- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

NJ Best, New Jersey’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

Seton Hall University.

Inspiring great minds to greater purpose since 1856.

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The Fund for New Jersey.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by NJBIA.

We put business at the center.

And by Insider NJ.

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(upbeat music) Hi everyone, Steve Adubato with my co-anchor and colleague Jacqui Tricarico.

Jacqui, let's set this up.

People are about to see a series of interviews that we did down in Atlantic City at the New Jersey Education Association Convention.

Let's tee it up.

- Yup.

Just great people that we got a chance to speak with about why they were there, why they were attending, and some of the work that they're doing to support educators and as well as the citizens of New Jersey.

So many nonprofit leaders that we had a chance to speak with as well.

So you're gonna see that up in this next half hour.

- So if you wanna know what goes on at the teachers convention, the NJEA Convention, Atlantic City, this is just a taste of some of the folks who are down there, more than 10,000 this year, and the important conversations that took place.

Let's check it out.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Triarico on location at the NJEA Convention here in Atlantic City, and I'm so pleased to be joined now by Dr.

Meera Wells who is the statewide medical director of the New Jersey Pediatric Psychiatry Collaboration.

It is run by Hackensack Meridian Health in 20 out of the 21 counties here in New Jersey.

It's so great to have you with us.

- I'm happy to be here.

- So you're over with part of the Youth Mental Health Pavilion that's set up here at the convention this year.

First, describe for us what this New Jersey Pediatric Psychiatry Collaborative is in the state and really how it's making such an impact.

- Sure.

So, as you may know very well and most people who have children know or have come across children, that children's mental health was declared a national emergency in 2021.

For most people, as you know here, are educators who deal with children all the time, they knew and we knew there was a tsunami coming towards us way before it was declared an emergency.

The problem is that there is a huge shortage in child psychiatry, and back in 2015 we were sort of getting to the point where we were like, "We don't want to stand around and say there's a shortage.

"Let's come up with a solution."

And that's how the New Jersey Pediatric Psychiatry Collaborative first came into being.

It was started as a pilot program in four counties, which was Monmouth, Ocean, Burlington, and Camden.

We applied for a grant.

The Department of Children and Families gave us a grant, $2.5 million, and the idea was that we would have a hub that would have child psychiatrists, licensed clinical social workers, mental health specialists, and we would help the primary care provider in being able to address children's mental health.

So that's how it started.

By the success of that pilot, by 2017, we went statewide which means every county in New Jersey right now has this.

The Hackensack Meridian Health run one which also partners with Cooper University as well as Atlantic Health System.

We manage 20 of the 21 counties.

So the vision or the mission for this program is to really transform access to children's mental health care by empowering our pediatric care providers.

- 'Cause really the pediatricians are the first line of defense, right?

What and should they be doing to really screen and make sure that we're catching these mental health issues early on before it really kind of gets out of control.

- Exactly.

I'm glad that you asked what should we do, especially the screening part of it, and remember we are talking about mental health.

Mental health is what everybody needs.

We're not talking about illness.

So it starts with screening, screening during well visits using age-appropriate tools, and we sort of, you know, train them in using a broad-based screening tool that can pick up things like anxiety, depression, ADHD, ODD, a very wide screen, right?

So if we are doing that before kids start showing that, or a teacher sees something, or you as a parent notice something, we can pick things up very, very early, and the earlier we see things in children, especially in the mental health, less the need for medicine.

What we need are like the supportive therapies for children.

- And you talked about this before, but even the demand of child psychiatrists is so big right now in the state, and there's just not enough to really help get those kids to see those doctors where they need that help.

How else is the collaborative making sure that the pediatrician has more of a role in that part of the child's healthcare?

- Right, and as you mentioned, the frontline for everything is pediatricians, right, our pediatric care providers.

So, you know, on that comes a pediatrician, family physician, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, all of them, to be aware that a whole child is not just physical but also a mental health as well.

So the sooner they learn the broad-based screening tools and how to sort of recognize certain things, for example, you know this particular program's completely free of cost, doesn't cost anything to the pediatric provider, nothing to the children, we don't care if they have insurance or not, whether they're documented or not, they have access to us.

So we are training our pediatric providers: one, to screen, and then, not only that, once they become members, they have access to us.

Say, for example, they refer a child to us, and I'm the child psychiatrist who sees this child.

I'll actually pick up the phone and call them even before I see the child, want to introduce myself, but also to hear what their concerns are so that I'm addressing that.

Once I see the child, I'll actually pick up the phone and call them and talk to them even before I start writing to give them the impression of what I saw and what my recommendations are.

And yes, this is completely free, but the beauty of it is that I don't fall off the face of Earth at that point.

They can continue collaborating for this child as many times as they want, for as long as they want.

Down the road in one week, they want to call me, call me.

Three months later?

So we train them not only in what probably is the diagnosis, how to do medications, and how to manage the child as well.

So that's one aspect of it.

The other big aspect of what we do is we take a huge burden off the pediatric provider's desk, which is really how do you get the support services for these children.

Now because we are in all counties, our sort of navigators are the social workers.

They know exactly what's available in that county, and they will now do a tailored referral for your child.

This is not like saying, "Here's a list of numbers.

"Good luck.

Call them."

No, this is based on the bio-psychosocial assessment they've done.

They will now try and see what fits the child.

They will call the, you know, local providers and for three things.

One is do they have availability for the child that matches the needs?

Second is do they take the insurance?

And third is, do you have an appointment that can be done faster.

So that huge burden is really taken away from the pediatric provider 'cause otherwise what do you get?

A list of numbers, and say, "Good luck.

Go call them."

Third part of this is the education part of it, which is we do a lot of webinars and learning collaboratives where they learn about the common mental health issues like anxiety, depression, ADHD, and how to manage as well.

- And talking about the burden, I mean what about on the parents, the caregivers, because it is so hard.

I know from family experience it's really hard to navigate the system when you're the parent or the caregiver dealing with the child where there is anxiety, OCD, ADHD.

Something's going on, and, you know, you're just trying to navigate the system.

"Where do I go first?

"How do I get the proper help?"

How is this collaborative helping really with the parents and caregivers too.

- Glad you asked that as well.

So this is like one for the pediatrician.

We are like, I'm in their pocket.

Call me anytime.

As a parent, you're absolutely right.

It's the most confusing thing to try and navigate on what's going on.

That's what our social workers are called navigators, which means they will sort of be there from step one with the parent, and then once we've done those recommendations, our mental health specialists will actually pick up and connect with the parent within a week of those recommendations to see were you able to make these appointments.

If you were not, let me problem solve.

Sometimes it might be where they make a three-way call and get them.

Sometimes it may be where the parent did not understand really.

What do you mean?

Like we talk this language all the time, and they're like, "I don't even know how to talk to them."

Or we may have an 18-year-old who's magically an adult, doesn't know how to do this themselves.

So we'll get on the phone with them and make those calls for them and get them connected.

- And what about, so we are at this education convention here.

What about the educator?

What are you making sure that the educators who are coming over to the mental health pavilion over there, that the information that they're getting that they can bring back into the classroom 'cause they're picking up on these behaviors as well that could be, you know, something that needs to be addressed.

- Absolutely.

You know, children spend more time in school than they do in their own families.

Oftentimes the teachers know these children far better than unfortunately even us as parents because they're on their social media all the time.

So we have actually collaborated outside of just the physicians.

We do collaborate and have worked with the New Jersey Statewide Support System for Children, so the NJ4S, which is in their third year.

They're identifying children with mental health issues, and they can refer to us.

They don't have to be a physician to refer to us.

Secondly, obviously just hearing about a program like this, which is completely free, most parents are most likely to turn to a teacher, to a coach, a religious leader before they actually even go and a pediatrician.

So teachers are often the first people that parents will turn to and say, "I don't know what's going on with Joy."

And they can say, "Do you know about this program, "which is completely free?

"Call your pediatrician, "or take this, here's a flyer, take it.

"There's a QR code.

It's as simple as that."

They look at that.

They're registered, They're ready to refer those children.

- I mean, the information is key in getting the word out about this program.

Thank you so much for taking the time to describe it for us and helping us get the information out about the New Jersey Pediatric Psychiatry Collaborative.

Thank you so much, Dr.

Wells.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

- Thank you for watching.

We'll be right back after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Hi, I am Jacqui Tricarico on location at the NJEA Convention here in Atlantic City.

So pleased to be joined now by Alicia Newcomb who's the executive director of a nonprofit called CROPS, and it's this year's NJEA Convention charity.

It's so great to have you with us, Alicia.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- What is the acronym CROPS stand for?

- It stands for Communities Revolutionizing Open Public Spaces.

- Okay, let's get into that.

What does that mean?

Describe the organization for us that's right here in Atlantic City.

- Sure.

Our mission is to alleviate food insecurity, and we do that through a number of ways.

So we have a couple of main focus areas.

We focus on food production, food distribution, a wide range of education, and then advocacy.

So our food production piece deals with both producing food for free for the community through a number of community gardens that we manage.

And then we also have an urban farmer training program called the UCAN program, which stands for Urban Coastal Agriculture Network farmer training program.

So we have residents of Atlantic City and community members that are a part of that three-year program where they learn to build and run and then make sales through their own urban farming businesses.

And then in terms of food distribution, we partner with regional farms from both our farmers in Atlantic City, but additionally farms throughout the county and the neighboring counties, mostly small family farms that really want to get their food to people and communities that are wanting access to it, but they don't have like the infrastructure to do it.

So we distribute their food.

We purchase and buy from small local farms, mostly pesticide-free and organic farms.

And then we have farmer's markets and a sliding scale farm share program that functions like a CSA, and all of our programs where we do markets and the farm share program take SNAP and WIC and the FMNP program and also good food bucks through our partners with City Green.

And then we do a number of, you know, community education at our gardens and at our markets.

But we also work with the schools and a number of other like partner organizations throughout the city to share our workshops with community members, educate about gardens and nutrition and the relationship between growing food and eating food.

And then we also do advocacy.

So we work at the state level and the county and local level.

- So let's break down some of that because you're getting your hands into a lot of different things.

The organization has really grown so much over the last couple of years, and it's really about getting fresh, healthy produce into the hands of residents here in Atlantic City, which is considered a food desert.

Describe that first for us.

What is a food desert, and why is Atlantic City specifically one of the top of the list for food deserts in the state?

- So Atlantic City's number two on the NJEDA'S list of the 50 most severe food deserts in the state of New Jersey, and a food desert is really defined by proximity to like grocery stores and transportation access to grocery stores, how far away it is from somebody's home.

And, you know, that is what defines it.

There's a number of USDA data and also like local demographic data and transportation data that they use to create that list.

But it's really just about the fact that it's not accessible.

And actually the USDA a few years ago changed the definition from just being a lack of access to food, to being a lack of access to nutritious food, which really makes a big difference.

- Right, right.

And that's where the farm share comes in and partnering with so many local farmers.

So dive in a little bit more into the fact that you can sell local farmers' produce in a farmer's market here in Atlantic City, so it's more accessible to the people to walk to or get to easily.

And like you mentioned that sliding scale where the prices can vary depending on a person's income, family income.

- Yeah, so we try very hard to partner with our local farms because we feel that really we've identified what we think is one of the biggest problems with inaccessibility to nutritious food not just New Jersey, but really across the nation is just that there's no pathway, there's no like connective tissue between the people growing the food and the people that really want access to the food.

And we're not talking about working with growers that are like hundreds of thousands of acres and growing soybeans.

We're talking about small farms, you know, that are maybe 10 acres or 70 acres that are family farms.

And many of them have been in the family for multiple generations, but they're primarily producing vegetables and fruit and things that people can eat and not just, you know, like crops that are going to a factory or something like that.

So, you know, we are talking about connecting farmers to communities that really need access to it.

And so we do that by keeping the produce affordable.

We pay the farmers a fair amount for the produce, you know, that they've identified.

And then sometimes we're selling it at cost, sometimes we're selling it below what we paid for it.

Sometimes, you know, there's a little bit of a profit there.

But then in, that's for the farmer's markets.

And then with the sliding scale farm share, we have a mobile app through our partnership with New Roots, and we've used a model that comes from Kentucky that they ran there for 16 years.

And it's basically just anybody can be a part of the farm share.

You sign up through this app, and it asks you three questions about household income, whether you're already on SNAP benefits or not already, how many people in your household, are you vegetarian or not?

And it populates a suggested price.

So all of our SNAP customers that are shopping with the Farm Share program, they automatically qualify for a $6 share.

But then there it goes all the way up to like 25, and then, you know, we have our food justice share that people can pay $40.

So the people who are paying $40 are helping us to offset the cost of running it for everybody.

So it's really something that's made for everyone, but it allows people to access produce at a level that is comfortable for them and also affordable for our families and our individuals that need access to affordable produce.

- Well, you brought up SNAP and WIC a few times.

Right now we're in November, there's so much uncertainty, so much confusion around SNAP benefits.

How are you seeing this directly impact the population that you're describing?

- So, I mean, all of those SNAP customers that we work with that we know of, like have not received their funding obviously for November.

And, you know, it's really a toss up whether people had money left over from October and a lot of our partners that run pantries and run food distributions for free are just seeing an uptick in the number of people that are needing to access that because it's not even just people utilizing SNAP, it's also the fact that the government has been shut down for so long that we have federal workers who also are not being paid.

So there's just a higher need across the board.

And I heard a statistic recently that came from Temple University that says every single one meal that a food bank provides, SNAP provides nine.

So we've just created a huge gap in terms of hunger in the United States that's probably worse than what we saw during COVID.

- Well, what is CROPS able to do to help bridge that gap right now in the interim of all the confusion and the benefits not getting out?

- Right now, anybody that we work with that has been impacted by the government shutdown and a lack of access to food benefits, we are covering the cost of, you know, whether it's produce at a farmer's market or a farm share at one of our farm share pickups.

But we're also working with all of the partners that we work with in the city.

So both the city and the county.

We work with probably over a hundred other organizations in the area.

And so we're actually doing something next week in addition to working with the NJEA to run a food drive and get shelf stable items out to some of our pantry partners.

We are also next week working with our local farms to order a big wholesale order of produce that's getting delivered to our food hub in the city.

And then we're giving those boxes of produce out to our partners that are running pantries or organizations that are directly connected with families or individuals in their neighborhoods, and they're just giving them out.

- Yeah, that's gonna make a big impact.

The educational piece of this, I know trying to get the education out there is so important.

You're doing that through schools, local schools as well.

Describe that.

- Yeah, so we partner with local schools in a way that's a little bit different than we have in the past.

We used to partner with schools and try to come in and run programming like at the community gardens or at the school gardens that we sometimes help to build, sometimes they were already there.

But it's really tough to like insert yourself into a teacher's school day.

So we started doing something actually last year here at NJEA where we developed like workshops just for educators.

So we do educational workshops for teachers, and that's actually what our booth is doing.

- [Jacqui] Yeah, right behind you, yep.

- You can go over there and grab a garden kit and learn all about what's in it and how to teach that in your curriculum and take it back to the classroom with them.

So that's what we've done a lot with teachers over the last year.

But we work with a couple of local organizations, so we work with Oceanside and Family Success Centers across Atlantic City as well as Atlantic City Senior Services.

And we either provide a space where they can bring clients out to us to come do a workshop with us or we travel to them, so.

- It sounds like a really amazing collaboration, so many organizations and entities working together to really tackle this food insecurity issue.

Lastly, you just came from the keynote address, which was with Padma Lakshmi and she has a new cookbook out, but you were able to be a part of that panel discussion.

What were your takeaways from that?

- I just think, you know, a lot of the messaging that she was talking about like helping kids see themselves in food, but also in justice, you know, and how closely related the two of those things are.

And also she was really very cognizant and aware of telling teachers, like, I'm not here to tell you what to do because you're already doing more than you're even required to do.

So just small ways that people can get involved, small ways that people can incorporate food in the classroom and in their students' lives.

You know, I mean, right now it's critical.

A lot of families and students just don't have access to food across the board, but ways that we can look at the system of education and infuse it a little bit more with food is very helpful.

- Yeah.

And lastly, where does your passion for this work come from?

- I have two daughters and I really got involved in working with farms and buying from farms, you know, when my first daughter was born and she was a baby and I started wanting to like make food for her myself and thinking more about, you know, understanding where our food is coming from and spending my money in a local capacity too is important to me, you know, because I like to spend my dollars where I know it's gonna stay, you know?

And also with everything, I feel like I have a newfound passion and, you know, really anger about everything that's happening with SNAP because when I had my first daughter, I was utilizing New Jersey FamilyCare insurance, and I think that there's already a stigma around people accessing, you know, public benefits.

And I think that everything that's going on with SNAP right now, we're making it even harder for people to feed their families.

Not just from a lack of the funds being there, but from, you know, a shame aspect.

And that just doesn't stand with me.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, your passion comes through.

Thank you for all the work you and your colleagues are doing with CROPS, this year's NJEA convention charity.

So great to meet you.

Thank you for all the work you're doing and thanks for sitting with us so we can learn more about CROPS.

- Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

- Thank you.

For Steve Adubato and myself, thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- Thank you to our senior correspondent Jacqui Tricarico.

And for Jacqui and our entire team here at "One-on-One," we thank you so much for watching.

See you next time.

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

Funding has been provided by The New Jersey Education Association.

NJ Best, New Jersey’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

Seton Hall University.

Valley Bank.

PSE&G.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

The Fund for New Jersey.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by NJBIA.

And by Insider NJ.

- [Narrator] To see more One on One with Steve Adubato programs, visit us online at SteveAdubato.org.

If you would like to express an opinion, email us at info@caucusnj.org.

Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/steveadubatophd and follow us on X @steveadubato.

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No matter the challenge, because parents and educators know that with a shared commitment to our public schools, our children can learn, grow and thrive.

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