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Our Vision for Maine: Every family recognizes the responsibility and rewards of raising children and is provided the support necessary to fulfill their role.
OverviewFamilies adopted 432 Maine children in 2000, and 300 in 2001. This spectacular achievement an incalculable blessing for these children and their adoptive families earned the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Adoption Award from Secretary Donna Shalala. This is unquestionably, one of the highest achievements in human services anywhere in the United States!
Open statewide enrollment for 140 children in the Maine Adoption Guide’s post- adoption support program.
Explore the possibility of adding "guardianship" as a permanency option for children in the custody of the Department of Human Services.
First time parents are more likely to receive services from home visitors than ever before. The Fund for a Healthy Maine provided $4,300,000 for home visitation services via the Healthy Families program. Home Visitors provide education and support of first-time parents and families of newborns for short and long-term support and assistance. DHS has contracts with 16 agencies to provide this service, using a variety of models including “Parents as Teachers” and the “Parents Are Teachers, Too” programs. In 1996, in response to a legislative Task Force’s recommendations, three Healthy Families pilot sites were established. Following the success of these sites, a new legislative Task Force to Study Strategies to Support Parents as Children’s First Teachers was established and staffed by DHS and the Children’s Cabinet. The work of this Task Force led to the inclusion of expanded funding for several home-visiting models in the Tobacco Settlement funding for a Healthy Maine. In 2002, it is projected that 5000 first-time parents will be served.
Assure statewide coverage of home visitation services so that they are available on a voluntary basis to all first-time parents. Begin evaluation of the home visiting program. Sponsor a "visioning summit" for all early care and education programs in the fall of 2002.
Ensure that all early care programs at the regional and local levels of service delivery are fully coordinated. Use results of program evaluation to assure that early care programs are accomplishing their goals and objectives.
The persistence, determination and creativity of our child support programs in the Bureau of Family Independence in the Department of Human Services on behalf of 61,000 Maine families each month, leads all states, according to the federal Health and Human Services Department, by collecting $96 million in 2000 and $100 million in 2001 on behalf of Maine families (and to repay taxpayers' financial assistance.) Close cooperation with custodial parents, the Maine court system, and cooperative Maine employers has helped Maine DHS double the amount of collections over the past five years, making it one of the most efficient State agencies in collecting funds on behalf of custodial parents in the nation. Child support is a critical factor for tens of thousands of Maine families and often is the difference that allows that family to be self supporting.
Next Steps for 2002 Implement a non-custodial parent outreach and investigation project. The goal is to identify non- custodial parents who do not participate in paternity identification and payment of child support.
Identify ways that child support collection efforts can help strengthen families.
7,000 heads of household were assisted in the workplace, with child support collections, with child care, with filing for the earned income tax credit, through Parents As Scholars, through A.S.P.I.R.E. and by linkages with other work and anti-poverty agencies that are making this wonderful difference. The USDA advised DHS during the year that Maine has achieved the fourth-highest rate of eligible food stamp recipients who are actually receiving the benefit, and attributed this to our staff, outreach and supportive program. Maine's Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) caseloads are the lowest since the late 1960s and the rate of families returning to the TANF Program is a low 6%.
The TANF Block grant is up for Congressional reauthorization. Maine is working with national organizations and the federal government to make sure the model programs that we have put in place are able to continue. These include Parents as Scholars and ASPIRE. As clients come to the end of their five year eligibility for TANF, we need to assure they can continue to receive benefits if they are participating in education, treatment, training or work. Over the next year we will be continuing to expand services to "multi-barrier" clients. Also, we are working with school systems and special education to expand child care for special needs populations. Finally, the new technology system for TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid and ASPIRE (the ACES system), is scheduled to come on line in June, 2002.
Continue to work with national organizations and the federal government to provide top-of-the-line services to Maine’s poor people.
Hundreds of new residential program spaces were created for Maine children and youth with behavioral health needs, increasing access in Maine for children returning from out-of-State placements and serving more Maine children right here at home. Hundreds of emotionally disturbed Maine children previously served out-of-State have been returned to Maine. The number of children in out of State placements has been reduced from more than 250 on any given day, to 100.
In the new fiscal year we will continue with planned development of residential options for our children. At the same time, however, we will be taking time to review the status of the rapid residential development of the past few years in relation to current and projected future needs. This assessment will be one of the key components in the development of a comprehensive and coordinated three-year resource development plan (2003-2006). A second area of strategic focus in the year ahead will be an interdepartmental effort to reduce the number of children coming into custody because their parents are unable to gain timely access to a high level of service(s) and support(s) necessary to adequately manage their children within the home or residential placement and community.
1)
One future challenge related to children in out-of-State placement lies in
the need for a unified and integrated approach to service delivery between
BDS and DHS, as it relates to children who are in state custody and who also
have serious emotional behavioral and/or developmental disorders .
2)
A second significant challenge rests in our ability to reduce the overall
number of residential placements each individual child experiences.
Our Vision for Maine: Raising children is a shared responsibility, which includes a process of establishing and modeling clear standards of behavior.
Communities for Children (C4C) is a flagship initiative of the Governor’s Children's Cabinet. C4C supports and increases good outcomes for children and promotes positive child and youth development. It has now grown to include 69 local leadership councils made up of key leaders in the community, including youth, and representing 319 municipalities and over 70% of the State’s population. These Councils assess the realities facing children and youth in their communities, develop prevention programs and policies, and track the results of their work. The statewide initiative helps these communities by providing training, technical assistance, and opportunities for networking with each other. Since June 1997:
1) 69 local Maine communities have joined the initiative.
2) 27 AmeriCorps* VISTA members served full-time in local Communities for Children and in statewide organizations such as the Maine Mentoring Partnership.
3) Over 1,000 local community leaders, including youth, learned effective, research-based prevention models through annual, daylong regional Prevention Training Institutes.
4) 8 Youth Trainers earned certification as Prudential Youth Leadership Trainers.
5) Community leaders learned about the five Promises of America’s Promise through the six daylong Governor’s Service Institutes.
6) Leaders of Communities for Children Leadership Councils meet with each other in smaller, regional Cluster Conversations annually to share resources and progress with each other.
7) The C4C web site connects all 69 communities with information about each other and the initiative.
8) America’s Promise named Maine one of its three model states, largely because of the unprecedented statewide mobilization the Communities for Children initiative has been able to accomplish.
9) With only a planning grant of $1,000, Communities for Children Partners at the local level have:
a) Created safe homes
b) Provided information about rapid response for youth who were homeless
c) Developed teen/community centers
d) Created mentoring programs
e) Afforded youth service opportunities
f) Established community-wide youth asset development campaigns, leading in one instance to the creation of an elected Youth Advisory Council for the Portland City Council
g) Started literacy programs
h) Opened after-school programs with structured activities
i) Set up parenting education and support groups
j) Built skateboard parks or town playgrounds for children
k) Provided anti-bullying education.
1) Increase the number of Communities for Children partner communities by the end of 2002 to 75.
2) Place 36 VISTA volunteers in partner communities and related agencies throughout the State.
3) Renew Corporation for National Service AmeriCorps*VISTA grant for another 3 years.
4) Collaborate with the Maine Mentoring Partnership on the goal of increasing the numbers of mentors available to children and youth in partner communities, with special emphasis on utilizing faith-based organizations.
5) Introduce a statewide Youth Asset Development Concert/Lecture Series.
6) Develop a statewide university-based mentoring system through partner communities, based on the model created in Waterville.
7) Formalize the partnership between Communities for Children and the national Communities in Schools program.
8) Support three local Communities for Children Coalitions for Prevention Project partners as they develop prevention programs to cover children and youth aged birth to 18, including Healthy Families, Healthy Learners, Anti-Bullying, Mentoring and Suicide Prevention programs.
9) Create a plan to establish the Communities for Children Evaluation Resource Center in collaboration with the Muskie School of Public Service Institute for Public Sector Innovation. The center will support 63 partner communities and provide an avenue for research on how best to promote prevention through community-based efforts.
1) Recruit additional partner communities until all Maine “service centers” are included, moving toward a total of approximately 90 communities and 100% of the State’s population.
2) Find annual funding to support the work of all the partner communities. Even $1,000 to $10,000 a year is a significant source of partnership support for each of the local Children’s Leadership Councils.
3) Increase the opportunities for partner communities to meet with each other regionally.
4) Improve the website and listserve to enable greater resource sharing among all of the partner communities, including technical assistance for the development of specific projects, such as community and family resource centers and mentoring programs.
5) Create better coordination of the work of State agencies in local communities through collaborative funding opportunities.
Partnership with America’s
Promise
Overview
Maine is engaged in a 3-year partnership with America’s Promise to enhance and expand current efforts to mentor, protect, nurture, prepare, and serve the children of Maine by developing Centers of Promise in communities. This program promotes the fulfillment of “five promises” for all children: a healthy start, a caring adult, safe places, marketable skills through effective education, and an opportunity to give back to the community through service. The priority that has been identified for the next few years is to focus on the promise that calls for an increase in the numbers of children and youth in Maine who have a caring adult by increasing the number of children with mentors. To accomplish this a Maine’s Promise Executive Committee was established by Governor Angus King. The committee, chaired by Celeste Viger of Verizon, will support the growth of mentoring in Maine.
1) Create the “Promise Fund,” an endowment to support the work of Maine’s Promise, particularly as it is focused on the support of mentoring programs—particularly through the Maine Mentoring Partnership and through Communities for Children and Communities of Promise sites.
2) Work with Waterville’s Community for Children which was selected as one of 15 Communities of Promise in the country to receive special attention from the national staff of America’s Promise, as it develops into a national demonstration site.
1) Generate adequate resources to make the partnership with America’s Promise real to local partner communities.
2) Develop a method of tracking the numbers of children and youth who are served for each of the “five promises.”
Community Resolution Teams serve as an alternative for juvenile offenders charged with misdemeanor, non-violent first time crimes. This approach holds them accountable to their victims and their communities. The primary goal of the Community Resolution Teams is to resolve the case to the satisfaction of the victim(s), while promoting an understanding of the impact that crime has on both its victim(s) and the community.
An offender, his/her family, the victim, victim
supporters, the community and police officers participate in a group meeting
facilitated by a trained community volunteer. As an example, a victim explain
that the vandalism of his mailbox may have seemed like a big joke to the youth,
but actually resulted in the victim being unable to receive mail for the week
it took to replace the mailbox, the expense of buying the new mailbox and
the frustrating search for someone to install the new mailbox when the victim
didn’t have those skills himself. An outcome of this particular conference
could be that the juvenile will pay to replace the mailbox and perhaps even
install it for the victim, as well as apologize either in writing or in person.
The result has a much greater impact on the juvenile than an impersonal appearance
in a courtroom.
1) Identify an additional eight communities interested in providing Community Resolution Teams to work with the youth in their communities. Information and orientation sessions are available to any interested community. Information is available in several forms, including videos and information packets. A toll-free number allows people in communities more direct communication with CRTs.
2) Establish a web-based data collection site for community resolution teams to provide information about their teams and update case status.
3) Provide at least four facilitator trainings at different locations throughout the State.
The Department of Corrections would like to see Community Resolution Teams in each community by the year 2006.
Students have received improved health education and care in schools which have obtained community-school grants. With these grants, schools have developed interventions to reduce tobacco use, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and secondary and tertiary tobacco-related diseases. Funds may be used for school health services or coordinated school health programs with a focus on comprehensive school health education.
Schools
are currently involved in implementing extensive needs assessments. The assessments
will generate baseline data on the 8 components of a Coordinated School Health
Program and on program coordination. This assessment looks at programs, policies,
and services in the schools. It gathers information from students, parents,
teachers, administrators, and staff. The information produced will point to
strengths and challenges in the school and help to target recommendations
for work plan development. This assessment will be done again in subsequent
years to measure changes.
1)
Continuing and improving collaboration and communication among community and
school partners and State Departments is a goal of this initiative.
2)
Currently, 59 schools in Maine are participating in this grant; we hope to
eventually have all Maine public schools participating.
In 2000, Maine received a four-year federal grant to support Maine’s Character Education Partnership (CEP) to further the work of the Commission on Ethical and Responsible Student Behavior. Grants were awarded to seventeen school districts, and their work has continued to develop in important ways during Year Two of the federal grant. An additional grant program funded by a combination if federal CEP funds and a $50,000 appropriation by the State Legislature allowed the Department of Education to make funding available this year for grants to ten additional school administrative units (SAU) not currently receiving Maine Character Education Partnership (CEP) grants, linked to Maine’s Learning Results, for comprehensive conflict resolution and character education in one or more public elementary or secondary schools. The funds can be used for the following kinds of programs: conflict resolution/management; bullying prevention; peer mediation; civil rights awareness; diversity training; and/or character education. They meet to share their work and identify “best practices”, and to discuss any implementation obstacles they encounter and share ways in which those obstacles might be addressed.
In January of 2001, Maine’s Commission for Ethical and Responsible Student Behavior issued its report “Taking Responsibility: Standards for Ethical and Responsible Behavior in Maine Schools and Communities.” These statewide standards continue to be distributed statewide with approximately 10,000 reports and 15,000 executive summaries printed and distributed by the end of February, 2002.
State Partner efforts to provide technical assistance statewide continue as well. The National Center for Student Aspirations provides professional development and planning assistance through student workshops and focus groups, administrative meetings and parent workshops.
Outreach continues through a number of statewide events, including the CEP website, conferences, and presentations with school districts and the State Partners to the grant (Institute for Global Ethics, National Center for Student Aspirations, the Department of the Attorney General, and KIDS Consortium.)
1) The Department is assisting in the development of pilot programs for linking Maine’s Learning Results with Taking Responsibility and a citizenship/stewardship initiative with the Maine Resource Stewardship Alliance.
2) The Institute for Global Ethics provided training for approximately twenty (20) facilitators, statewide, who are available to provide facilitation services in the identification of community values under a voucher program available to all school administrative units that are not currently receiving character education grants from the Department.
3) Portfolios submitted to the Department by all grantees will be reviewed for the specific purposes of evaluating performance; identifying “best practices”; and making recommendations for future programming. Feedback will be provided to the participating sites and the identified “best practices” will be added to the Department’s clearinghouse and made available statewide.
1) The greatest challenge for Year Three (2002-2003) of the CEP grant will be consistent evaluation and demonstration of the effectiveness of the partners’ character education programs.
2) Year Four (2003-2004), of the CEP grant will be a year of very limited funding for each partner and the hope is that each district’s program will have been sufficiently seeded by then to endure.
3) A new federal grant program will require that CEP programs be supported by scientifically-based research. Over the next three years, the Department will be applying for another grant, and if awarded, will be working with the CEP partners and other districts interested in implementing character education programs of this type.
[1] July 1999 report released by the Children’s Rights Council.
[2] Resolve 55. LD 2181. Resolve, to Help Homeless Young People Return to Home or Safe Living Situations.” Effective June 9, 1999.
[3] Chapter 778, LD 1623, An Act to Provide Services for Children in Need of Supervision. Effective May 10, 2000.
[4] For complete details on the development and work of the Children’s Cabinet, see the Cabinet’s 2001 Annual Report at the Children’s Cabinet website (see Appendix.)