thhs.care
ABOUT
Started by a family,
for families.
Tender Hand is NJ family-owned, run by nurses and disability specialists. We built the agency we wished we'd found.
FAMILY-OWNED · NJ DOH LICENSED · NJ DDD-APPROVED · 11 NJ COUNTIES
02 / OUR STORY
Why we started
Tender
Hand
.
Tender Hand started around a Jersey kitchen table in 2022, but the work started years earlier.
Our family spent years inside the NJ DDD system, working as nurses and disability specialists. We saw what care could be when it was kind, consistent, family led. We also saw where the system fell short, where families navigated alone, where caregivers turned over, where languages weren't spoken.
So, we built the agency we wished we'd seen. One where caregivers stay. Where families are heard. Where the work is treated like the calling it is.
03 / OUR MISSION
OUR MISSION
"At THHS, we believe care should feel like the families we'd want caring for ours, not like a contract."
Our mission is to support the life each person wants to live, built on the kind of trust families deserve. We listen before we plan. We honor privacy as a sacred responsibility. We advocate alongside families, never above them. And we show up consistently, same faces, same care, year after
Individual & community supports
Behavioral health & positive supports
Respite & family support
Health & communication supports
What we, hold to.
01 LISTEN FIRST
Before we plan, we listen. To families, to caregivers, to the person we're serving. Plans built on listening hold up. Plans built without it don't.
02 SHOW UP CONSISTENTLY
Same DSP. Same time. Same standard. Every visit. Consistency is what turns care into trust, and trust is what turns a service into a relationship. When the routine breaks, we tell you. When it doesn't, you don't have to wonder.
03 HONOR PRIVACY
HIPAA is the floor, not the ceiling. Your medical information is protected by law. Your dignity is protected by us, from how we knock on the door, to how we speak in the room, to what we carry outside of it. Privacy is not a policy. It's a practice.
04 ADVOCATE ALONGSIDE
We are the family in the room when yours can't be. We speak up at appointments, follow up with Support Coordinators, and push back on paperwork so you don't have to. Advocacy is showing up for the fight, even when the fight is small.
05 / MEET THE FAMILY
Meet your
second family.
Ada
DDD Operations Lead / Founder
Ada is a founding member and Tender Hand's DDD Operations Lead. She's a Licensed Nurse Practitioner specializing in mental health, with clinical work spanning V.A. psychiatric care and a methadone clinic, the kind of nursing where you learn that nobody heals without being treated like a person first. Ada started this work as a Direct Support Professional at The Arc of New Jersey during community college. She hasn't forgotten what that felt like, and it shows in how she leads.
Esther
Operations & Care Coordination Lead
Esther is a founding member and Tender Hand's Operations & Care Coordination Lead. She's a Registered Nurse with years of bedside experience, much of it caring for children with complex medical needs, where nothing about routines is small. Like her sister Ada, Esther started this work as a Direct Support Professional at The Arc of New Jersey during community college. The youngest of the sisters, she runs THHS's day-to-day operations and works hand-in-hand with Support Coordinators, with quiet steadiness and a fierce standard of care.
Jane
DDD Private Duty Nurse
Jane is a founding member and Tender Hand's DDD Private Duty Nurse. She holds four undergraduate degrees — Psychology, Biology, Health Administration, and Nursing, and started this work as a DSP at The Arc of New Jersey during community college. Before Tender Hand, she managed a residence home for three clients over three years. As THHS's PDN, she still steps in to support our DSPs when the day calls for it. Jane is the family's icebreaker with new families, and the one who quietly builds gardening and pottery into her clients' Individual Support Plans, because a routine you love is a routine that heals.
Cordelia
THHS.CARE FOUNDER
Cordelia is a THHS.CARE Founder. To her three daughters, she's Mom. To the agency she raised, she's the reason we exist. She spent twenty-two years as an aide in nursing homes, and five years, part-time, as a Direct Support Professional. Working the floors, learning what care actually means at both ends of life. Watching families hand their loved ones over to strangers taught her that care should feel different, and eventually, that different agency became Tender Hand. Her motto is simple: if you can care like family, you are welcome to join the THHS family. It's not a slogan. It's a standard she taught her daughters. And it's how we hire.
06 / OUR PROMISE
— The Tender Hand promise
07 / OUR PROMISE
— The Tender Hand promise
08 / WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT
The details
that aren't
details.
01
Family-owned, clinician-run
Every founder here is DSP-certified — all four of us started on the floor, not in an office. Our nurses train through The Boggs Center at Rutgers, from medication administration to behavioral supports. We didn't hire consultants to design our systems; we lived the broken ones first, then built better. When you call, you speak to the people who wrote the protocols. Not middle managers reading a script.
02
Multilingual by design
Care in English and Spanish, with every intake asking about language before medication list, because at 3 AM, being understood matters more than being efficient. We match DSPs to families by language whenever staffing allows. And because we serve Hindi and Arabic-speaking families, Hindi- and Arabic-speaking DSPs aren't just welcome here, they're needed.
03
Support plans built around what matters
Before we build a support plan, we spend time, with families, at homes, learning the routines that bring joy. Gardening. Pottery. Community rituals. Family recipes. Care built on knowing someone is different from care built on scheduling around a diagnosis. That's not a program feature. It's the whole point.
04
Consistent,
vetted caregivers
Same DSP, same visit, week after week, as much as staffing allows. We vet the people we send the way we'd vet someone to care for our own family. Some of our DSPs are doing exactly that, caring for their own family members through Tender Hand.
01
You reach out
CALL, ONLINE FORM, OR REFERRAL FROM YOUR SUPPORT COORDINATOR.
02
We assess together
FREE HOME VISIT OR PHONE CONSULTATION.
WE LISTEN, YOU ASK, WE PLAN.
03
Care begins
MATCHED DSP. PLAN IN PLACE.
09 / WHERE WE SERVE
Across
11 New Jersey
counties.
We serve families across New Jersey,
wherever home is.
From the shoreline to the suburbs,
we send a DSP who lives in your neighborhood.
BERGEN · ESSEX · HUDSON ·
HUNTERDON · MERCER · MIDDLESEX ·
MONMOUTH · MORRIS · PASSAIC ·
SOMERSET · UNION
• NEW JERSEY •
Outside these counties? Call us, we'll point you to someone who can help.
10 / GET STARTED
Care starts with
One call.
Reach out today. We'll take it from here.
Or call/txt us directly, we always pick up.
DIRECT LINE:
(848) 316 8540
EMAIL:
info@thhs.care
HOURS:
Monday-Friday · 8am-6pm
Active clients: 24/7 nurse-on-call line provided
