GT VISION (Gloucester Township Violence in Society Initiative Operational Network) is a comprehensive approach to addressing crime through an understanding that social disorder and substance abuse fuels crime especially among young people.
The program acknowledges that effective long term crime fighting goals must include community wide crime prevention effort and assertive policing. Crime Fighting police operations are critical in attacking substance abuse and crime; however, such action must be supported with community wide interventions and prevention strategies to make such hard working police activity successful in the long term.
GT VISION is the police and community umbrella encompassing GT PIER, Project CASEY, Project SAVE, Project MARRS, and the Family Resource Center which collectively offer proactive policing and community based long term prevention and intervention reduction strategies to combat the social disorder that gives rise to crime and delinquency.
The Family Resource Center
The Family Resource Center (FRC) is home of the GT VISION Program and other youth centered activities in the community. Staffed by a licensed Clinical Social Worker, the FRC provides professional counseling services in a comfortable, home-like setting. GT Focus meetings for at risk youth and their parents and The Gathering Space, a teen counseling and support group, meet weekly throughout the year. In addition, individual and family counseling is offered free of charge to community families struggling with issues affecting our youth.
Center for Family Services Partnership
Gloucester Township Police Department entered into a partnership with the Center for Family Services to further assist the residents of our town by creating a Community Connections Family Success Center at the Family Resource Center located at 1324 Little Gloucester Rd., Blackwood, NJ. The Center for Family Services is committed to changing the odds for children and families across southern New Jersey. They offer several programs focused on supporting and empowering individuals, families, and communities to achieve a better life through vision, hope, and strength. CFS staffs the Family Success Center five days a week holding seminars and workshops for the Township residents. All of the programs and activities are free of charge.
The Children’s Garden at the Family Resource Center
The Family Resource Center has also partnered with our local Kiwanis Organization to create a Children’s Garden program. Kiwanis was instrumental in assisting with funding and building the gardens. The Children’s Garden club meets weekly on Thursdays to work on the gardens. They share their crops with the neighbors and assisted with Family Dinners held every other Thursday by the Center for Family Services with fresh vegetables. They also work on small projects when not gardening such as small birdhouses and bird feeders.
For more information on all of the events and programs at the Family Resource Center, please visit the Gloucester Township Police Family Resource Center Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/GTPDFRC/ or the Center for Family Services website at: https://www.centerffs.org/. All of our events and the CFS calendar are posted on our Facebook page along with several other events throughout our County. You can also contact the Family Success Center directly by phone at (609) 238-0685 or email at familysuccesscenter@centerffs.org .
