Happy Wednesday!
This is the Community Caring Collaborative Weekly Communiqué where we share announcements about trainings, meetings and other events, including announcements from our collaborative partners. Look for links to meeting minutes and agendas in the Meetings section, training registration forms and flyers in the Events section, and job postings and other items of interest in the Announcements section. Subscribe here to get the Communiqué. Make sure to add Community Caring Collaborative to your contacts at claurel@cccmaine.org. Gmail users, check for the Communiqué under the Promotions tab. This mailing goes out every Wednesday, so if you have announcements, please send them to Christine by 5 pm Monday to be included. Thanks!
Photo above courtesy of Nicole Sevey
Announcements
Three new important events for your attention:
- Three Conversations of Hope & Resilience on June 18th
- Maine Child Welfare Conference on June 22nd
- Maine Affordable Housing Conference on September 22nd
See details about these events listed chronologically in the Event Section below.
Your announcement could go here: email the details to Christine by 5 pm Monday for inclusion in Wednesday’s Weekly Communiqué.
Events
Now listed chronologically, so make sure to scroll down for items just added!
Bridges Out of Poverty Webinar: one-hour webinar, “Bridges Out of Poverty,” uses the lens of economic class to provide concrete tools and strategies for individuals, organizations, and communities to alleviate poverty.This webinar will provide an introduction to a comprehensive approach to understanding the Bridges Out of Poverty constructs. Thursday, June 1, 2017, 11:00am-12:00pm CDT (not Eastern time). Register here.
LGBTQ Health Conference: Save the date of June 16th in Portland, ME, for the 2017 LGBTQ+ Health 
Conference on the theme of Trauma and Resiliency with keynote speaker, Sandy James, Survey Project Manager of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Conference information at Health Equity Alliance.
Three Stories of Hope & Resiliency: Join in a community conversation & suicide awareness training at the Sipayik Bingo Hall in Pleasant Point on June 18th from 5-8 pm. Hear stories of those with lived experience and be a part of a local action plan. No registration required. Brought to you by NAMI-Maine. Contact Nickie at 207-622-5767 Ext. 2312 or nickie@namimaine.org. Please circulate this flyer to people who might be interested.
ME Child Welfare Conference: Register now for the 23rd annual Maine Child Welfare Conference in Bangor on June 22nd. This year’s theme is Tipping Points in Child Welfare: A Time of Hurt and a Time to Heal. Keynote Speaker, M. Elizabeth Ralston, PhD, LISW-CP, LFMT, will present “Why Do You Need
to be Trauma Informed?” Conference details, agenda, registration info and more available on this flyer. Registration deadline is June 9th so don’t delay!
Addiction & Recovery Summit: The Community Caring Collaborative invites business owners and human resource staff to 
save the date of July 13th for Addiction, Recovery & the Workforce: a summit for Washington County businesses of all sizes. This is a free event from 8:30 to 3:30 pm at the University of Maine, Machias. Participants will learn and discuss challenges to hiring and employing people in recovery; hear strategies for success and dealing with challenges from a panel of experts; plus gain foundational information on addiction and available treatment and recovery supports. Please circulate this flyer to business owners/HR managers you know. Info on speakers coming soon!
Save the Date: Sue O’Clair of MaineHousing invites you to save the date of September 22nd for the 2017 Maine Affordable Housing Conference at the Holiday Inn By the Bay in Portland. This event will provide a forum for housing partners to gather and share information about what is being done currently – and what more needs to be done – in the affordable housing arena to bridge the gap between housing needs and housing availability. There will be a mix of keynote speakers and workshops to choose from that will be targeted to all partner groups. MaineHousing is still pulling together info on the conference agenda and speakers and hopes to have more info and a registration portal ready to go by June 1st.
Needs & Offers
2 Job Offers: The Maine Migrant Health Program (MMHP) is now hiring! We are recruiting for a DownEast Program Manager and a Community Health Worker (CHW III) for Aroostook County. Please feel free to share across your personal networks with anyone you think might be interested.
Scholarship Offer: Mano en Mano brings to your attention the 2017 Julia Robiola Gigena Scholarship. This scholarship was established to provide financial aid to students from Washington County, Maine, who self-identify as Latino and who wish to pursue a two or four year college or university degree. The deadline to apply is May 26th and June 2nd for students renewing their scholarship. This is the link for more information.
Volunteer Drivers Needed: WHCA is looking for volunteer drivers. Benefits include flexible hours, reimbursement at 44 cents a mile, AAA Plus at no coast to you. Volunteers must be at least 25 years old, have a valid, clean Maine driver’s license for 3 years, have a reliable, clean vehicle, and live in Hancock or Washington County. Call or email Joceyln Storey, WHCA’s Volunteer Coordinator, at 207-610-5940 or jstorey@whcacap.org, M-F, 8-5 pm.
Shelter Advocate Needed: Next Step Domestic Violence Project is seeking a Shelter Advocate to provide services to guests at the shelter in Washington County. Read the job description with application instructions here.
Send us your agency/community needs or offers, such as job recruiting or housing needs.
Updates
This is where we post updates on programs, initiatives and pending legislation.
In case you missed it last week, here are 2 Early Childhood Updates from Gay Haroutunian:
- LD 1321 (to pilot and fund early childhood mental health consultation) was passed this week by the Joint Education Committee with only 3 dissenting votes. If passed, this bill would fund a pilot and then a statewide program for consultation to child care personnel (and possibly Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers) when they have a youngster whose “challenging behaviors that put them at risk of learning difficulties and removal from early learning settings.” There is a model for this program in Washington County here in Maine – the CCC’s ECCO Program; and there are a couple of nation-wide modes. A randomized clinical trial of this intervention was recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The Maine Children’s Alliance has done a wonderful job enlisting national experts in consulting on the design of this program and bill. Please stay tuned for when it will be best to contact your legislators to move this bill toward enactment.
- LD 1475 (to redirect unused federal funding toward reducing child poverty) – the public hearing for this bill has been scheduled at Health and Human Services this Monday, May 18th at 1 pm. Maine currently has $155 million in unspent Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) funds sitting in the bank unused. Meanwhile, Maine Equal Justice Partners has documented that the percentage of Maine children living in deep poverty has, from 2011 to 2015, increased at triple the rate of the national average (the rate has increased by over 15%). If passed, this bill would use the unspent TANF federal funds on several programs to lift children and their families out of poverty. Please see the excellent (and short!) MEJP policy brief.
Janet Weston has forwarded suggested actions you can take from Tom Tracy, organizer of the Campaign for Young Families:
- Support the LIFT Bill to Reduce Child Poverty in Maine (LD 1475) by using this link to send a quick email to tell members of the Health and Human Services Committee (HHS) to support LIFT LD 1475 Their work session on the bill is Monday morning. They need to hear that Maine people strongly support it.
- Email your State Senator and Representative to support the LIFT Bill to Reduce Child Poverty in Maine. Please deliver a message like this to your legislators and let me know what you hear back. Here’s a link to contact information for your legislators.
Meetings
Work Group & Poverty Busters: Next meeting is June 7th, from 1 – 3:30 pm at the SCEC House. Minutes from our May 3rd meeting coming soon. If it’s hot, there could be ice cream – just saying.
St Croix Community Connections: This is Poverty Buster’s sister group in Calais, organized by Christine Morris. This group meets monthly – new members welcome!
Leonard’s Mills in Bradley, ME – photo courtesy of Nicole Sevey