NCST specializes in resolving relationship-based disputes toward a peaceful outcome. We coordinate our efforts with partners, including city agencies, service providers, policy organization, and more in order to improve the quality of life of citizens in the City of Newark.

NCST Programs

Victim Services Department: Outreach Workers provide mentoring to youth and young adult ages 14-30 with achieving short term life goals.

Skilled and trained Outreach Workers are the linchpin to success of this initiative. Outreach Workers work individually and as a team to prevent community-based violence. We help residents with:

  • Hardship Assistance – Each participant has access up to $200 to address emergency needs.
  • Life Management Skills – Participants can receive up to 40 hour of life skills training and support.
  • Social Service Assistance – Participants are given assistance with acquiring birth certificates, Social Security cards, and other important personal documents.
  • Wellness Support – In partnership with the Department of Health and Community Wellness, participants are given access to confidential wellness evaluation and therapeutic counseling
  • Legal Support – In partnership with Rutgers University Newark Law Fellows, outreach workers and participants are provided with free legal services to address barriers to employment and self sufficiency.
  • Crime Survivor Support Services – In partnership with New Jersey Crime Victims’ Law Center, our advocates will facilitate the Victims Compensation Fund application process for mentees and survivors of crimes and connect them to support services.
  • Employment/Education Referrals – In partnership with Newark Jobs Connect and relationships with employers, participants are given priority referral and job training opportunities

High Risk Intervention (HRI): The High Risk Interventionist team’s primary responsibility is to respond to community based violence incidents based on referral from the community or law enforcement. HRI connects those engaged in violence to supportive counseling, crisis intervention assessment and mediation, referrals and resource information in order to restore peace and avoid arrest and incarceration.

Hospital Violence Intervention Program (HVIP): Outreach Workers are embedded in the University Hospital Trauma Center and connect victims and their families to supportive services Outreach workers also connect to the high risk intervention team and victim services in order to prevent repeat or retaliatory violence. Learn more >>

Safe Passage: NCST provides Safe Passage at schools with hot spots of violence surrounding select contracted schools. Outreach Workers are deployed in teams at key exit and entry points of the school, bus stops, stores and intersections where youth congregate in and around the school. Safe Passage allows Outreach Workers to develop relationships with the youth and their parents, intervene in and mediate potential conflicts, and ensure that students arrive to and from school in a safe and timely manner.

Trauma Recovery Center: The Trauma Recovery Center (TRC) is a nationally acclaimed model that It is designed to help victims of violent crime overcome barriers to accessing mental health treatment, health care, and legal resources in the acute aftermath of trauma. The TRC provides free mental health services to survivors, 10 and older, of violent crime, including survivors of physical assault, sexual assault, gunshot wounds, stabbings, domestic violence, and human trafficking to residents of Essex and Hudson county. Access our Trauma Recovery Center and Eviction Prevention Referral Form here. Learn more >>

Overdose Response Team (ORT): NCST is partnering with University Hospital to provide a community-led response to overdose emergency calls in Newark, NJ. NCST’s Overdose Response Team has two Outreach Workers who co-respond to overdose calls with University Hospital EMS twice a week. The team will revive these individuals, provide them with harm reduction supplies and education, and seek to engage them in short-term care coordination services. The Overdose Response team follows up with these individuals in the community the other three days of the week to address their health and social needs. To reach the NCST ORT, dial 833-254-6278. Learn more >>

Sentinel Leadership Academy: The Sentinel Leadership Academy works to heal the trauma created by violence driven by ignorance, fear, hatefulness and desperation. Our efforts to establish a critical mass of well-informed and courageous citizen leaders has started to yield fruit and results. Our four cohorts have produced graduates who are deeply committed to transformational uplift. We have helped both those who were already organic leaders by encouraging them along a trajectory of development and impact that they had already established; and those who needed to develop a higher sense of self efficacy rooted in improved levels of self-understanding and awareness of social resources, and a sense of connection to the history of their community. Learn more >>