Program Manager, Child and Adolescent Health
New Jersey Department of Health
Ms. Blakney received her dual Master's in Human Sexuality Education and Marriage and Family Counseling from New York University in 1998. She spent 13 years in NYC working with homeless and runaway LGBTIAAQ youth. Her time in NYC afforded multiple opportunities to engage with youth and is where she first started developing and implementing evidence-based youth programs utilizing positive youth development to help build resiliency. In 2005 Ms. Blakney joined Central Jersey Family Health Consortium (CJFHC), where she served as the Community Education Manager and later Teen Health Initiatives Program Manager, overseeing multiple MCH programs as well as an Office of Adolescent Health TPP and Personal Responsibility Education Program grant. Ms. Blakney joined the New Jersey Department of Health, Division of Family Health Services, Child, and Adolescent Health Program in 2016 where she developed a Statewide Youth Engagement Initiative which has now grown to include 11 local Youth Advisory Boards (YAB), a statewide NJDOH Voice of Youth Planning Committee and multiple paid youth development specialists. She currently serves as the Ne Jersey State Adolescent Health Coordinator, and is the Program Manager for Child and Adolescent Health overseeing two Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants (PREP and SRAE), Statewide Youth Engagement, School Health NJ, Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program, the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention Grant and a CDC Rape Prevention Education Grant. Ms. Blakney also holds two appointments, The Governor’s Youth Suicide Prevention Advisory Council and the Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review Committee, Suicide Subcommittee.