MACHIAS, Maine — A new two-generational program aimed at ending poverty in Washington County got a nice boost Friday.
The Obama administration announced that the Community Caring Collaborative in Machias was named one of 10 Rural Impact Demonstration sites in the country.
“With that comes some co-investment from the John T. Gorman Foundation,” said Charley Martin-Berry, co-director of the Community Caring Collaborative.
The co-investment from the Portland-based foundation amounts to $100,000, which will allow the collaborative to hire a director and move forward with the startup for the Family Futures Downeast program, she said.
The program, which officials hope to launch in June 2016, is aimed at helping both parent and child in the same family by providing free college classes to one and high-quality early education to the other, according to Martin-Berry.
The program will annually support 32 parents who wish to return to school, she said. Half of the parents will complete 15 credits at Washington County Community College and the other half will complete the same number of credits at the University of Maine at Machias. The colleges will eventually take over running the program.
Community Caring Collaborative co-director Marjorie Withers said the credits will transfer into any college program. But they also will be designed specifically for the collaborative’s students. All of the credits will focus on life skills and workforce development. For example, in English 101, the writing and reading assignments may focus on family studies rather than other topics.
At the same time, the program will provide the children of the participating parents with high-quality early education to support school readiness and development.
“Families enrolled in Family Futures Downeast will also benefit from comprehensive support for their financial, academic, and social needs, in what is known as a ‘wraparound’ approach,” according to a joint press release from Community Caring Collaborative and the John T. Gorman Foundation.
If a child doesn’t know where he is going to sleep each night, he may experience stress that will interfere with his ability to calm himself down enough to learn,” Withers said. The program addresses the poverty issues so the children can concentrate on academics, she said.
“A whole-family approach supports parents in finding pathways out of poverty by gaining new skills and accessing meaningful careers while intentionally integrating high-quality early education for children to support school readiness and healthy development,” a handout on the program says.
In addition to the funding, the collaborative will receive technical assistance from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Martin-Berry said. This means assistance in finding additional funding, as well as AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, to help launch the program.
“We are proud to invest in a cutting edge-idea like Family Futures Downeast,” Tony Cipollone, president and CEO of the John T. Gorman Foundation, said. “In Family Futures Downeast, these partners have crafted a new common sense approach to ending generational poverty by trying to improve the lives of kids and their families simultaneously — an idea that is gaining traction nationally.”