The Maine Governor's Children's Cabinet Transition Report and Reccommendations
The Maine Governor’s Children’s Cabinet
The Maine Governor’s Children’s Cabinet is
chaired by First Lady Karen M. Baldacci and has as its
members, the commissioners of the five child-serving state
agencies, Education, Health and Human Services, Corrections,
Public Safety, and Labor, and the Governor’s policy
advisors.
The Children’s Cabinet is committed to policies
and programs that ensure every Maine child is:
- Safe
- Healthy
- Well-educated
- Productive
Three broad areas of focus organize the way in which
the Children’s Cabinet approaches policy priorities:
- Early Childhood: To create coordinated and humane
systems and policies at the state and local level and
to ensure quality early childhood services to all young
children.
Learn about Educare Maine: a
new public private partnership for investing in young children
and their families.
Visit the Maine Humane
Early Childhood Systems page for more about what's
new in early childhood policy in Maine.
- Youth in Transition: To ensure that EVERY youth
and young adult, especially those with few assets
and high risk, is connected to a permanent home,
family, and community through collaborative wrap-around
planning partnerships between the Children’s
Cabinet agencies, families and communities.
Learn more about the Shared Youth Vision
Council
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), which links
adverse experiences in childhood - such as abuse,
alcoholism in the family, mental illness, etc. -
to adverse health outcomes as the child becomes
an adult.
In understanding the research behind ACE, the Children's Cabinet
seeks to foster conditions that:
- Prevent, to the extent possible, such trauma in childhood;
- Minimize the impact of traumatic experiences and events;
and
- Strengthen the resiliency of children, families, and
communities in dealing with trauma
