News

Youth Advocates, NASCAR Pro Series Driver
Launch Awareness Campaign
at Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day

            Click here for Sun Journal story and photo caption

     AUGUSTA — Maine’s premiere youth aadvocacy group, Youth Motivating Others through Voices of Experience (”Youth MOVE Maine”) launched its 2010 public awareness campaign at the Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day celebration, May 6, State House, Hall of Flags, Augusta.

Youth MOVE joined a line-up of youth and family speakers that also included James VanOver, a Morse High School senior, who credited his biological mother’s hard choice, adoptive family’s love, group home’s perseverance and teachers’ supports with getting him to graduation day and a focused future.  Twelve-year-old Kala Grant, a Girl Scout with her troop mate at her side, spoke of her efforts to educate and build awareness in Scouts and middle school about being the sibling of “My Very Special Brother” who is autistic.

Youth MOVE speakers were: operations lead Ryun Anderson, who explained the history of this youth movement in Maine; Jenn McLaughlin who introduced the public service message “You Decide!“; and, Jenn, Allie Spear, Rodney Keisman and Brendon Venable  who performed “Shift your mind, drive your dreams,” a poem by Stephanie Knaus-Tucker, Brendon and Jenn.

NASCAR Pro Series rookie driver Travis Dunbar described how his life from chaotic home life to teenage track star to a two-time All-American with hopes of an Olympic run overcame the results of an auto accident that ended his running career to become a race car owner/driver and mentor of the Youth MOVE Maine Racing Team.

“Travis is the perfect spokesman for our 2010 awareness campaign,” says Brianne Masselli, Youth MOVE Maine’s co-founder. “His life is literally all about shifting gears. He is a role model for what youth stand for— resiliency, self-determination and hope— key factors in mental health and wellness.”

“I’m so pleased to represent these young people,” says Dunbar. “Their commitment to unite their voices and inspire others mirrors my own desire to mentor and motivate young people who persevere through adversity and keep driving their dream.”

Through youth-adult partnerships Youth MOVE trains providers, collaborates with family members, advocates in the community and works with policy makers and program administrators to enhance governance and evaluation.

“We are always getting new members that come from backgrounds where they don’t have access to resources,” says member Matt Brooks, “and Youth MOVE is a perfect place for them to find the help that they need.”

“Through Youth MOVE I am helping to improve the mental health system where youth are concerned,” says Kyle Prior, “I am able to help make the mental health system more accessible to youth.”

“What means the most to me is knowing that I’m helping people,” says Brooks.

“And sometimes, it’s just about getting together and having fun!” Masselli says.

There is lots of fun in store these parallel rookie seasons starting with the Youth MOVE Racing Team’s 2010 Season Opener scheduled for May 29, 6:30 pm at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough.

Youth MOVE Maine (www.youthmovemaine.org), the state chapter of Youth Move National, works to ensure that youth in Maine’s youth-serving systems are prepared for life. Youth MOVE Maine is dedicated to the redevelopment of systems and services, and advocates for youth to use their power and expertise to make change within their communities and within their own lives.

National Association of Social Workers Honors
Trauma-Informed Initiative

LEWISTON – Thrive System of Care received the National Association of Social Workers – Maine Chapter 2010 Agency of the Year award in an awards ceremony during the NASW Maine annual conference, Friday, April 9, at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.     Read Sun Journal announcement…

“We chose Thrive based on how it improves the lives of people in Maine,” says Bonnie Swartz, LCSW and NASW Maine Chapter President, “and for its excellence in promoting social work values as defined in the NASW Code of Ethics for employees, clients and the community.”

“Social workers value the inherent dignity and worth of a person,” says Thrive Director Arabella Perez. “At Thrive we know that treating each other in a caring and respectful manner mindful of our cultural and individual differences leads to growth, health, engagement and empowerment.”

Thrive, in the fifth year of its six-year grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, provides training, technical assistance and consultation on the effects of trauma and the related trauma-informed service principles of safety, choice, collaboration and trustworthiness. In addition to training providers and agencies, Thrive supports local family- and youth-led advocacy organizations.

“Families and youth are experts who can inform and drive services,” says Perez. “Thrive believes that only by partnering with them can child-serving systems be enhanced and ultimately make a difference.”

NASW Maine submits calls for nominations in several categories.

“Though anyone can nominate an agency,” says Swartz, “we typically hear from social workers who have had experience with the agency or program and are impressed with it and how well it responds to client and community needs.”

Past NASW Maine Agency of the Year winners include: Community Counseling Center – PRISM program, Pine Tree Legal, United Society of Shakers, Maine Equal Justice Partners, and Rape Response Services of Bangor.

Dr. Edgar Cahn (seated front row center) surrounded by members of Lewiston/Auburn Time Bank and southern Maine workers with refugee and immigrant services.

Dr. Edgar Cahn notes abundant value of exchanging personal time and talents

LEWISTON – Dr. Edgar Cahn, the founder of Time Banks USA  explained to a group of 30 Time Bank members and regional refugee and immigrant service workers recently how Time Banking allows people to trust each other, bring out the best in each other, and demonstrate that everyone has the ability to give and create a better world.

In a conversation titled “A Partnership for All: Refugee Services and Time Bank” April 15 at Thrive System of Care offices, Dr. Cahn explained how “money values what is scarce, but devalues what is abundant.”

“We have an abundant ability to contribute and give to one another,” says Cahn. “The market doesn’t pay people to care for each other, mentor each other, come out to vote, be a citizen, fight for social justice. All of these basic things are not valued in the cash economy, but without them we couldn’t exist as a society and be humans.”

Time Banking is practiced in 22 countries on six continents using “time dollars”– virtual currency representing time, energy, skills and talents– exchanged by people, businesses, and others in a community.

 “It’s neighbor to neighbor, people helping people,” says Sharon Carter, Lewiston/Auburn Time Bank Coordinator.

The L/A Time Bank has more than 125 members and over 1,100 hours of time dollars exchanged in the form of elderly companionship, language interpretation and lessons, tutoring for children and adults, minor home repair, yard and garden work, sewing, laundry, child care, and much more. Thrive began funding the L/A Time Bank in February 2008. In October Empower Lewiston gave the enterprise a $10,000 grant.

Dr. Cahn was in Maine to address an economic symposium at University of Maine Augusta. He was invited to Lewiston by Judith Southworth, Elder Services Coordinator, Catholic Charities of Maine Refugee and Immigrant Services.

“We’ve built a partnership with Time Bank in Portland and Lewiston over the past four years,” says Southworth, “not only to provide expanded services to the refugee community, but also to offer opportunities for them to give back. Giving back is not an aspect we service providers normally have to offer, and it is a wonderful way to bridge the gap between native born and new Mainers.

For more information, contact:
Lisa Preney, Social Marketing Coordinator
 782-5783 x1608

Dr. Edgar Cahn (seated front row center) surrounded by members of Lewiston/Auburn Time Bank and southern Maine workers with refugee and immigrant services

From left: Arabella Perez, Lisa Preney, Chris Copeland, Rep. Brian Bolduc, Dustin Strout, Ani Sebastian, Matt Brooks, Cheyenna Spelman, Hillary Groves, Allie Spear, Rep. Peggy Rotundo, Kyle Prior, Ryun Anderson, Ryan Conrad, Brianne Masselli, Enrico Herring

LEWISTON- Young people who say they now have hope for the future because of life-saving mental health and social services shared their stories with local legislators January 25 at a “Legislative Dialogue Café” hosted by Tri-County Mental Health Services at the Carriage House. 

Five members of Youth M.O.V.E. Maine told Rep. Peggy Rotundo (D-Lewiston) and Rep. Brian Bolduc (D-Auburn) individual stories of how combinations of mental health services, area homeless shelters, subsidized housing, drug court, case management, community-based services, a system of care youth committee, and natural peer supports have helped them and/or their immediate family members manage depression, self-abuse, and the effects of trauma, neglect, and violence. 

• “If services get cut, then I won’t be able to continue working towards my goal to get off disability and go to college to be a nurse or CSI. I want to provide my son the best life. I won’t be able to do these things and stop the abuse in my family if cuts are made.”

• “It costs taxpayers more to keep a person in jail than it does to provide them community-based services. Before I went to drug court, I didn’t know help was out there, and I did not know how to ask for it. In drug court, I learned about services that have helped me stay safe and drug-free so that I can finish high school.”

• “Without all the resources that the foster care and mental health systems have provided me, I wouldn’t be sober now and in college. Because of services, I am studying to become a social worker to help kids like I was– in group homes, foster homes, and homeless.”

The Legislators congratulated the youth on their compelling stories, their strength and their resilience. They explained the struggle Maine is in to close its budget gap, and why the largest cuts are aimed at education and health and human services. 

“I encourage you all to continue telling your stories,” said Rep. Rotundo, who acknowledged the young people’s emphasis that cuts in services will have a negative ripple effect on them, their famlies and their peer supports.

Rep. Bolduc agreed with the youth that short-term gains have long-term consequences, and that services are cost-effective in supporting recovery and independence.

For more information on youth-guided opportunties, go to:  http://thriveinitiative.org/youth-guided/ For more information on youth voice, youth advocacy and Youth M.O.V.E. - Maine, go to:  http://www.youthmovemaine.org/ or call Brianne Masselli at 207-782-5783 x1602.

Yusuf Mohamed, 19, (left) spent four Time Dollar hours building a fence for Sharon Carter (right) and husband Chuck in exchange for weekly driver education lessons. (Photo by Chuck Carter)

Community-Based Program Receives $10,000 Empower Lewiston Grant

LEWISTON – The Lewiston-Auburn Time Bank (http://thriveinitiative.org/time-bank/) is pleased to announce its 100^th member this month and an “Empower Lewiston” grant of $10,000 to help double current membership and triple current Time Dollar exchanges. 

“Time Dollars are virtual currency representing time, energy, skills and talents that are exchanged by people, businesses, and others in the community,” says Sharon Carter, Time Bank Coordinator. “It’s neighbor to neighbor, people helping people.”

Time Banking, the social change movement inspired by Dr. Edgar Cahn in 1980, is practiced in 22 countries on six continents. The L/A Time Bank boasts 106 members and over 1,000 hours of Time Dollar exchanged. Service offerings include elderly companionship, language interpretation and lessons, tutoring for children and adults, minor home repair, yard and garden work, sewing, laundry, child care, and much more.

Thrive System of Care started Time Bank in February 2008 at the request of family members and youth interested in natural community supports. Thrive continues to provide funding, and Catholic Charities’ Refugee and Immigration Services’ Inza Ouattara serves as part-time staff. Time Bank’s guiding “kitchen cabinet” has strong representation from downtown. Now Empower Lewiston’s grant will help sustain and grow the program’s community service mission.

“Every service that someone provides someone else through Time Bank is a building block for a strong community,” says Alyson Stone, Empower Lewiston’s Executive Director. “Each service meets an important individual need,” Stone says, “and each person providing a service and each one receiving is giving back and paying forward.”

Bates College senior, Sarah Davis, immediately caught on to the mutual benefit. She learned of Time Bank through the Bates Immigrant Rights Advocates (BIRA) group and its work with Catholic Charities. With a self-designed major in sociology, anthropology and politics called “Difference, Inequality and Conflict: Global Studies of Social Justice,” Davis is writing her thesis on how Time Bank facilitates refugee integration. Last semester, she recruited a half-dozen student volunteers to be job coaches, tutors, and to help one mother study to apply for citizenship.

“The minute Inza told us about Time Bank, we were so excited,” Davies says. “What a cool idea!” she says, “We knew we could build a student volunteer program to support it.”

BIRA will kick off this semester’s participation in early November with a cultural cooking event. Same as last year, Somalis will be on Bates campus teaching newly recruited student volunteers how to cook ethnic food.

Arabella Perez, THRIVE Director (left), receives Catalyst for Change Award from Sue Henri-MacKenzie, SMPA Executive Coordinator (right), while Brenda Bennett, Executive Director of Learning Disabilities Association of Maine, looks on.

LEWISTON – THRIVE System of Care is pleased to announce that Arabella Perez, Director, received the first-ever Catalyst for Change Award from Southern Maine Parent Awareness (SMPA) at its October 17 Fall Family Conference in Wells.

“Arabella has been instrumental to Maine family organizations working to define a collaborative approach to service,” says Sue Henri-MacKenzie, SMPA Executive Coordinator. “Her dedication to transformational activities for families regardless of barriers is an inspiration to us all.”

SMPA, Learning Disabilities Association of Maine, Maine Parent Federation, G.E.A.R. Parent Network, Autism Society of Maine, Foster and Adoptive Parenting, National Alliance on Mental Illness-Maine, and Helping Hands have formed a coalition to further “family voice” in Maine’s child welfare, mental health, health care, juvenile justice and education systems of care.

“Maine is at a crossroads with statewide initiatives, such as High-Fidelity Wraparound and the Parent Empowerment Program-STEPS,” says Perez, “that are identifying the role of family support partners in the various systems. It’s important for family organizations to come together to define and sustain this peer-to-peer partnering, rather than have it be dictated by outside parties.”

The newly formed coalition also plans to identify shared training opportunities and maximize the uses of its collective data.

 #          #          #

Southern Maine Parent Awareness (www.somepa.org) is dedicated to providing information and referral, support, and education to families who have children with special needs.

Tri-County Network of Care Supports Self-Care and Emotional Wellness

Maine Children’s Behavioral Health Services, Thrive System of Care Initiative and The Community Collaborative for Children, Youth and Families of Tri-County announce the launch of Tri-County Network of Care (www.tricounty.me.networkofcare.org).

Network of Care is a breakthrough, multi-lingual website empowering families and youth who are exploring physical and emotional wellness. The site is a community-based resource with “no wrong doors” for researching mental health issues, storing and controlling access to health information, and advocating directly with legislators. Site features include:

             ▪ An easily searchable regional mental health service directory

            ▪ Confidential, HIPPA-compliant folders for family health information

            ▪ Social networking forums for peer-to-peer support

            ▪ The latest nationwide mental health news

            ▪ 30,000 articles on mental illness, medications, recovery and more

            ▪ Advocacy and legislative information

Providers can use the site’s message boards and community calendars to share challenges and ideas, and brainstorm system of care solutions within their own agency or in collaboration with other entities.

The site is accessible regardless of literacy or income level through a text-only version and other adaptive technologies, including large print sizes. It is fully ADA-compliant, Bobby-approved and available in several languages, including French, Italian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Please join us in promoting this valuable resource for empowering families and improving the coordination of care in Maine!  For further information, please contact: Melanie Swift at 782-5783 x1611 or mswift@tcmhs.org

LEWISTON and PORTLAND — A group of multicultural Maine educators and health care professionals was recognized nationally with a 2009 Excellence in Community Communications and Outreach (ECCO) award July 31 in Anaheim, CA. The group’s Healing Invisible Wounds conference last fall celebrated resiliency in the face of trauma, and won gold for “Partnership Development” from ECCO sponsor, the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families.

Healing Invisible Wounds, based on a book by the same title, was a collaboration of the: Portland Schools Multilingual & Multicultural Center, Caring Across Communities Project (Portland), Thrive Initiative (Lewiston), The Children’s Initiative (Portland) and Maine’s Office of Minority Health. The conference drew 180 mental health and health care providers, educators, law enforcement and refugee resettlement workers, families and youth from Maine and the region.

“Seventy percent of conference presenters were racially and ethnically diverse,” says Arabella Perez, Thrive program director. “They used the the power of native language and indigenous healing practices to demonstrate the individual and collective capacity for resiliency and healing.”

From forced displacement to slave trading, holocaust, genocide, ethnic cleansing, civil war, combat, exposure to substance abuse, natural disasters, severe accidents, and all manner of domestic violence, most human beings experience trauma and its related stressors, either directly or indirectly.

“Our people (Passamaquoddy) were told our language was from the devil,” keynote speaker Allen Sockabasin says. Years later, he was in Germany listening to Germans speaking their mother tongue absolutely unconcerned whether non-native speakers understood them.

“I saw a smile in them,” Sockabasin says, “and, from that moment in 1970, I resolved to bring that smile back to my people.”

Sockabasin brought tears as well as smiles to the faces of conference goers when he sang “Amazing Grace” in Passamaquoddy. Other keynote speakers were Kana Enomoto, Acting Deputy Administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and Nancy Carter, a leading mental health advocate for communities of color.

The ECCO Recognition Program is sponsored by the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services Program for Children and Their Families, Federal Center for Mental Health Services, SAMHSA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

THRIVE System of Care Initiative www.thriveinitiative.org helps providers and community organizations in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties transform the way services are delivered to children, families of children, and to youth who are affected by serious emotional and behavioral challenges. Thrive trauma-informed trainings and technical assistance are family-driven, youth-guided, and culturally and linguistically competent. The Thrive Initiative is a partnership of Maine’s Children’s Behavioral Health Division, Tri-County Mental Health Services, and SAMHSA in collaboration with local provider agencies.

CONTACT: Lisa Preney
Social Marketing Coordinator
782-5783 x 1608

Justin Strout 21 has no family, has lived in 5 foster homes and 2 group homes ; Strout was named one of America’s Outstanding Young Leaders, an award honoring 100 foster care youths nationwide who have excelled in the areas of community service, education, accomplishment and leadership.

Read the complete Sun Journal article…

Watch Dustin’s Story of help and hope

Dustin Strout Honored for Achievement and Community Service
Watch Dustin’s Story of help and hope

LEWISTON and WASHINGTON, D.C. — THRIVE System of Care Initiative and FosterClub are pleased to announce that Dustin Strout is one of 100 foster care youth nationwide just named Outstanding Young Leaders of 2009. FosterClub recognized Dustin and the others for leadership, accomplishments, educational achievement and community service.

“The award means everything to me,” Strout says. “Now people can read about my life, from how I grew up to what I am now. Everybody has it in them. They just have to try and believe. It’s all a mind set. It’s not just going to fall into your lap. It doesn’t matter what people think, say or do, just be you,” he says.

21-year-old Dustin entered foster care at 18 months and had five placements until the age of 9, when he ran away for the first of many times. In and out of group homes for eight years, he also spent a year in a lockdown mental institution. Despite these obstacles, he graduated from high school and just completed his first college semester aiming for a degree in human services, so he can “help kids in my position.”

Strout advocates for homeless awareness, including starring in the autobiographical “Digital Stories: Where there is Help, there is Hope.” The 12-min video aired throughout May at Flagship Cinema in Auburn and is available to schools and other community organizations through THRIVE, where Strout is a member of the Youth Committee. For more of Dustin’s story, go to: http://www.fosterclub.com/young-leaders/dustin-strout

“Despite the hardships and setbacks these Outstanding Young Leaders faced, they are committed to making a difference for the children and youth still in foster care,” said Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), chair of the U.S. House Income Security and Family Support Subcommittee which has jurisdiction over the nation’s child welfare system.

Foster care was designed as a temporary solution to remove children from abuse and neglect, but children often languish in foster care before returning to their families, joining new adoptive families or living permanently with relative caregivers. More than 26,000 young people “aged out” of foster care last year without a permanent family to rely upon. Research reveals that many youth who “age out” of foster experience homelessness, unemployment, incarceration or illness – fewer than 3% of youth who age out of foster care graduate from college and nearly 1 in 5 become homeless.

THRIVE System of Care Initiative is building a network of services and supports for children and youth who have experienced severe emotional disturbance and their families in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. The Thrive Initiative promotes family-driven, youth-guided, culturally and linguistically competent, and trauma-informed services. It is a partnership of Maine’s Children’s Behavioral Health Division, Tri-County Mental Health Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in collaboration with local provider agencies.

FosterClub is the national network for young people in foster care. FosterClub’s mission is to improve life for young people in foster care through a national network that is built for youth and powered by youth. The organization is founded on the principle that young people in and from foster care deserve to be connected, informed, inspired and represented.