It’s Time to Invest in Success, Not Distress

The following testimony was submitted to the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee on April 11^th, 2026 in support of the Community Recovery & Family Success Act.

By: Tom Blatner and Jeanne Warnock, Co-Founders, The Family Success Institute

“Chairman Vitale and Honorable Members of the Committee;

I am Tom Blatner, co-founder and Board Chair of the Family Success Institute. Thank you all so much for considering S2617, the Community Recovery and Family Success Act. This bill was formulated by many members of our Family Success Institute Learning Community, a cadre of nearly 150 stakeholders from around the state.

I have spent my working life in virtually every corner of the human service arena; from a welfare case worker to an addiction supervisor, COO of the NJ Division of Mental Health and Hospitals, head of the NJ child welfare system, overseer of the NJ juvenile justice system and the past 40 years as the head of a human services consulting firm. Each public position was organized around a response to crisis and distress.

In 2003, the tragic discovery of the remains of an 8-year old boy, Faheem Williams, in a garbage bag under a staircase in Newark shook the state and the nation. A small group of concerned fellow colleagues felt that we needed to approach this crisis differently. We turned to parents, family members and community leaders for their guidance. These conversations sparked several key points that became the family success vision.

• Rather than maintaining a morass of fragmented siloed programs and services that are point-in-time responses to the many symptoms of individual and family distress, we must honestly identify and meet the basic conditions at home and in communities that ALL families need to successfully raise their children.
• How can we change what we do to assure that families are strong and children have the best chance for a good life?
• We must assure that parents and community members hold seats of power at the tables where decisions are made that impact their lives.
• We must analyze our vast spending to invest in success and divest from distress.
• We must summon the courage to declare and assure that family success happens for all New Jerseyans, not only those with privilege.

All over the state, we have witnessed local initiatives, services and programs from non-profit organizations and local government that reflect these principles – from Newark to Elizabeth to Trenton to Camden to Paterson to Middlesex and Monmouth counties and beyond.

In 2013, the Family Success Institute was established to promote positive changes in state policy, practice and funding to formally support this family success vision and movement.

Our first two initiatives were an analysis of the state budget using the Family Success framework and the formation of a state-wide Learning Community to bring like-minded individuals and organizations together to collaborate and formulate goals. The Learning Community has grown to nearly one hundred and fifty diverse organizations throughout the state. In addition, through a Robert Wood Johnson grant, we have mobilized forty Community Action Forums where trusted local organizations host gatherings of residents to hear their needs and aspirations. These sessions have included over 500 community residents. What started as dim glimpses of hope in the first decade of this century has grown into a full-blown movement from many corners of New Jersey. This movement has grown from the ground without State authority and meager financial support.

Despite the enormous wealth and natural and human resources we enjoy, there are people and places in our midst who are vulnerable, discounted and afraid. The disparities in New Jersey by race, ethnicity, gender, status, beliefs, preference and place are profound and the divides do not portend well for the future unless we all stand up together to bring about change. The ravages of the pandemic have left deep scars and the current and threatened cuts from the Federal administration target the most vulnerable among us. The talents, intelligence and energy of people in New Jersey are vast. If there is a way to bring these attributes together with collective will and synergy there is little we cannot accomplish.

Passage of S2617 – The Community Recovery and Family Success Act will establish a state-wide forum of public, non-profit, civic and resident representatives to chart the way forward together, stimulate the development of county and locally based holistic systems of family success, and begin to invest in success and divest from distress.

The policy of family success offers the benefit of more effective results for residents and the quality of life in neglected communities, more efficient use of ever-diminishing funds and, perhaps most importantly, the opportunities for vulnerable and alienated residents to have a say in decisions that impact them. We are extremely grateful to the prime co-sponsors, Senators Gopal and McKnight for their leadership. You will hear from our diverse and committed colleagues today about why this bill is so important to our future and deserves your support.

Thank you so much for your consideration.”

Learn more about the Community Recovery & Family Success Act (S2617/A4285) here.