By Walter Elliott
EAST ORANGE – Revelations on what led Jashyah Moore, 14, to leave home were still rippling through here and the Metropolitan New York City region when Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green and allied officials began putting preventative measures in place here Nov. 16.
Green and Health and Human Services Director Dr. Monique Griffith, on Noon that Tuesday, announced plans to have a 24-hour hotline for children in crisis to call.
That hotline, to be set up “in the next few weeks,” will be the gateway to resources for said children to tap so they would not need to run away. Those resources, which most currently exist, will be coordinated and simplified for better access.
“We got to be about it – and the City of East Orange will be about it,” said Green of the coming change. “It really taught all of us that, in any type of situation, especially in our community, we can come together as one and do what we have to do and not just for Jashyah but (for) any young person.”
Green was referring to the 29 days of community mobilization, law enforcement coordination and news distribution while Ms. Moore disappeared into New York City. The publicity helped a good Samaritan to find Moore on a Harlem street corner, waiting for an acquaintance, Nov. 11.
Local Talk’s media watcher noticed a change within an hour of Moore’s finding. Several NYC-based news outlets stopped using her first name and began blurring her face on later broadcasts.
Although one or two channels featured Moore’s three-year-old brother talking early in the Oct. 14-Nov. 11 search press conferences, his name was never aired.
At least two television stations began running articles on other missing people.
The mayor also mentioned the East Orange School District Peer Counseling Certification Program, with collaboration with Seton Hall University. Green added East Orange Recreation and EO Safe Haven PAL programs.
Green and Griffith meanwhile listed the following resources for distressed children or youth:
· New Jersey Child Abuse Hotline. 1(877) NJ-ABUSE (652-2873). (24/7)
· 2nd Floor Youth Hotline. 1(888) 222-2228. www.2ndfloor.org. (24/7)
· Essex County LGBT Rain Foundation. 168 North Park St., East Orange. (973) 675-6780. ww.essexlgbthousing.org.
· Isaiah House. 238 North Munn St., East Orange. (973) 678-5882. www.isaiahhouse.org.
· NJ-211.
· Crisis Textline. Text HOME to 741741 “for support at your fingertips.”
· Crisistextline.org.
· MindRight
· 625 Broad St., Unit 240, Newark
· 1(888) 878-8697. www.mindright.io.
· American Red Cross. 1(800) RED-CROSS (507-6058)3
Mayor Green has also started a Community Holiday Collection for Jashyah and her brother here at City Hall, 44 City Hall Plaza, now through Dec. 17. Items and donations for her and her brother are to be made out to or labeled as: Jashyah Moore Collection. Clothing sizes include M/L and 7.5 Medium Woman’s Shoe and 5T-6T and Toddler 10 Shoe.
A scholarship fund is also being considered as of press time.
