View the Flipping Book Report Card
Dear Friends of Salem County,
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the 2026 Salem County Children and Family Report Card.
This document was produced by the Salem Health and Wellness Foundation in cooperation with Advocates for Children of New Jersey and many other thought partners from the region. Its primary purpose is to provide residents with practical and accessible up-to-date information regarding the health, safety, and well-being of children and families in Salem County. Its intended audience is anyone who lives or works in the County and who is concerned about kids, their parents, and the communities in which they live.
We have designed the Report Card to be a proactive tool, not a shelf ornament. In fact, it is our hope that people will see this as the beginning of a process for Salem County, where anyone can pick up this Report Card and start conversations with their neighbors, their co-workers, their faith community, their business partners, or their elected officials. They can use the data, and the accompanying narratives, as a starting point for improving the areas of challenge, while building on Salem County’s many strengths.
We are giving readers a portion of the data that was collected by our team. Much more data related to Salem County is available on the Advocates for Children of New Jersey website. However, we believe that the information in this document is enough to get people engaged and excited about the tasks that lie ahead. We hope people will look at the trends in the data to consider whether there has been improvement over the past few years.
Here is our number one recommendation. The data is important and revealing. However, the numbers are neutral. The most important pieces of information are in the stories and narratives of Salem County residents. Only the people who live, work, and worship in the County understand the underlying explanation of these numbers. That’s why Salem County “citizen” participation in this process is so important. The point of this exercise is to identify solutions to the difficult problems facing children in Salem County.
Our second recommendation is not to use this document and its data to blame any one person, organization, or government office. Blaming is counter-productive, because it shifts the responsibility to someone else, and allows us to sit on the side lines. Using the Report Card to improve the lives of children in Salem County is a shared responsibility. Please consider your own role in being a change maker.
The Boards and teams of the Salem Health and Wellness Foundation and Advocates for Children of New Jersey wish to thank all our thought partners in the community. There were many people who sat and shared their thoughts, ideas, and questions about the well-being of children in Salem County as we put this together. We appreciate their input and wisdom.
Thank you for taking the time to review this and our best wishes to all of Salem County’s families.
Best,
Paul DiLorenzo, ACSW, MLSP
Executive Director
Salem Health and Wellness Foundation
Mary Coogan, Esq.
President and CEO
Advocates for Children of New Jersey