Muskie School of Public Service

Join the Children, Youth, and Families program, Maine Youth Transition Collaborative, and community partners in recognition of National Foster Care Awareness Month. During the week of May 14 – 18, engage in discussions, learn from presentations and panels, and view artwork, photographs, and other visuals that reflect the true stories of youth in transition from foster care. All events will be held in the Wishcamper Center, 34 Bedford Street, USM Portland Campus.

Display: Stories of Youth in Transition from Foster Care
May 14 – May 18
Wishcamper Center Forum

Starting Monday, May 14, the Wishcamper Center’s Billings-Nicoll Forum will be the site of a week-long display that showcases the many faces of youth transitioning from systems of care, as well as some of the community partners around Maine who are dedicated to improving the successful transition of these young people to adulthood. The display, sponsored by the Maine Youth Transition Collaborative (MYTC), will feature posters, photographs, and youth artwork.

Community Forum and Youth Panel Discussion
Special Presenter: Dianna Walters
Tuesday, May 15, 2:00 p.m.
Lee Community Hall (Rm 133)

Join the Maine Youth Transition Collaborative at the USM Wishcamper Center on May 15 at 2:00 p.m. for a community forum and presentation by Dianna Walters of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. The talk, The Adolescent Brain: New Research and Its Implications for Youth People Transitioning from Foster Care, will be followed by a youth in care panel discussion.

An alumna of Maine’s foster care system, Dianna worked closely with the Youth Leadership Advisory Team and served as a Foster Youth Intern for Senator John Kerry, raising awareness of critical issues facing foster youth and informing policy on both a state and national level. Dianna’s presentation and youth panel discussion will give an excellent overview and opportunity to discuss the emerging findings on adolescent brain development and what it means to Maine youth in transition. Dianna is also a spring graduate of Muskie’s PPM program.

Click here to register.

Film: Ask Us Who We Are
Friday, May 18, 7:00 p.m.
Lee Community Hall (Rm 133)

On Friday, May 18, at 7:00 p.m., the documentary film Ask Us Who We Are by Vermont filmmaker Bess O’Brien will be shown in the Wishcamper Center’s Lee Community Hall.  The film deals with youth in foster care and the search for belonging. A panel discussion will follow the screening with O’Brien, one of the young people from the film, and several Maine youth in care. A $5 donation is suggested. For more information, contact Beth Simmons at 878-9663.

The Muskie School of Public Service and USM’s Department of Applied Medical Sciences (AMS) have received funding to evaluate a Maine Office of Child and Family Services project resulting from a federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Expansion grant.

Maine will use funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration to expand and enhance Maine Families, an evidence-based home visiting program designed to improve maternal and child health, reduce child maltreatment, and increase school readiness. The Muskie School and AMS have been funded at $1.69 million over four years for their evaluation. A mixed method approach will be used to evaluate whether program fidelity is maintained throughout the expansion, whether health and wellness outcomes are achieved, and whether successful collaboration improves service provision to high-risk families.

Brenda Joly, assistant research professor in the Muskie School’s public health program, will serve as co- evaluator. Other lead staff in the Muskie School include Barbara Poirier, manager of public health programs, and Diane Friese, research associate in the school’s Population Health and Health Policy research program.

New course schedules for summer and fall 2012 have been posted- check out the wide variety of classes available for Muskie School undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs. (more…)

Join the USM Muskie School’s Environmental Finance Center (EFC) for a presentation and discussion on sea level rise adaptation in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood. The event is free and open to the public.

Sea Level Rise Planning for Bayside in Portland:
A Community Discussion

2050 Scenario, High Sea Level Rise, 100-year storm event. Blue bars represent lost real estate value in dollars.

Friday, February 24, 2012
7:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Wishcamper Center, Room 102
34 Bedford Street, USM Portland Campus

EFC Director and Muskie Professor Sam Merrill will present findings from the Center’s recent study on sea level rise and its potential financial impact on the Back Cove. The analysis is based on simulation modeling from the EFC’s Coastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool (COAST), an assessment tool that helps municipalities evaluate the costs and benefits of adaptation actions in response to threats of sea level rise and storm surge. A review of COAST results will demonstrate the prospective losses in Bayside real estate values under a variety of sea level rise, storm surge, and adaptation scenarios.

The EFC study and presentation follow a July 2011 resolution of the Portland City Council supporting the development of a Sea-level Rise Adaptation Plan. Audience members will have the opportunity to help frame that adaptation planning process through breakout sessions and open discussion after the presentation. Interested stakeholders are encouraged to attend and provide their input.

More information on the event, including an agenda for the morning’s activities, can be found on the Environmental Finance Center website. The event is co-sponsored by the EFC and the Portland Society of Architects.

Charlie Colgan

On January 10, Professor Charlie Colgan presented his 2012 economic forecast for the state of Maine at the annual event “Breakfast with Charlie.”

Colgan is a former Maine state economist and current chair of the Muskie School of Public Service Community Planning & Development master’s program. Presentation slides and audio from this morning’s presentation are available (click here).

Watch the presentation on YouTube

The National Child Welfare Resource Center for Organizational Improvement (NRCOI), housed at the USM Muskie School, recently introduced a new online resource, the Supervisor Training Project, after months of data collection on how states train and support child welfare supervisors.

Staff reached out to child welfare training staff representatives in all states to participate in a one-hour phone interview, which covered topics like pre-service training, ongoing training, professional development, and supports for supervisors. A total of 34 states took part in the process, and overall the NRCOI received very positive feedback.

Information on the current approaches taken by these states has been compiled on the project website, along with available curricula and materials. The NRCOI hopes both state agencies and the Children’s Bureau T/TA Network use this information to generate training ideas and to understand how other States approach supervision training and support.

For more information on the project, please visit: http://muskie.usm.maine.edu/helpkids/supervisionproject.htm

As a subcontractor for the national Dual Eligible Demonstration Program of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Muskie School’s Disability & Aging program will serve as lead contact and evaluator for four states participating in the program. The Research Triangle Institute is the prime contractor and winner of the five-year, $15 million contract.

Additional subcontractors include the National Academy for State Health Policy, the Center for Health Care Strategies, and the Urban Institute, is a subcontractor. Under this program, 15 states are developing innovative models for financing, delivering, and coordinating care to people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.

Julie Fralich, director of the Muskie School’s Disability & Aging program, will serve as the project director. Additional lead staff within the School include Maureen Booth, Eileen Griffin, and Kim Fox.

The Muskie School’s Justice Policy Program (JPP) within the Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy has received a Legal Assistance for Victims grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women. The $400,000 award will fund the Tri-County Advocacy Partnership (TCAP) in its efforts to enhance and expand the availability of holistic legal representation and advocacy for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking in Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford Counties. TCAP also provides an opportunity for the Muskie School and its partners to prioritize the expansion of civil representation and advocacy for sexual assault, rural victims, and immigrants/refugees, three traditionally underserved populations.

The TCAP collaboration includes the University of Maine School of Law Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project, the Sexual Assault Crisis Center, Rape Education and Crisis Helpline, Sexual Assault Victim Emergency Services, Safe Voices, and United Somali Women of Maine. Alison Beyea, Muskie School research associate and adjunct professor of law, and Deidre Smith, associate professor of law and director of the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, will lead this initiative.

The National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI), a partnership between the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service, the National Indian Child Welfare Association, and eight universities throughout the nation, has been awarded the 2011 Quality Award by the National Staff Development and Training Association (NSDTA).

Given annually in recognition of outstanding performance in the field of training and development, the award recognizes the ground-breaking development and implementation of the NCWWI Leadership Academy, including two innovative, comprehensive approaches to workforce training: the Leadership Academy for Middle Managers (LAMM) and the Leadership Academy for Supervisors (LAS).

The LAS, offered online, and the LAMM, a hybrid of online and residential learning, build the capacity of the nation’s child welfare workforce at two distinct levels and support organizational transformations that lead to improved outcomes for children, families and communities. Offered at no cost to organizations and individuals, the academies serve as powerful professional development opportunities for those seeking leadership roles within the field to effect change.

The Muskie School’s Freda Bernotavicz, LAS team leader, said of the academies, “Working on the NCWWI Leadership Academy has been a wonderful professional experience for us all.  We are privileged to be part of a national network of people committed to improving outcomes for vulnerable children, youth and families.”

Funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Children’s Bureau and Administration for Children & Families, the NCWWI is part of an overall national systems reform effort to build leadership capacity at all levels of the child welfare system. In addition to the Leadership Academy, the Institute provides online resource libraries, assessment services, and peer networking sites. The Leadership Academy team at the Muskie School includes Freda Bernotavicz, Sue Eberseten, Crystal French, Lee Lauritsen, DeeDee Reardon, Gretchen Robbins, Marshall Soloway and Laura Woods-Vachon.

The 2011 Quality Award will be presented at the NSDTA Annual Conference in Madison, Wis., this October.  To learn more about the NCWWI, visit http://www.ncwwi.org/.

2011 Baron recipients Diane Gout, Kyle Radke, and Sun Young Yoon

On August 5, the USM Muskie School of Public Service staff and faculty gathered in the Wishcamper Center to celebrate this year’s Catherine A. Baron Endowment award recipients: Sun Young Yoon, Kyle Radke, and Diane Gout.

Created in 2006 in honor of former Muskie senior staff member Catherine Baron, the Baron Endowment supports the professional development of Muskie classified and professional staff. Each year, the Baron Endowment Committee selects a recipient or recipients based on the personal narratives of applicants and recommendation of their supervisors.

This year’s recipients will use their awards to support personal and professional growth, engaging in new learning opportunities within their fields.

Dean Joseph McDonnell and new Cutler Institute director Richard Birkel with Freda Bernotavicz of Muskie's Children, Youth, and Families program

Kyle Radke, administrative assistant within the executive director’s office, will apply his award toward textbooks and materials for two food systems courses during the 2011-2012 academic year. Diane Gout, manager on the ViolenceAgainst Women Measuring Effectiveness Initiative, will be presenting as part of a panel of experts on intimate partner violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women at the 16^th International Violence, Abuse, and Trauma Conference in San Diego, and using her award to partially cover conference expenses. Sun Young Yoon, also a research associate within the Justice Policy program at Muskie, will use her award to attend the 73^rd Annual National Council on Family Relations, where she will present “The Role of Child Maltreatment and Trauma in Adolescent Relationships.”

Executive Director Mark Lapping emceed the event, and said of the ceremony and recipients: “They are outstanding members of the Muskie School community. Their dedication and drive is entirely consistent with the goals of the Baron Endowment, and I think that Cathy Baron would be very pleased with the projects that each recipient intends to pursue.”