Rooted Holistic Center is the home of Rooted Through Recovery
308 White Horse Pike, Haddon Heights, New Jersey 08035, United States
Rooted Holistic Center is the home of Rooted Through Recovery
My Name Is Jennie Claire
I am a trauma survivor, educator, author, and the founder of Rooted Holistic Center, a South Jersey 501(c)(3) nonprofit created to support trauma survivors through education, movement, meditation, sound, music, recovery programming, and community.
I could speak for hours about everything I have survived. But this work is not only about my story. It is about what happens when survivors come into contact with systems that do not understand trauma—and the additional harm that can happen when the people responding have never been taught how trauma affects the brain, body, memory, communication, and behavior.
In 2019, I created Rooted Holistic Center because I believed survivors deserved something different: support grounded in neuroscience, lived experience, safety, dignity, and choice. Today we offer trainings, group classes and more to survivors and those in recovery, all by donation.
Rooted Through Recovery
In 2024, I took that work further and published Rooted Through Recovery, a complete 12-step recovery program created for substance use, behavioral patterns, and mental health, not only alcohol or drugs.
Rooted Through Recovery explores trauma, neurobiology, shame, identity, relationships, coping patterns, and the experiences beneath addiction. Each step includes readings, meditation, journaling, and discussion.
The program was created for people who may not connect with AA, NA, or traditional recovery models. It does not tell people that there is only one way to recover. It recognizes that recovery is personal and that lasting change requires more than stopping a substance or behavior. It requires understanding what the substance or behavior was doing for the person in the first place.
Rooted Through Recovery is recovery reimagined.
In late 2024 after hearing hundreds of stories from survivors I began thinking I needed to do even more. And that brainstorming led here.
Throughout the past 6 years I have heard hundreds of survivor stories, most have a common theme: inadequate support. In 2025 I said enough and decided to take action. I began drafting a legislative proposal for the State of New Jersey that would require trauma-informed education for the professionals who respond to sexual assault, domestic violence, and human trafficking.
In January 2026, New Jersey Assemblyman Bill Moen agreed to sponsor the proposal. In September 2026, it was formally introduced as proposed legislation.
The legislation is intended to ensure that law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, judicial personnel, municipal prosecutors, Sexual Assault Response Team members, and other professionals involved in these cases receive meaningful trauma-informed training.
That training would include:
● The neurobiology of trauma
● The ways trauma affects memory and recall
● Why a survivor’s story may be fragmented or told out of sequence
● How fight, flight, freeze, fawn, shutdown, and dissociation may appear
● How to recognize distress and reduced capacity in real time
● How language, questioning, tone, and environment can affect a survivor’s ability to participate
● How to respond without increasing shame, fear, confusion, or loss of control
● The importance of survivor safety, autonomy, and choice
This legislation is not about asking these professionals to become therapists. It is about making sure the people responsible for responding to trauma understand what trauma can look like.
I need support to get this bill passed. Please take a minute to send this note. You can copy this text as is and send it off, it only takes 30 seconds to be part of huge change,
“I’m a New Jersey resident in your district. Please support A5445, which would require training on how trauma affects a survivor’s memory, behavior, and communication during interactions with law enforcement, prosecutors, and the courts”
Legislation can describe what training should include, but it cannot fully show what happens when trauma is misunderstood.
Survivor stories can.
These stories can help lawmakers understand the difference between having a policy that mentions trauma and having professionals who can recognize and respond to trauma in real time.
They can show what it is like to be questioned while dissociating. To be treated as unreliable because memories were fragmented. To be judged for freezing, remaining in contact with an abuser, delaying a report, changing part of a statement, or being unable to communicate in the way someone expected.
These experiences are not isolated failures. They reveal gaps in how our systems understand and respond to trauma.
I am collecting stories from survivors in New Jersey and throughout the United States. Your experience does not need to involve a specific agency, court case, arrest, or prosecution. If a professional response to sexual assault, domestic violence, trafficking, abuse, or another traumatic experience left you feeling disbelieved, blamed, shamed, pressured, dismissed, or unsafe, your story matters.
The purpose of this project is not to publicly identify or accuse individual people. It is to document the patterns that show why trauma education is necessary.
Stories must be submitted anonymously. Please do not include names or identifying information about another person. Any submission containing names or identifying details will be deleted and will not be published or used.
Stories are not automatically published, they will be reviewed for anonymity.
You decide how much you want to share.
Statistics can show lawmakers how often violence occurs. Survivor stories show what happens after someone asks for help.
They show where systems failed, where trauma was misunderstood, and where better education could have changed the way a survivor was questioned, treated, protected, or believed.
You should never have needed to survive the response to what you had already survived. Your experience matters and your story may help protect the person who comes next.
Rooted Holistic Center is a survivor-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing accessible, trauma-informed education, recovery programming, and holistic support. Our work brings together neuroscience, lived experience, rhythm, sound, stillness, movement, and story to challenge the ways trauma and recovery are understood.
This story-collection project is intended for education and legislative advocacy. It is not a crisis-response service, legal representation, or a substitute for professional legal or mental-health support.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For confidential sexual-assault support in the United States, contact RAINN at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit RAINN.org.
This work began in New Jersey, but it should not end here.
If you are a survivor, advocate, educator, nonprofit leader, or community member who wants to pursue similar trauma-informed legislation in your state, please contact me. You do not need to understand the legislative process or already have connections with lawmakers.
I will personally help you understand how I began this process, share what I have learned, and help you think through the first steps toward creating change where you live.
Every state has survivors whose experiences with law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and first responders deserve to be heard. We can use those experiences to push for education that should already exist.
My goal is to take this nationally.
"I was sexually assaulted at age 16 by a member of the police explorers. A friend who helped run the police explorers strongly urged me to allow him to handle it in-house. He didn’t want it to damage the work the explorers’ were doing helping local youths. I didn’t know better and I didn’t want to let my friend down, so I kept quiet. Nothing was done to my attacker and he went on to attack more kids. As time went on and I gained perspective on what i had endured, I felt betrayed and angry. Looking back now I wish they’d arrested and prosecuted my attacker to the fullest extent including mandatory reporting. The moment I told my friend what had happened, he should’ve been required to report and arrest my abuser."
-New Jersey
“My experience with multiple systems—including child protection, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the court system—has repeatedly shown me how damaging a lack of trauma-informed training can be. I often felt that the focus shifted toward questioning my reactions, communication, decisions, or credibility rather than understanding the trauma and abuse underlying them.
I also witnessed situations involving children where I felt their fear, behavior, communication difficulties, and responses to adults were not adequately understood through a trauma-informed lens. At times, the people they appeared to feel safest with were not given appropriate weight, while they were pressured to communicate with or disclose information to people they were uncomfortable with. Instead of consistently asking, “What happened to this person, and what does their behavior tell us about what they have experienced?” the system often seemed to ask, “Why isn’t this person responding the way we expect?” That difference has had profound consequences for my family. I came away feeling that the systems intended to protect survivors and children did not always understand how trauma affects memory, communication, fear, trust, behavior, and the ability to advocate for oneself under extreme stress. I wish they had understood that trauma does not always look the way professionals expect it to look. A traumatized person may freeze, dissociate, struggle to communicate, become overwhelmed, have difficulty recalling information in a linear way, appear inconsistent, or have difficulty making decisions under extreme stress. None of those responses should automatically be interpreted as dishonesty, noncompliance, lack of credibility, or unwillingness to cooperate. I wish they had understood that children communicate trauma differently from adults. Behavior, regression, fear, avoidance, attachment, changes in communication, and who a child feels safe with can all contain important information. A child should not be treated as though they can simply explain traumatic experiences on demand to whichever adult a system selects. Most importantly, I wish professionals understood that safety and trust are prerequisites for disclosure. Pressuring a traumatized person or child to speak to someone they do not feel safe with can make communication more difficult rather than easier. Trauma-informed practice should mean understanding the nervous system and the effects of trauma before judging the person’s response to it. It fundamentally changed my sense of safety and my trust in the systems that are supposed to protect survivors and children. I learned that telling the truth about what was happening did not necessarily mean that I would be understood or protected in the way I expected. Instead, I often felt that I had to defend my own reactions while simultaneously trying to advocate for my family. That added another layer of trauma to an already traumatic situation. It also affected my willingness to seek help and my ability to trust professionals with vulnerable information. When survivors repeatedly feel misunderstood, blamed, questioned, or pressured, eventually the system itself can become something they fear. I believe my experience demonstrates why trauma-informed education is not optional. When professionals lack an understanding of trauma, their response can unintentionally compound the harm that brought a survivor or child to the system in the first place. I believe trauma-informed education should be mandatory for everyone involved in responding to survivors and children, including law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, child protection professionals, attorneys, court personnel, and first responders. This training should go beyond recognizing the word “trauma” and should include the neurobiology of trauma, memory, dissociation, freezing, fear responses, communication difficulties, attachment, and how trauma affects decision-making and disclosure.
I believe trauma-informed training should be ongoing, standardized, and required—not optional. There should also be meaningful accountability when professionals make decisions affecting vulnerable survivors or children without appropriately considering documented trauma and safety concerns. Most importantly, the system needs to move from asking, “Why isn’t this person responding the way we expect?” to asking, “What has this person experienced, how might trauma be affecting their response, and what can we do to create enough safety for them to communicate?” I believe that change could prevent systems intended to protect people from unintentionally compounding the trauma they have already experienced.”
“I was sexually assaulted by a family member. A few years later, I anonymously wrote a letter to a teacher. She in turn gave it to the school professionals who called my mother and showed her the letter. No police intervention was done. I don’t even think my mother believed me. The school professionals didn’t even question me. There was no follow up. Nothing was done! I just needed to talk to someone & I needed safety in that someone and not getting it Caused more trauma. We need Training, Training, Training!!”
“I’ve had Multiple events. Child of alcoholic who was emotionally and physically abusive but also high ranking military. I reported abuse to my school counselor and she called protective services and the military police (who my father commanded) who referred us to speak with the military chaplain and I was encouraged to be @christ like and forgive my father and not ruin his career. Ex husband was physically emotionally financially and sexually abusive. He was a therapist. He convinced everyone I was making everything up and was mentally unstable and was “treatment resistant”. He forced me to abort my only pregnancy or he would kill me and the baby. I reported that to the abortion clinic and the ignored. Later I reported that he raped me in my sleep. My therapist told I was dreaming and it wasn’t real. I confronted my ex and he admitted he did. I reported to the state we lived in at the time not knowing at the time it was legal for a spouse to rape their wife. Another event I was date raped with pills, and I took myself to the ED. I was transported to the rape crisis center that was in a catholic hospital. The held me without processing bloodwork or anything for 16 hrs. By that point everything was out of my system. The detective believed me, as did the nurse. The first officer on the scene didn’t and the MD at the catholic ED refused to write me scripts for protection and prevention bc so I had to wait many more hours to have him go off shift so the next MD would prescribe. When talking to the rape crisis therapist she told me I was an unreliable witness and the DA refused to take the case because it was an election year. The detective was furious and apologized. That the perpetrator deserves to have their lives ruined. To believe when we come forward. Know we have gaps in memory. That sometimes it’s not psych issues but actual autoimmune disorders due to the trauma and to change the laws and not put a rape crisis center in a catholic hospital system. I don’t trust the medical community or very few. I don’t feel safe. I can’t sleep with men in my room. My now husband has to sleep in a separate room and me lock the door so I can get some sleep. I lost confidence, years of my life, friends family opportunities and financial ruin. I had to work to get my medical records corrected and I am finally years later learning to trust my gut and I’m worthy and not a waste of space. My ex also took my ability to conceive due to an abortion that had complications. What needs change? Laws, policies, education, enforcement, trusting the victim, not delaying treatment. Protecting from harm. Who cares if it destroys their lives. Mine is forever destroyed.”
“I was a child. My parents were in a custody battle & I was made to write letter after letter to the judge to telling him what had happened to me. I wish that there had been some mandatory counseling required. This happened in the late 70’s/early 80’s. There was no consideration for how this trauma was changing who I was inside. I believe that it also set me up for later traumatic experiences with my brother when he repeatedly sexually assaulted me. Knowing there would be no positive result, I just kept my mouth shut the second time. I did not receive help. It was reenforcement that I am not worth anything. when a child discloses sexual assault, there needs to be therapy set up for the survivor. I do believe that if some of the things had been caught early, they may not have made such a deep attachment.”
I’ve been married for 22 years. My spouse has always been taking advantage of my serving spirit to the point that I felt used. I lived with it and thought it was normal. When I would share with friends and family about my experience they would say things like, “it’s not that bad, it could be worse” make it seem like I was being dramatic. Flat out say I should not be talking about or telling people about it. I’ve had suicidal ideation for years from it as a way to cope. I’ve had an addiction because my spouse began to give me his medication as a way to pay me to do things for him. I filed 2 temporary restraining orders on him. The first I dismissed, never should have. I began using with other substances with him as a way to connect with him. 2 years went by and my life went downhill. I filed another temporary restraining order on him. This time I went to court. I was confused about my court appointed lawyer and wound up not having one. I was prepared with video footage of being screamed at and threatened to be killed and pushed and wrote down what I wanted to say. The judge reprimanded me in the first 2 minutes for making a face because I didn’t agree with him. I was not intentionally making it. My face reads what I think automatically. I continued with confidence though i was shaken. My spouse’s lawyer asked if we had sex in the past 2 weeks. We had but it had been coerced and not wanted by me, I often do it to keep the peace. I didn’t know how to explain that part so I just said “yes”. I lost. The judge seemed clueless about non physical violence. He seemed to support men who keep women as slaves through emotional abuse. My spouse came back to the house and it has settled down but has not stopped. I do not want to live with him but I have no where to go financially. Also, I think from the constant trauma, I feel stuck like I can’t leave, I also have a child and pets at home. My parents, mostly mom, says the most unhelpful non supportive things. I think to make herself feel more comfortable. But they are damaging. I have found a few friends who are there for me. That has helped. One particular who is always encouraging me to just leave which keeps me aware of my situation. I usually just don’t think about it and survive it because I’ve been dealing with it for so long I know how to calm things down and prevent escalation. But I don’t want to live out the rest of my life like this. Ideation is still here. The “payments” are still here. The abuse is still here. I’m not sure if a class on emotional abuse would help this judge but I think if it even brought awareness to even one person in that profession it would be worth it and could save someone.
I’m a survivor who proposed New Jersey legislation requiring police, prosecutors, and the courts to be trained in how trauma affects survivors. It now has the backing of two senators, and I need your help getting it passed.