Somerset Co. takes initiative in poverty battle

from the Courier News

By LAURIE LEVOY
STAFF WRITER

SOMERVILLE — Social service agencies, nonprofits, businesses and philanthropic foundations were challenged Wednesday to think outside their comfort zones and perceptions about poverty in Somerset County, and work toward eradicating — and in the process not unwittingly sustaining — the plight of local families in poverty.

Participants at a forum called an "Invitation to End Poverty," heard Scott Miller, the national director of the Circles Initiative, speak on the philosophy behind and the elements of his Circles Campaign, which is headquartered in Ames, Iowa.

Sponsors of the program, United Way of Somerset County, Northwest New Jersey Community Action Program Inc. (better known as NORWESCAP) and the Somerset County Department of Human Services are partnering a new initiative based upon the Circles Campaign to "move families out of poverty" in Somerset County.

"Our outreach in New Jersey will also be called the Circles Initiative and will work with families in Sussex and Somerset counties," said Terry Newhard, chief executive officer and executive director of NORWESCAP.

Locally, Newhard said an inaugural meeting in the next few weeks of the Guiding Coalition, one of the leadership arms of a Circle, will becharged with identifying 12 to 13 families living in poverty in Somerset County — each to become a Circle embraced and empowered by the community. The family will be coached to work hard and play by the rules, while learning how to navigate the various financial and social resources currently available and as they move toward self-sufficiency.

People living in poverty in suburban, affluent Somerset County can become invisible behind government statistics, Miller said. He noted the NORWESCAP findings: One adult living with one infant and one child in Somerset County needs an annual income of $61,000 to be self-sufficient, while nationally, that break-even number to achieve self-sufficiency hovers at about $30,500.

Lynn Weckworth, a vice president at United Way of Somerset County, is excited about the Circles Initiative because "its approach is unique. And on a larger scale, it's an opportunity for us in Somerset County to make changes at a systemic level, and ultimately at a community level" to address the issue of local poverty.

The Circles Campaign strategy strives to transform all players, whether client, sponsor or mentor to see local poverty as a community-wide problem where solutions build new relationships that bridge class, race and educational barriers. Success is based upon cutting across socioeconomic class delineations and social service bureaucracies, ultimately teaching the "community to take responsibility for the problem of poverty," Miller said.

For example, the client becomes the "circle leader" — no longer spoken about, or, in time, behaving like a victim. A circle of "allies" is formed, not to "fix" the circle leader and the family, but to guide the family to make their own plan to move forward out of its predicament.