POSTINGS | Summer 2025

PEI Kids Pilots "Kid Gloves" with Trenton Recreation

On June 26th, our Prevention team visited the Trenton West Ward Recreation Center to provide our Kid Gloves training for the City's summer camp staff.

The team at Trenton Recreation Department included about 30 camp staffers, supervisors, and administrators, ranging from young people just starting out as camp counselors to those who have worked in similar environments for decades.

Kid Gloves is designed to train staff who supervise children in non-academic settings and are responsible for their safety. This includes camp counselors, after-school program staff, recreational and coaching staff, and other youth-serving professionals.

Kid Gloves training includes an online self-guided module which participants must pass with a score of 80% followed by a 3-hour in-person session that covers information on identifying signs of emotional, sexual or physical abuse; how to respond to a child’s disclosure of abuse; preventing, identifying and responding to peer violence/bullying; and what kind of language works best to cultivate a safe space where children can share freely.

Everyone who participated said they learned something beneficial, including PEI Kids’ team: Program Director, Annette Henderson and Facilitator, Ereaunna LaCava, are now working on additional training components suggested by the team at Trenton Rec. “We look forward to furthering this program and hope to share it with many organizations in the future,” explained Henderson.

Well done Prevention team and thank you to everyone at Trenton Recreation Department for being wonderful hosts and participants!

Click the button below to enjoy photos from the training with Trenton Recreation Department.

Photos

Celebrating a

Four-Star Performance!

This year, PEI Kids is celebrating its perfect 4-Star Rating from Charity Navigator! Charity Navigator has rated over 225,000 U.S. charities since 2001 highlighting traits such as cost-effectiveness, what exactly donor money does, and overall stability, sustainability, and efficiency of program operations.

As part of the evaluation, PEI Kids scored a perfect 100% based on performance in the areas of Accountability & Finance as well as Culture & Community. Some stand-outs noted by Charity Navigator are PEI Kids’ financial transparency, its independent board, financial responsibility, and engagement with community feedback. Each of these is essential when building a trustworthy organization with donor confidence.

Executive Director, Roz Dashiell, shares, “I couldn't be prouder of our program and administrative leadership teams who maintain the highest ethical principles and demonstrate a standard of excellence in all that we do.”

PEI Kids looks forward to continuing in its dedication, hard work, and proficiency to help vulnerable kids and foster child-safe communities. Way to go, team!

To view the full Charity Navigator report, click the button below.

See the report!

Denim & Diamonds:

Celebrating 40 years of Safety, Healing, and Hope!

On Friday, October 17, PEI Kids hosts its 40^th anniversary celebration—Denim & Diamonds: Celebrating 40 years of Safety, Healing, and Hope!

Join us at The Boathouse at Mercer Lake for an unforgettable evening of inspirational stories from the heart of our work, featuring a delicious gourmet dinner with cocktail hour, live entertainment, one-of-a-kind live and silent auctions including sought-after items and experiences, sports memorabilia, fine wines and spirits, and more.

We will also present PEI Kids’ first-ever Champions for Children awards to honor the people and organizations who have supported our mission and helped to shape four decades of fostering child-safe communities. Click the links below for more information. We hope to see you there!

Can’t make it? Support us with your donation.

About Denim & Diamonds

Become a Sponsor

Champion for Children honorees

Advancing Teen Mental Health

In spring, PEI Kids was chosen by The National Council for Mental Wellbeing to be one of seven New Jersey sites testing a pilot program centered on Teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA).

TMHFA focuses on teaching teens how to recognize, understand and respond to peers struggling with mental health or substance use challenges before they become a crisis. The new pilot program sets out to expand the reach of these practices by providing organizations with a Toolkit for community-wide implementation.

Summer Updates

Summer podcast series

Coming soon! Look for new episodes of our podcast series on Spotify, PEI Kids Presents Dream Team: the People Serving NJ's Youth.

Last summer, we released episodes featuring some of our own subject-matter experts and program staff.

For the coming season, we're reaching out to interview community partners including members of the Prosecutor's Office, philanthropic supporters, our Champion for Children honorees, and more!

Look for our new episodes in early fall. To enjoy prior episodes, follow the link to our Spotify page.

On the Waterfront

Summer is typically when the juvenile crime index spikes and when youth often have an abundance of unsupervised, unstructured time leaving them vulnerable to high-risk situations.

On July 2, we launched our JIS Summer Initiative to provide young people with outdoor fun and structured time during the weeks of summer.

Earlier this month, the group spent the day at Bristol Waterfront (Pennsylvania) to enjoy a relaxing time at the wharf including football, Gatorade, and delicious pizza! Trips like these provide our kids with fun memories and a stress-free social space to be themselves without societal pressures.

Enjoy photos here from the team's day at the waterfront!

The JIS Summer Initiative runs through July and August.

Summer-school partners

We're proud to welcome two school partners this summer: Achievers Academy and Foundation Academy, both in Trenton.

Students attending summer school may not have access to all the staff and resources available to them during the school year. To ensure good mental health for kids attending summer school, we've arranged for our Licensed Professional Counselor, Dan Tran, to provide onsite mental health counseling at both schools/locations.

"Some students have standing weekly appointments, and others can drop in as needed. What's important is that we cultivate a sense of wellbeing and good mental health for our kids all year round. Those are things we can't take a summer break from" explains Roz Dashiell, Executive Director.

If you’d like to help kids grow up safe and strong, consider donating today or volunteering at PEI Kids. We always need dedicated volunteers to help around the office, represent our organization at community events, help us conduct free community workshops, and more.

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