Through Maine Marks, the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet seeks to track and measure how Maine’s children and youth are faring in these areas.  The purpose of Maine Marks for Children, Families, and Communities is to develop and report on a set of indicators that government, citizens, and interested groups can use to track the well-being of the state’s children, families, and communities.  Maine Marks indicators are aligned with the vision and outcomes set by the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet. 

The first edition of Maine Marks was released in February of 2001; the current 2007-2008 online edition represents the most current available data, in most cases including data through 2007. 

Although Maine Marks has and will continue to provide a broad range of indicators across family, community, regional and state domains, the Children’s Cabinet agreed that this web-based tool should reflect more specific cross-systems work currently underway, as well as emerging, evidence-based initiatives that together have the potential to impact interagency policy and service delivery.  Measures can be viewed by individual topic, outcome, priority initiative, or by the three Children’s Cabinet priority areas: Youth in Transition, Adverse Childhood Experiences/Resiliency or Early Childhood.

Maine Marks includes indicators that represent statewide data as well as data from State programs or initiatives.  Statewide data is important because it enables policymakers and other interested parties to assess how well or poorly children and families in Maine are faring.  “Initiative-specific” indicators are of particular importance to the Children’s Cabinet because each initiative is of interest to three or more of the State Departments.

Data sources for indicators included in the Maine Marks website include primary data sources from federal and state sources, e.g. census and survey data, as well as data from program initiatives at the state level.