We, a team of parents, community advocates, social workers, public safety professionals, educators, and public defenders are working to create the first adolescent respite center here in Jersey City.   The center will provide teens and families experiencing intra family conflict with both community based services when safe and appropriate and short term voluntary residential stays when necessary as an alternative to homelessness and criminal justice involvement.   

Haven Adolescent Community Respite Center is designed to support adolescents and their families during times of domestic conflict.  We provide counseling, positive opportunities for youth development, and peer support for adolescents and their families without stigma and without assigning blame in an effort to keep youth at home when possible and safe. We provide a short term residential alternative to incarceration or homelessness when necessary.   We create a partnership with existing community organizations and a family’s own social network to provide young people and their families with long term solutions to family conflicts which adolescence, poverty, social and political pressures and mental health and drug addiction intensify. 

This is our third funding phase.  We hope to fund an initial community based program, provided by the staff of the respite center which will open next year both to address the immediate needs of the teens and families we serve and as a means of building the trust and community connection necessary for a successful respite center once it opens.