, well, because it has become the primary issue within the presidential election.

We know that immigration mobilizes voters to turn out.

And also immigration is just a political beast, because congress sets policies around immigration.

And so by nature, politics feed into the laws that are immigration laws.

- And the last substantive immigration policy on the federal level was back in 1996.

- That's right, so in 1996 was the last year reform to immigration law.

And in that reform, there were actually a lot of expanded grounds for inadmissibility, bars to admissibility, like the three and 10 year bars.

And this has contributed to- - What does that mean?

What does that mean?

Three and 10 year bars?

- Ah, so what that means is, for folks who are in the United States for a period of more than six months, but less than a year, if they depart the US even to consulate process for a green card, they're barred from reentry for three years.

If they're here for more than a year, and then depart, they're barred for 10 years.

And so for many people who have a qualifying petition, they can't actually benefit from it, because of this 1996 law, which creates great obstructions to large numbers of individuals - So the discussion "build the wall", Trump, everybody knows what he has said, what's real or not, it's hard to determine.

"Build the wall".

"Shut our borders down."

Your problem with that thinking, which isn't even a policy, it's just thinking and emotional response.

"Close the borders."

You say what?

- I say, it won't work, right.

It's a bandaid that we don't even know if it will address the symptom to be quite honest, the borders are not open just with people flowing back and forth.

There are, as we know, like thousands of customs and border protection officials every day that are monitoring lawful entry and exits from the United States, as well as monitoring entries at non ports of entry.

I mean, if we really want to address some of these problems, you know, immigration reform in certain areas is really critical.

We see, for example, in Mexico- - Well, go name a couple of things, sorry to interrupt, Jason.

A couple things that need to be done for immigration reform, please.

- Well, there are so many, but I mean just, - Well just name, just a couple so that- - Paths to citizen... Like work authorization, or earned paths to citizenship in some form, right.

So there are a number of different individuals in the United States awaiting status.

They have pending petitions.

Work authorization will be one way to, you know, enable people to work lawfully in the United States, receive certain protections, you know, from employment abuses.

And also to to just earn money to support themselves, but also having earned paths to citizenship or expanded possibilities for petitioning where there are really long backlogs.

So we've seen that in Mexico, or in Central America, there's been a decrease in border crossings related to expanded opportunities for Mexican nationals to migrate to the United States, for example.

So by having more ordered paths to migration, but also recognizing that we need to have humane practices at the border.

I mean, the reason why folks are coming to the United States in the first place is because the United States law says that we will permit people to seek asylum if they are inside the territorial United States, regardless of their status.

- You know, to your point, you said there are a lot of things that need to be done.

The reason I ask for a couple is because nothing has been done.

And to have some degree, to make some degree of progress, there was legislation in Washington, research it, find out what happened, find out how it never passed, why it never passed, who was against it, and why they were against it.

And you can decide for yourself who really wants immigration reform and improvement, and who wants to make the issue political.

I'm off my soapbox, Jason Hernandez, is in fact a managing attorney and adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School, one of the nation's top experts when it comes to immigration policy and law.

Jason, thank you so much for joining us, we appreciate it.

- My pleasure, thank you.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services, Sarah Adelman.

Commissioner, thank you for joining us.

- Good to be with you.

- Sarah, put this in context.

We're gonna be talking about the opioid crisis in the state, but more specifically, a few months back, Governor Murphy announced the allocation of over $95 million from New Jersey's Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund to support critical programs dealing directly with the opioid crisis.

First, make it clear where that money comes from, who that money comes from, and what exactly it's for, please, Commissioner.

- Yes, so over the next essentially two decades, New Jersey will be receiving about a billion dollars as part of national litigation with the opioid manufacturers and distributors, and so funds from those settlements are flowing into New Jersey and other states.

We're beginning to be in receipt of those funds.

They'll continue, as I said, over the next two decades.

And so this initial round of funding that the governor announced last month is the first tranche of the funding that New Jersey is receiving, and the ways that we're putting it directly back into the community to address the harms of the opioid crisis.

- Commissioner, put it in context how serious the opioid crisis is.

- Yeah, well, I think at this point most all of us have been touched by the opioid crisis in one way or another, a loved one or a friend who has been impacted.

New Jersey has been, for years, doing incredible work to try to turn around this crisis but last year there were still 2,564 fatal overdoses in New Jersey from the opioid crisis and that is far too many lives lost over the last years and we are doing our best to turn the tide on that crisis so that that number is zero.

- Numbers are numbers, people are people, right?

To that end, Commissioner, this is not just a policy issue for you, as a member of the cabinet in the Murphy administration, it is highly personal, with your dad, with your father.

Please talk about that.

- Sure, and that's true.

I said already that most people at this point are touched in some way by the opioid crisis and that's true for me as well.

I had a parent who struggled with substance use, and for years with opioid use disorder, until I lost them from complications from addiction.

And so I know first-hand how difficult recovery and sobriety are.

As a child and later as a caregiver, I know first-hand the hope and the devastation that comes with the highs and low points of that journey and I know that for loved ones, you may want your loved one to be at a place in their treatment and recovery and no matter how much you hope for that, it really takes the individual who's suffering to be ready, and that's such a struggle.

And I think for many people, there is so much stigma and shame around addiction that it really takes its toll and it robs people of their dignity and I have seen and experienced that with my own father, and it's heartbreaking.

- Commissioner, go back to the stigma issue.

With all the media attention, with all the public awareness around the opioid crisis, to what degree do you still believe there is a stigma for those who are struggling and are addicted and dealing with an opioid addiction?

To what degree do you believe there's a stigma there versus a degree of empathy and compassion?

- I think both exist.

You know, for a really long time we had, you know, society had a way of treating someone with substance use as an addict or a criminal and treating people with shame, and all of that is stigmatizing and harmful and it makes it even more difficult for someone who's struggling to seek help and treatment.

And so, you know, a lot of times, and even in the funding that we announced with the governor, a lot of that funding went towards harm reduction and harm- - Yeah, talk about that.

Harm reduction, what does that actually mean?

- Yeah, that, it's really the antidote to what the question you just asked me, Steve, because it's about treating people with basic human dignity and erasing that harmful stigma.

Harm reduction is a practical and evidence-based way of providers engaging with individuals who use drugs to provide care and resources to really meet them where they're at, to help them prevent overdose and infectious disease transmission, you know, helping individuals treat drug-related wounds or skin infections, or helping people with their medical or behavioral health conditions or other social services.

So it's really about, you know, not forcing a person into sobriety in order to get treatment but helping them exactly at the place they're at, which we know leads to better long-term outcomes and more likely that people will seek treatment over time.

- Also, to be more specific, in addition to harm reduction, some of the other areas of focus with these dollars from the opioid manufacturers, the $1 billion settlement over two decades, the $95 million that Governor Murphy announced a couple months back, it's in addition to harm reduction, it's housing, treatment, prevention, and recovery.

Prevention and recovery, is that, on some level, about public awareness?

- Absolutely.

So the 95 million goes to harm reduction.

The other funding goes to exactly the things you're talking about.

17 million that will go to support community peer recovery centers.

Those are safe and welcoming places that already exist in the community today for individuals who are ready to receive support for their recovery.

It also includes nine million for mobile medication for addiction treatment, which is effective and low barrier.

It's a way to bring treatment directly to people in the community.

There's $8 million for a program that's called Keeping Families Together, and that program is for entire families.

It's supporting parents with housing and case management and therapeutic services to help keep those families together.

There's also, as you said, 17 million to support a new continuum of housing supports for individuals with substance use disorder.

- If people go on your website, the department's website, can they find out more about these programs?

- There is a website totally dedicated to the Opioid Recovery and Remediation Advisory Council and that's nj.gov/opioidfunds and on that website, you can read all about the opioid settlements, the members that are on the governor's advisory council, and all of the recommendations and the funding announcements that we made last month.

- Commissioner, important work to be done and it will not be the last conversation we have on this issue with you and other leaders in this regard.

Commissioner, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Really appreciate it, Steve.

Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

That's the commissioner of the largest department in state government, Human Services.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Citizens Philanthropic Foundation.

The New Jersey Education Association.

Atlantic Health System.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

PSEG Foundation.

NJM Insurance Group.

And by IBEW Local 102.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by New Jersey Globe.

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