MCA in the News

December 12, 2024 - It was the 30th year of honoring those who stick their neck out for Maine children in the annual Giraffe Awards. Six individuals, businesses and organizations were given giraffe awards Tuesday for their work with Maine kids. Put on by the Maine Children’s Alliance, it’s one of the organization’s favorite events of the year.

November 3, 2023 - Child welfare continues to appear in headlines as policymakers and state leaders react to the challenges faced by our state’s child welfare system. Information about the efficacy of the child welfare agency is important and deserves routine discussion and thoughtful analysis. However, our focus and attention cannot stop there. Why are so many families struggling? We must find ways to work together to help parents and caregivers provide safety and stability for their children.

July 5, 2023 - Budgets are a reflection of our state values and priorities. The recent bipartisan budget agreement reflects what we know to be true: The Maine child care system needs new investments to better work for children, families, early educators and employers.

May 4, 2023 - The Maine Children’s Alliance recently released the 2023 KIDS COUNT Data Book on the well-being of Maine children and families. Feedback from across the state and political spectrum has been clear and consistent, and the data are sobering. Approximately 34,000 Maine children live in poverty. Child maltreatment is high. Maine youth are facing unprecedented mental health issues. Significant disparities persist across indicators when disaggregated by income, race and ethnicity, geography and other factors.

January 6, 2023 - The state’s child welfare system has been one of the top subjects of legislative debate since the tenure of former Gov. Paul LePage, just as it was ahead of major reforms in the early 2000s. It has usually been prompted by high-profile deaths that thrust the worst cases into public view. This is going to happen again in 2023.

September 22, 2022 - HALLOWELL, Maine (WABI) - It started with an opening forum where people from different communities spoke about the work that they do. The theme of the convention is community. According to the Maine Children’s Alliance, the focus is on policies, structures and systems to make sure children and families have the chance to get a good start in life.

August 30, 2022 - Throughout the pandemic, we've heard about a growing need for child care services across the state. According to the Maine Children's Alliance, the number of licensed family child care centers in Maine dropped by more than 10% in just the last two years. Last year, there were less than 800 licensed family child care centers in Maine.

August 16, 2022 - The Maine News Service recently covered the release of the national KIDS COUNT Data Book and Maine's state ranking of 12th. Children’s advocacy groups are sounding the alarm about the mental health challenges of Maine’s kids. The 2022 Kids Count Data Book, released last week, highlights how children are struggling with anxiety and depression at unprecedented levels, about one-in-nine nationally.

June 28, 2022 - The Mills Administration announced today that the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has provided more than $100 million in Federal funding for child care during the pandemic, a milestone that represents more than three times the funding provided before COVID-19. As a result of these investments, child care providers have been able to maintain, and even build, capacity despite the pandemic – from 47,819 licensed slots in February 2020 to 48,940 licensed slots in June 2022.

May 18, 2022 - We all want children in our state to grow up in safe and supportive environments. Our Network stands with the families who have experienced the tragedy of a child’s death, and the immeasurable loss that represents for them and their communities. Their voices should be central in our discussions. One way we can honor their experiences now is by moving beyond debate to take collective action and implement recommended changes.

May 5, 2022 - To truly recognize April as Child Abuse Prevention Month, investing in abuse and neglect prevention alongside improvements to the intervention system is essential.

March 27, 2022 - The nurses who serve Maine’s poorest families saw their ranks dwindle under former Gov. Paul LePage. They haven’t rebounded much under Gov. Janet Mills.

March 22, 2022 - The Maine Department of Education under Gov. Janet Mills is proposed making local school districts responsible for special education screenings of 3- to 5-year-olds as well as for providing appropriate services to children with disabilities and developmental delays. Those services are currently provided by a state agency.

January 21, 2022 - Many families in Maine experience challenges to providing safe, nurturing homes for their children. In response to recent child deaths, high levels of reports of abuse and neglect and the stressors added by the pandemic, Maine has an obligation and opportunity to respond. We can and must act to build an effective child well-being and family strengthening system with a dual focus on supporting families to prevent maltreatment and effective child protective response when families are in crisis. We all have a role to play in developing a child welfare system that better supports the needs of Maine families; it is up to all of us to work together now to make it happen.

January 19, 2022 - The Maine Child Welfare Action Network, a group made of up of several organizations that promote the well-being of children, is calling on the state to strengthen supports for families.

October 23, 2021 - Despite its rural setting and high poverty rates, Aroostook County is leading the state when it comes to pre-kindergarten enrollment. Though enrollment declined statewide during the pandemic, more Aroostook parents opted for public education than any other part of the state, by a wide margin.

Local and state experts say easy access and public investment are a big part of Aroostook’s success. Now legislators and advocates are turning to The County as an example of how public pre-K could expand throughout the state.

October 12, 2021 - The Delta variant has brought renewed concern about the risk COVID-19 poses for our children. A recent CDC study indicated that since the rise of the Delta variant, there has been a tenfold increase in hospitalizations for children ages 0-4. It also showed that hospitalizations for unvaccinated adolescents were 10 times higher than for fully vaccinated youth. These numbers demonstrate the alarming and increasing impact of COVID-19 on the health and safety of children.

September 28, 2021 - It is time that we, as a nation, confront and commit to resolving the child care challenges hindering many families’ economic security, our children’s long-term success, and the continued prosperity of the economy. Making a substantial and sustained investment in America’s child care and early learning system by approving the funding included in the American Families Plan is a critical step in the right direction.

August 18, 2021 - The two Democrats want Congress to make the tax credit permanent, saying it provides critical support for child care and other living expenses.

July 22, 2021 - Parents are now receiving fully refundable monthly 2021 Advance Child Tax Credit payments, and advocates for children and families have urged Congress to make them permanent. Nearly one in four Maine families reported difficulty paying for usual household expenses in the last week. The expansion increased the credit to $3,000 annually per child age 6 and up, and $3,600 for kids 5 and younger.

July 2, 2021 - The state must prioritize prevention and early intervention services to stabilize struggling Maine families before they are in crisis. The recently reported deaths of four Maine children in the past month send an alarm signal to those concerned with the safety of our children and call for an intensive review, both within state government and in communities across our state, of how these tragic deaths could have been prevented. We should also take this moment to assess how we can prevent the breakdown of healthy family functioning, so fewer children experience the trauma of abuse or neglect.

June 1, 2021 - As Maine parents with young children try to return to the workplace, they’re facing problems when it comes to finding child care.

May 13, 2021 - Maine faces a tight deadline and familiar access challenges as it works to vaccinate children over 12 against the coronavirus in schools prior to the summer, when access could prove to be more difficult. 

May 10, 2021 - President Joe Biden is proposing the federal government spend $200 billion to provide universal pre-kindergarten. That proposal would no doubt benefit many, but there could be some hurdles for Maine to overcome. Morning Edition host Irwin Gratz spoke with Maine Children's Alliance Senior Policy Analyst Rita Furlow about the proposal.