Connecting on Youth Violence: A Campaign to Keep South Jersey Kids Out of Trouble

Transcript

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AMY:

- Hi. So today we're trying something new. I'm in the Cumberland County Seat in Bridgeton, with the opportunity to interview Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae. Here I am at the Prosecutor's office and we're going to go ahead inside and have a chance to learn about a great new program called Future Remix. And so today I am privileged to be here with Prosecutor Webb-McRae, to really begin to talk about, Jen, how we began to work together. And really you brought us together around a tragedy, the Fairfield shooting, where three people lost their lives. And just last month we had the situation, obviously, of a 15 year old who was murdered and died in the Vineland emergency room. And, I just wondered if you could talk about your passion around really curbing the violence, and how we then began to do the great work around Future Remix.

PROSECUTOR:

- Yes, so I want start out by saying I'm so happy that you're here with me today. And I'm so happy about the relationship that we forged with Inspira Health. For many years, since my tenure as Cumberland County Prosecutor, been here about 12 years, I've been thinking about violence as a health epidemic. And when we talk about the social determinants of health, they're not really very different than talking about the risk factors and protective factors that we need to wrap around children, so that they can be their best healthy selves. So, in response to the mass shooting and some of the violence that we experience in our community, and the violence that's taking place among young people, we welcome this opportunity to discuss the Future Remix campaign. And how we think it can help bolster protective factors around young people in our community.

AMY:

- Prosecutor, one of the things that really, for me, made me understand your passion around this is, you grew up here, right?

PROSECUTOR:

- Absolutely.

AMY:

- You're a local Vineland High School girl, went to Glassboro State, got your law degree from Rutgers. And, I remember so clearly just after that mass shooting, when you convened a handful of us and said, "Okay, we have to figure this out." State police were there, the local police chiefs. You had Inspira there, you had the human services community, as well as the mayors to really put our heads together. And through that work, maybe you could talk about how we ended up with this campaign.

PROSECUTOR:

- So I wanna give credit where credit is due. Commissioner Director Joe Derella, and some community members, including Todd Edwards from the NAACP, really convene the group. When we formulated Future Remix, we wanted to make sure that we were using people from the community, who were vested in the community. Who were ground level, who could tell us how to best attract the kids that we want to attract. So I'm thankful that late fourth living, John Fuqua, participated in kids from his organization, as well as kids from Victor Jimenez's organization in Vineland Daniels Den. And if you get an opportunity, I know you've seen the ads, anyone who sees the ads will see the young people who worked on this initiative and also contributed to the music created by the sounds in the Future Remix ad. Future Remix was born out of that notion. Or the thing that we hear in the community most often is that there's nothing to do for young people in the community. And that's why they're resorting to violence and crime. We wanna dispel the myth that there's nothing to do in Cumberland County. There are many things to do. There are many organizations that are working hard to help children be their best healthy selves. This is a platform where we can actually get the idea out to young people and they can go and find the activities in one place, and then take advantage of the activities in the community.

AMY:

- You know, the other exciting thing was that you did have the key stakeholders, right? The Superintendents were all, from the entire county, were all there, were all present really being part of this. And, what would you say to the skeptics?

PROSECUTOR:

- This community has a lot of challenges, but we also have the benefit of being a small community, where you can be a big fish in a a small pond. And that means that only a few people have to get on one accord to do amazing things. So to the skeptics, I would say we're working. We're doing the work to make sure that we're talking with each other early and often. We're not making friends in foxholes, and we're solving problems that help families live their best healthy lives. I realize that in the criminal justice system, I can't do this alone. I need the hospital system. I need the health professionals. I need the education system. We need to be working together to solve the problems, that if they go unattended to, end up in the criminal justice system. Substance abuse, mental health, issues that affect at-risk children, they're all interconnected. And that's why we need to be interconnected. And we need to be working together to say, "How do we make sure that no child gets left behind in Cumberland County?"

AMY:

- You know, one of the things that struck me is that as I listen to you rattle those things off, in both of these situations for us, for each of us, if people do not take advantage of the services they end up with either you or me.

PROSECUTOR:

- Absolutely. We're the catch mitts for the unintended consequences of ignoring problems that we can solve more cost effectively, if we do it earlier and more often in front end systems.

AMY:

- And maybe you could just spend a couple minutes talking about the name itself, because that really came out of the vision of our hope for what happens with the kids.

PROSECUTOR:

- It's an opportunity for a child to remix their life. If they're going down the wrong path, if we can get them involved in activities where they can be leaders, where they can interact with trusted adults. If you're interested in just plain old fun for kids there's resources there. If you're interested in life skills, there's resources for that. If you're interested in after school activities, there's resources for that. The agencies that we've listed on this site are agencies that are operating agencies that are trusted in our community. And most importantly, agencies that we know are going to call you back. And that's super, super important because oftentimes people who are looking for help in the community have a distrust of government, or have a distrust of agencies that they feel are paid to serve them, but don't meet their needs. And I'm excited that we can say that we trust these agencies that are listed on this site because we've been working with them for years and they have the same passion for children and for families that we do.

AMY:

- That's wonderful. Prosecutor, I hope that we will have the opportunity to come back and sit with you again, to talk about the successes that have happened in Future Remix. I also just wanna thank you on behalf of our entire community for your dedication to keeping us safe, as well as to saving our children.

PROSECUTOR:

- And I wanna thank you. It's such a pleasure to work with Inspira Health. I wanna thank you for Future Remix. I wanna thank you for the efforts that you made with our addiction services by providing us Narcan. And you've been doing that for years. It is truly a privilege and a pleasure to forge new partnerships that help people in our community. So thank you so much.

AMY:

- Thank you, Prosecutor, and thank all of you for listening today and for being part of this.