CARES Institute


	Medical and Mental Health Services to Help Children & Families Heal The CARES Institute provides direct services to children and families that have experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect or domestic violence. The CARES Institute's core service components are: Medical Services, Mental Health Treatment Services and Psychiatric and Evaluative Services. The Institute provides high quality, child-sensitive and coordinated diagnostic and treatment services, while minimizing the stress experienced by the children and their families during and after the investigatory and prosecutorial proceedings related to the abuse.

	The Institute has adopted a multi-disciplinary approach, and works closely and cooperatively with local law enforcement agencies including county prosecutors' offices and the Division of Youth and Family Services to achieve this goal. To assist in the detection, assessment and treatment of child abuse (sexual, physical and neglect) and the associated reactions in children, the Institute provides a full spectrum of services, including medical exams and psychiatric and psychological evaluations, as well as individual, group and family therapy. Our interdisciplinary team of pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and social workers serves approximately 1800 children per year, many of them from underserved and impoverished families in the southern New Jersey counties. Although the Institute is located in Stratford in Camden County, services were expanded to include outreach therapy for children at DYFS offices throughout the seven southern counties (Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem). These are vital services that ensure that children receive high quality, abuse-focused treatment provided in a child-sensitive manner by experts in the area of child sexual and physical abuse.