As an inspirational guiding force, Mrs. Ernestine Winfrey fosters a therapeutic and loving community at the Good News Home which is a long-term residential rehabilitation center for women who want to overcome the life-destroying effects of alcohol and other drug addictions. Her broad scope of initiatives comes from her excellence in leadership, clinical experience, educational background, and her unwavering faith and hope. Mrs. Winfrey has been executive director Good News Home since 1997 and continues to relentlessly and tirelessly serve to help others on both a personal and professional level.
Mrs. Winfrey has been involved in a wide range activities and organizations that demonstrates her long commitment to the community.
- Ernestine has served on the New Jersey Governor’s Task Force for establishing treatment standards for the alcohol and drug treatment continuum of services.
- She is also a standing member of the Governor’s Professional Addiction Council. The Council works directly with the assistant commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Drugs and Alcohol.
- As a volunteer recovery mission team member of GOAL (Global Outreach for Addiction Leadership and Learning), in April of 2005 and in July of 2006, Ernestine embarked on a two-week journey to Nairobi, Kenya in Africa. Her team’s vital training of clergy, health care providers and teachers in Kenya focused on the prevention of substance abuse to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.*
- Ernestine is an active and working partner of the government sponsored Workforce Investment Board (WIB) serving residents of New Jersey’s Hunterdon,Somerset and Middlesex counties. Representatives of WIB determine whether the local workforce readiness system, which includes “One-Stop Career Centers,” is meeting the needs of the labor market and customers. WIBs engage in a process of program coordination; they set priorities, recommend resource utilization, and ensure that services, such as job, training, education and housing opportunities, are accessible to all those in need.
- She is an accredited member in good standing with the National Association of Social Workers and the National Association of Christian Counselors.
- Ernestine developed and teaches the Real Life Issue course series, which focuses on teens and adults in such concerns as building healthy relationships, spiritual sexuality, forgiveness, depression and loving oneself as God loves you.
- At Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where she successfully completed the clinical pastoral education program, Ernestine served for many years as a respected chaplain. She is also a licensed minister.
- In response to our nation’s tragedy of September 11th Ernestine served as a certified victim chaplain through the Chaplin Training Academy.
- After she retired from AT&T in 1989, Ernestine sought to complete her undergraduate degree program and went on to earn a Master of Divinity degree and a Fellows in Pastoral Leadership from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Master of Social Work degree from Rutgers Graduate School of Social Work.
- At Rutgers University, Division of Addiction Studies, she has completed all course work and clinical hours required for eligibility as a New Jersey licensed certified alcohol and drug counselor.
- Before coming to the Good News Home Ernestine provided clinical counseling and care as a social worker at the East Orange Veterans Hospital to patients plagued with addictive disorders and HIV/AIDS.
Ernestine is a widow and mother of 10 children, three of whom are adopted. She has been blessed with 33 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.