About Us
Jessica Berry
Meredith Batley
Joseph Hufnagel
Rachel Wilcox
Brad Choyt
Jessica Anderson
Brandon Caron
Mark Munger
Emily Carver
Grace Eddy
Our Story
The MidCoast Community Collaborative was created out of a community event hosted on January 26, 2023 called Change for MidCoast Students. The event was held to raise awareness of the child and youth mental health crisis and the impact on providers supporting children from birth to adulthood are experiencing in the MidCoast – over 200 community members attended creating an undeniable energy for change.
Since our January 26th event to raise awareness about the mental health crisis of our children and youth a backbone network has emerged that is working to continue to build cross-sector collaboration among Knox and Lincoln County individuals, businesses, school districts, and organizations to begin identifying and removing barriers that prevent collaboration and the ability for community members to access resources.
In June 2023, the Collaborative hosted a cross-sector partner event with over 90 attendees including professionals from the Governor’s office and other state departments. All of the attendees worked together to create a list of priorities for resource providers and caregivers. While there were a number of great suggestions, two themes jumped out loud and clear from our meeting: Convening and Making Change.
Geographic Focus
Our Structure
Our Fiscal Sponsor
Since our last convening on June 9th, we have continued to host small focus groups, lean into individual conversations, and work to integrate ourselves into communities to build relationships. We are beginning to better understand problems and challenges faced by community leaders, providers, youth, families and community members.. Members and partners have begun to understand gaps in services and are starting to create systems to bridge gaps and improve individual and collective effectiveness.
Streams of Work
- When looking at a continuum of care for the development of children and what exists to support that continuum of development in the MidCoast, it became clear that there is a serious portion of the continuum missing. When reviewing asset maps it is clear that there is a significant resource issue for birth to 4 year olds and their families. The Collaborative plans to continue researching, convening and planning on how we might all work together to begin bolstering services in this particular area.
- Over the summer a focus group from Lincoln County convened in Waldoboro to begin discussing the needs specific to the town related to early childhood.
- The work in Waldoboro transpired into the MidCoast Early Childhood Convening which took place on November 2nd. Local and state level Cross-sector early childhood partners are coming together to begin co-designing a proposal in response to the early childhood needs in the MidCoast; this work is supported primarily by a $75,000 John T Gorman Foundation grant we received to support early childhood planning with a specific focus on Waldoboro.
- United MidCoast Charities and a private donor generously awarded the Collaborative funding to support a youth focused professional development series provided by Trekkers. The Collaborative is teaming with Trekkers to begin planning professional development opportunities for partner organizations.
- We are also gathering quantitative and qualitative information about professional development for providers and educators in our communities. We are learning what people think they need and want. We are also developing a list of topics and a list of skills which are already offered, or might be developed based on demand and capacity.
- There are many coalitions working on similar topics.We have begun to host discussions with organizations from Waldo to Sagadahoc Counties with the hope of bringing coalitions together over the next 3-6 months so that we may begin developing support and a continuum of care that extends through the entire MidCoast region.
- The Collaborative has been awarded a $50,000 Juvenile Justice Advisory Group Grant that we will be using to establish a referral system for organizations and individuals to present a child/youth need that they need support with. The Collaborative will use the network of over 70 partners to resource the need and also develop a barrier removal fund that will help with monetary needs. Our goal is to begin taking referrals by January of 2024. We will be reaching out to partners as the system is developed.
- We so appreciated the folks who participated in the survey in June! We were able to get very useful data on what folks saw as the collaboratives strengths (Mutual trust! Skilled Leadership! Unique purpose! Favorable climate for collaboration!) and challenges for us to address as we move forward (Staff and funds! Measurement and data use! Clear roles and policy guidelines!)
- We are moving forward on a project to address building a system for regional learning by understanding data use across collaborative member organizations. We will be reaching out to folks soon to schedule some interviews to hear more about what data you are currently using to understand your impact and to learn more about your hopes for the collaborative.
- Maine Children’s Alliance just announced that The MidCoast Community Collaborative has been selected as a 2023 Giraffe Award recipient. The Giraffe Award is given to unsung heroes in communities throughout the state who “stick out their necks” for Maine kids and their families.
As we continue to work to connect all of our partners we would like to also highlight and share your work and events. If you have any opportunities that you would like to broadcast to the larger Collaborative network, please consider sharing them via our Facebook group!
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