Your involvement is essential to the success of the Ellsworth Area Communities for Children!

To start hearing about our projects and meetings e-mail Communities for Children at children@downeasthealth.org

Your involvement can be as much or little as your schedule allows. You may just come to a meeting and get caught up on what is going on in your community for children. You can also volunteer for an individual project or even just bring some of your ideas to the table.

Our Meetings

Every person has something a little different to share, which is why we need you to be involved! Our regular meetings are held the fourth Thursday of every month at 9:00 a.m.  Call EAC4C at 667-5304, ext 261 to learn more.

Today more and more we hear about the importance of early brain development in our children. Infants’ and children’s early experiences, good and bad, profoundly influence the wiring of their brains, affecting who they are and who they will become. It is so important to learn about early brain development in children and what we can do to help children grow and succeed as they develop. For this reason the Zero to Three Coalition has dedicated itself to educating people about this very important topic.

The coalition will offer completely free presentations on the subject to any interested group. The presentation, entitled "Rethinking the Brain" is informative and comes complete with visual aids for a better understanding. 

Contact Cathy Jacobs of the Zero to Three Coalition at (207)667-5304 ext, 225 or the local Adult Education Department for more information on these presentations.

New brain-imaging technology shows us that the crucial time to affect brain development is during the first three years of life, when connections and pathways within the brain are increasing with an astonishing rapidity that will never occur again. It’s important to know what you can do to make this time the most beneficial it can be for the children in your life so please join us for a presentation of "Rethinking the Brain".

We are currently working with Assets-Getting To Outcomes for Maine (A-GTO 4 ME): a control-group research study with 12 communities to explore the impact of the Getting to Outcomes planning process, paired with the Developmental Asset Approach, on prevention capacity and improved alcohol and drug outcomes among youth.

Assets - Getting To Outcomes For Maine

Alcohol and other drug use among youth is costly for communities. More research is needed about how to best support community based prevention programs and how community prevention expertise can inform the research process.

NIDA has funded a 5 year collaboration of the RAND Corporation, Search Institute and its training division, Vision Training Associates, Communities for Children and Youth, and the University of Southern Maine to implement and assess the impact on prevention coalitions, the combination of two complimentary, community-based interventions:

• Getting To Outcomes (GTO), which enhances community capacity to complete critical prevention tasks (e.g., evaluation), and
• Developmental Assets, which supports community mobilization and collaboration to promote positive youth development.

The purpose of the project is to investigate:

• How well is the Assets-GTO intervention delivered, how much is it used, and what coalitions think about it
• The extent to which the Assets-GTO approach enhances the prevention capacity (knowledge, attitudes, and skills) of individual coalition members and the quality of prevention performance; and
• Whether enhanced prevention capacity improves alcohol and drug outcomes among youth.

Twelve community-based prevention coalitions in Maine (part of Communities for Children and Youth) will participate. Six coalitions—determined at random—will receive manuals, training, and onsite technical assistance consisting of bi-Weekly meetings between A-GTO 4 ME! and key coalition staff. The other six coalitions will continue practice as usual, but will receive an abbreviated version of the Assets-GTO intervention near the end of the project. (Map of participating coalitions.)

A Community Research Workgroup made of coalition representatives will review all aspects of the study and interim findings and facilitate dissemination on A-GTO 4 ME!

The project will demonstrate and evaluate strategies to strengthen the prevention capacity of community organizations that can be used broadly across many types of programs.

For further information about the study contact Matthew Chinman at RAND electronically or by phone at (412) 683-2300, or contact Susan Savell electronically at Communities for Children and Youth, or by phone at 207-287-4377.

A new website has been designed for this project: www.maineassets.net