The mother of an eight-year-old boy with autism does not understand her child’s education rights. A social worker searches tirelessly for vocational training for a client who lost his job and is facing eviction. A nurse struggles to find a food pantry for an elderly patient who has not eaten in days.

Helping professionals and their clients experience difficulties every day when attempting to locate resources and navigate social and legal service systems. Scattered information on outdated lists can send clients in circles to find appropriate resources that actually service their local area. Rutgers Helps NJ Resource Guide (www.rutgershelpsnj.org) remedies these challenges by offering an online, comprehensive, social service, legal, and health database. While the database focuses on services for City of Newark residents, many of the listed programs are available to residents throughout Essex and neighboring counties and across the state.

With funding from the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, Rutgers School of Law–Newark and Rutgers School of Social Work collaborated on the development of the website with Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit that partners with nonprofit legal organizations to increase access to justice for poor individuals. Throughout the 2013-2014 academic year, graduate students in social work and law worked alongside Professors Patricia Findley, DrPH., M.S.W. and Jennifer Rosen Valverde, Esq., M.S.W. to understand the needs of Newark residents, research available programs and services, network with local agencies, and gather website content.

Rutgers Helps NJ Resource Guide includes more than 350 agencies and programs categorized by over 30 specific areas of service, including child care, mental health, homeless shelters, law and advocacy, making it simple for both clients and professionals to find needed contact information for local, state, and federal programs and agencies. Organizations not presently listed can request to add their programs through a link on the website. Ongoing site maintenance will ensure that information is current. With additional support, Rutgers Helps NJ seeks to expand coverage to other cities and counties so that the online resource benefits residents and professionals statewide.

The resource guide and printable version are available at: www.rutgershelpsnj.org.

At Rutgers School of Law–Newark, the core values of excellence, opportunity and impact are exemplified in the challenging curriculum, honored tradition of promoting diversity in the legal profession, and strong record of civic engagement and positive social impact. These strengths have consistently produced leaders of the bench, the bar, the corporate world, all levels of government, and public interest organizations in New Jersey and across the country. Visit us at law.newark.rutgers.edu.

The Rutgers School of Social Work is the fourth largest school in the country devoted to education and research on social welfare, and is committed to advancing the field of social work through original research. The school’s mission is to develop and disseminate knowledge through social work research, education, and training that promotes social and economic justice and strengthens individual, family, and community well-being in this diverse and increasingly global environment of New Jersey and beyond. Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RutgersSSW or Twitter at https://twitter.com/RutgersSSW