Governor Jon S. Corzine:  You know the federal monitor report came out today, there is tremendous progress. 
We’ve gone from about the worst Child Welfare system to one of the very best. 
One aspect of our responsibilities is to make sure we’re reaching out to families to have access at the services,
typically healthcare, but also family counseling, so that we can prevent child abuse before it actually takes place. 
Joseph Della Fave, Executive Director Ironbound Community Corporation:  You know I’ll work on the ground from early childhood education, 
to these family services, stay after school programs, it’s all part of a bigger picture, all small pieces in one big puzzle for strengthening the neighborhood and families. 
It’s important to do that.  And you know it’s an ongoing endeavor on everybody’s part.
Kimberly Ricketts, Commissioner, Department of Children and Families:  When we continue to sustain and support services like the Family Success Centers,
with 37 of them throughout the state, we continue our focus on adoption and permanency,
completing 1,374 adoptions in 2008, and the recruitment of resource family homes.
All total, right now we have approximately 5,500 resource family homes.
Governor Corzine:  If you said the single most important function, define that.
Jonah Gensler, Family Services Director, Ironbound Community Corporation: The process, we have a family success center model,
the family success plan where people just stop saying to you, give me food, okay how can I plan around that need.
So that transformation, I think, is the most important, the 
deep conversations that happen in that room over there,
where they say okay, I’m ready to leave my husband,
but I also need food on the table
and I’m interested in this parenting class, I’m a little scared of 
it, but my neighbor down the street said it was good.
I’ll give that a try.
So it’s hard to say singularly because there’s so much wrapped up in that,
but it’s that one on one conversation that they have with somebody that they trust,
in their language, where they start planning for the future.
Joseph Della Fave:  We get the opportunity and families have the opportunity, to strengthen themselves. 
We work with families providing everything from parenting education to an emergent need.
And when parents work to strengthen themselves, it works to give greater protection to their family and to their children.
Governor Corzine:  There continues to be a challenge with child abuse.
Until we eliminate it entirely from our society, we won’t be satisfied.
