By Kristin Boyd Special Writer
Jennifer Mermans grew up in a loving home with a close-knit family. But, when she enrolled in Wake Forest School of Law and participated in mock trials for the juvenile justice system, she realized not all children were as fortunate.
She watched youngsters, many of whom had little or no support system, be punished for shoplifting, bullying and skipping school. It wasn’t long, she says, before she decided to become a child advocate.
“There are so many areas of the law that can help people. But I feel it’s children who need that extra voice,” Ms. Mermans says. “For anyone, the court system can be complex and intimidating, even for just the average grown up. Why not help the children?”
Now as a mother of two, her work means more to her than ever. She was recently appointed to the board of the Association of Children of New Jersey, the state’s largest child advocacy organization.
Being an ACNJ trustee allows her to remain involved with child advocacy while she takes a break from law to stay home with her children, Nicholas, 4, and Aerin, who will turn 2 at the end of this month.
“When you’re in the midst of it, it’s so natural,” says Ms. Mermans, a Princeton resident. “Fighting for rights of children and helping them navigate the system is so important to me.”
Ms. Mermans became familiar with ACNJ when she moved to the area in 1999 and began a clerkship with Judge F. Lee Forrester, who presided over Mercer County Family Court and dealt largely with juvenile cases. She later worked directly with the organization when she was a staff attorney for the Family Practice Division of the Administrative Office of the Courts.
The Association for Children of New Jersey’s roots are grounded in protecting abused and abandoned children. For the past 25 years, the organization has played a role in improving children’s health, safety and education, according to its Web site, acnj.org.
The Association for Children of New Jersey offers child advocacy training and provides an E-advocacy network. In addition, several of the organization’s top priorities include ensuring high-quality preschool programs for all eligible children and families; reforming the child welfare system to address needs of at-risk families; improving access to health and dental care for children, and revamping the juvenile justice system to offer more alternatives to incarceration.
“It’s just where my heart is,” Ms. Mermans says. “What ACNJ accomplishes is phenomenal, and I want to help be a part of that and continue that.”
Ms. Mermans’ compassion for children extends beyond ACNJ. She is an active member of the Junior League of Greater Princeton, which focuses its volunteer efforts on early childhood literacy and other issues for children and women, and she also runs PrincetonKIDS.org, a community Web site dedicated to providing useful information to area families.
In addition, she is on the board of the Merancas Foundation Inc., a North Carolina-based philanthropic organization started by her parents to help alleviate homelessness and poverty and to improve the welfare of children. The foundation has invested in philanthropic causes in New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia.
“The mission is to make a difference, one at a time,” she says. “The idea is to try to create productive children, who then, in turn, become productive adults.”
And that’s what she also hopes to accomplish by working with ACNJ, she says, adding her work with the justice system makes just as much as a difference in her life as it does for the New Jersey children she’s striving to help.
“I want to fight a cause that’s worthy,” she says. “And I guess children are my soft spot.”
