Priorities

Maine Marks can be grouped by the three Children’s Cabinet priority areas: Youth in Transition, Adverse Childhood Experiences/Resiliency or Early Childhood.

Here are the descriptions of the three areas as planned by the Children's Cabinet:

• Early Childhood: With the goal to create coordinated and humane systems and policies at the state and local level and to ensure quality early childhood services to all young children.
  
  
• Youth in Transition: Expand, coordinate and strengthen supports for youth ages 14-24, with the goal to ensure that EVERY youth and young adult, especially those with few assets and high risk factors such as substance abuse, mental health issues, academic failure, or marginalized in any way, is connected to a permanent home, family, and community through collaborative wrap-a-round planning partnerships between the Children’s Cabinet agencies, families, schools, and communities.
  
  
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES): Links adverse experiences in childhood - such as abuse, alcoholism in the family, mental illness, etc. - to adverse health outcomes as the child becomes an adult. In understanding the research behind ACE, the Children’s Cabinet seeks to foster conditions that: 1) Prevent, to the extent possible, such trauma in childhood; 2) Minimize the impact of traumatic experiences and events; and 3) Strengthen the resiliency of children, families, and communities in dealing with trauma.

Here are the current indicators sorted under each priority: