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.
