Maine Children’s Home Newsletter

It has been a very dynamic month here at The Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers. At the top of my list would be the incredibly supportive work of our teachers at The Children’s Place Early Care and Education Center. This wonderful early care program began over 18 years ago as a focused effort to ensure that the newborn and toddler children of the teen parents we have supported would have adequate access to quality care for their little ones. This winter we have served up to 34 children each week, with up to 6 of those being children of teen parent school students or recent graduates. The other 28 infants, toddlers and preschool children's parents are staff or their parents work in our local community. In 2019, 59 little ones were helped and supported at The Children's Place.

As you may know, for several years now, our Board and staff have labored over how to balance the many competing needs of our core programs offered on our campus and throughout the state. After researching many options over the past 14 months, we have made the very difficult decision to stop operating The Children’s Place at the end of February. We are indebted to the teachers at The Children’s Place and the families who have listened openly and talked with us about concerns and dreams for the future. What we have heard is that the community wanted to make sure that quality childcare could continue on the Dorothy ‘Bibby’ Alfond Campus here in Waterville, providing supports for teen parents as well as working parents and their children.

We greatly appreciate all who have reached out to us during this transition. It has often been delicate and at moments very difficult, but we have worked hard to listen carefully and be responsible to the organization as a whole and with the end goal to ensure we can offer the breadth of services and support to hundreds of individuals and families every month and long into the future.

Thank you for being a partner with us in building and strengthening families and their children.

Sincere regards,

Richard Dorian, Executive Director

After two years of exploring many options, and with great consideration, it has been decided that The Children's Place Early Care & Education Center will end activities as a program of The Maine Children's Home on Friday, February 28th. On Monday, March 2nd, Bright Beginnings Learning Center - Waterville will open its doors. Child care will continue to take place in the same building on the Dorothy 'Bibby' Alfond campus with a number of the same staff, and ideally with many of the same families, with room for more.

This new partnership with Bright Beginnings Learning Center will assure continued access to successful quality early care and education on the Dorothy 'Bibby' Alfond campus in Waterville. This new partnership will increase childcare for children from 6 weeks to 5 years old and grow the program back to at least 50 children in the near future. Bright Beginnings is highly regarded by DHHS and was recently voted 'Best of the Best' for childcare centers in our community. Bright Beginnings will offer rates that are favorable for working parents, and they will be able to serve our teen parents' children, as the program was originally intended.

For more information on this partnership, check out our website.

Clinical Director, Deb Levenseller, and Adoption Program Director, Lindsay Bragdon had the honor and privilege of spending last week in Oklahoma at HALO Project to become certified as a "Making Sense Of Your Worth" facilitator. They both spent the week learning how to be facilitators of a group to help others learn their own self-worth and how it plays a role in every decision we make and affects all of the relationships we have.

Stay tuned for future information on the amazing new groups Deb & Lindsay will be offering on Making Sense Of Your Worth!

Every year, Bangor Savings Bank hosts a Community Matters More initiative to help raise money for nonprofits across the state of Maine. This year, The Maine Children's Home for Little Wanderers is listed on the ballot!

To vote for us, head to Bangor Savings Bank's website:

• Click "Vote Now"
• Add your name, email address, and zip code
• Click on Kennebec & Somerset Counties
• Click the checkmark next to "The Maine Children's Home for Little Wanderers."

The two organizations with the most votes in each geographical region will win a $5,000 grant and the remaining nonprofits will win $1,000! Make sure to vote for us before February 29th.