Amid rising challenges, a new initiative is building community capacity to support the healthy development of young children across Knox and Lincoln counties

As Assistant Superintendent and Special Education Director for the St. George Municipal School District, Jessica Berry is passionate about ensuring students receive the supports they need to thrive in school. But as she saw more students starting kindergarten with greater needs and whose families lacked access to essential services, this John T. Gorman Fellow began to ask – what could be done to ensure that more children and families in Midcoast Maine get the support they need in the years before they enter the school system?

Berry’s answer has been Zero to School Starting Strong. With funding from the John T. Gorman Foundation, this new initiative is delivering supports to young children and their families while taking steps to build what Berry calls a “community of prevention.”

Responding to Rising Needs and Limited Resources

Amid Midcoast Maine’s scenic peninsulas and coastal towns, several indicators point to stark challenges for children and families. In Knox County, for instance, the rate of babies born with low birth weight – over 10% – was the third highest in the state in 2022, the number of children in foster care doubled in 2023, and the county ranks among the lowest in the state for workforce participation among parents of young children. Meanwhile, resources for young families in the area are stretched thin, with monthslong waiting lists for childcare and specialized supports like occupational and speech therapy.

After growing frustrated with the difficulty of finding help for students and their families, Berry came to a turning point. “I knew something needed to change,” she said, “because the needs were rising and there were no resources.”

To address these challenges, Berry convened other leaders to form the Midcoast Community Collaborative (MCC). Since 2023, the partnership has enlisted over 70 groups to respond to critical challenges for children and youth in Lincoln and Knox Counties. A key MCC priority is helping families support the health and well-being of their young children.

In listening sessions, families identified many barriers to advancing the physical, mental, and social-emotional development of their children. For one, parents reported that needed services were unavailable or too far away. Parents had trouble accessing high-quality childcare where their children could gain valuable learning and developmental experiences. Moreover, parents themselves were feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and unsupported.

In response, MCC has developed a multi-tiered strategy to boost early supports for children and their families throughout the community. With a grant from the John T. Gorman Foundation, the Zero to School Starting Strong initiative is now operating with the goal of having children enter kindergarten healthy, thriving, and ready to learn.

Zero to School Starting Strong

The centerpiece of Zero to School Starting Strong is a mobile team of specialists who are equipped to address a wide range of child and family needs – including a nurse practitioner, social worker, an early childhood interventionist, speech pathologist, and occupational therapist.

The team works in multiple ways to deliver supports and services. Public events in community spaces provide opportunities for children to receive developmental screenings while parents can learn more about supporting their child’s early learning and growth. Parent support groups offer the chance for families to connect and build valuable social capital. In-home services are offered to families who need individualized services.

Social worker Stephanie Simmons said parents value having her help in connecting to community resources and talking through their challenges.  “Making sure their own mental health needs are met will help them be a better parent,” Simmons said. “If you reduce the stress for the parents, they can increase the connection with their child.”

On a systemic level, the initiative is working to increase the community’s overall capacity to support healthy child development by building a collaborative network among early childhood organizations and providers that can share needs, resources, and advocate collectively for the Midcoast. This includes providing specialized training to early childhood educators in the area. As local school districts prepare to take on responsibility of providing special education services to 3- and 4-year-olds – due to a Maine law passed last year – the initiative is also pursuing opportunities to provide services that support this transition.

Team occupational therapist Kristin Cameron stressed the importance and effectiveness of providing needed interventions while children are young. “When brains are young, we can change things really fast,” she said. “If those needs aren’t identified or addressed until they reach school, they have to work much harder to catch up.”

Berry affirmed that the right interventions at the right time put children in a position to succeed once they enter school – possibly preventing them from needing special education services or reducing the level of services needed. She also attested to the wider impact of making developmental supports more available to all young children and their families.

“There’s so much research that prevention is the most impactful investment we can make for the health and development of kids and families,” she said. “Working to keep kids out of the river is much easier than getting them out of the rapids.”