When most people think about public health, they think about hospitals, doctors or mental health services. But in New Jersey, a small team inside the Department of Children and Families operates with a completely different mindset.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?” they want people to ask, “What happened to you?”

That simple shift is at the heart of the New Jersey Office of Resilience, a statewide initiative created in 2020 to help prevent and heal the effects of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. The office serves as a hub for trauma-informed and healing-centered resources, training, organizational support and community partnerships designed to help individuals, organizations and communities thrive.

“70% of Americans are trauma-impacted,” says Rebecca Bryan, executive director of the Office of Resilience for the State of New Jersey. “Trauma is really common, but instead of accepting it as a fact, we want to figure out how to help.”

More than 40% of New Jersey children have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, while 18% have experienced two or more, says Bryan. Those experiences can include abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, violence or other forms of childhood adversity that research has linked to long-term physical, emotional and social challenges.

“It has long-term consequences,” she says. “Childhood adversity has the potential to impact brain development, overall physical health and the risk for chronic disease across a lifetime. This office was created out of that recognition.”

The office officially launched in June 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. What could have been a setback instead became an opportunity to build statewide networks and resources.

“One of the risks of focusing only on trauma or adverse childhood experiences is that people can begin to form an identity rooted entirely in that trauma. But people are more than what happened to them.”

“We decided to focus on individuals, communities and organizations, with the goal of functioning as a hub for trauma-informed and resilience resources,” says Bryan. 

That work starts with changing how people think about trauma itself.

“Being trauma-informed, to me, is really about adopting a different paradigm,” she says. “Instead of asking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ when you see a behavior someone is struggling with – or even an outcome an organization or community is experiencing – you ask, ‘What happened to you?’”

“When you understand the trauma, you understand the behavior or the outcome, and that’s a really powerful shift,” she adds.

But the Office of Resilience is careful not to define people solely by their hardships.

“We also ask, ‘What’s strong with you?’ or ‘What’s right with you?’” she says. “We’re leaning more and more into a strengths-based, assets-based approach.”

That philosophy reflects the office’s larger vision of helping New Jersey become what it calls a “trauma-informed and healing-centered state.”

To help make that vision tangible, the office developed a program that guides individuals and organizations through four stages: trauma-aware, trauma-sensitive, trauma-responsive and healing-centered.

“The continuum begins with recognizing that trauma is very common and understanding that it affects the way people think, behave and experience risk,” Bryan says.

The final destination is healing-centered engagement, an approach that emphasizes relationships and supportive environments alongside trauma recovery.

“One of the risks of focusing only on trauma or adverse childhood experiences is that people can begin to form an identity rooted entirely in that trauma,” she says. “But people are more than what happened to them.”

The office’s definition of resilience also challenges common misconceptions.

“One of the risks with the word ‘resilience’ is that it can sometimes be overused or even unintentionally weaponized,” Bryan says. “As if it’s some kind of moral judgment – like, ‘You just weren’t resilient enough.’”

Instead, she views resilience as a process.

“For us, resilience is about adaptation and overcoming adversity so that you can return to a sense of well-being after harm or hardship,” she says.

Of course, a statewide mission requires more than philosophy.

“We’re a mighty team of seven,” Bryan says. “So if we truly want to have statewide impact, we have to work alongside other people and build coalitions.”

The office does that through extensive training programs, partnerships and technical assistance. Through Healing & Resilient NJ, a public-facing resource platform created by the office, New Jersey residents can access resilience-building tools, service directories, organizational resources and educational materials.

The office also offers a one-hour trauma awareness webinar and an eight-hour Foundations in Trauma, Resilience and Healing-Centered Strategies training.

“My dream would be for every New Jersey resident to take it,” Bryan says. “It really changes the way you view people, situations and even yourself.”

For organizations, the Office of Resilience developed TRUST, a free Trauma-Responsive Understanding Self-Assessment Tool that helps evaluate how well trauma-informed principles are integrated into daily operations.

“We’re really trying to help organizations identify the next right step in their trauma-informed journey,” she says.

One initiative Bryan is especially proud of is the Resilience Room, an online collection of evidence-based resources designed to help people manage stress and prevent burnout.

“We think of it almost like a ‘mind spa,’” she says.

Another project is the office’s parent technoference campaign, which explores how adult technology use can disrupt parent-child relationships.

“We knew this couldn’t be a shaming campaign,” Bryan says. “Community members told us very clearly that the message shouldn’t create guilt or blame.”

Instead, the campaign used humor to encourage caregivers to be more present with children. The result exceeded expectations, generating more than 14 million impressions.

“What I love about that campaign is that it translates the science around positive childhood experiences into practical, everyday action,” she says.

Looking ahead, Bryan sees an important evolution taking place. Awareness of adverse childhood experiences has grown dramatically over the last decade, and now the conversation is expanding to include positive childhood experiences. 

“What’s powerful about positive childhood experiences is that, unlike adverse experiences, they’re actionable,” she says.

Those experiences can be surprisingly simple: feeling safe at home, having trusted adults, experiencing belonging and being able to talk openly about feelings.

“You can’t erase adversity from someone’s history,” she says. “But you can create environments that promote healing and resilience. We are working to create environments where people can move beyond survival and actually thrive.”