Family Focus believes strongly in partnerships. We partner with families to provide high-quality care and education. We also believe in broadening our partnerships to include our community.

MidCoast Hospital has been an ongoing partner providing healthy life style changes for staff and Teddy Bear clinics for the Preschool program. The Women’s Giving Tree has provided two grants to Family Focus. One provided short term payment support for childcare payments for families to prevent disruption in childcare during school breaks which are not covered by state funding. The second grant supported the food program’s increase in food costs and allowed Family Focus to continue to supply healthy eating components to the food program.

Community partnerships have been an integral part of our School-Age Child Care (SACC) programs. Students have collaborated with Midcoast Hunger Prevention and the Brunswick Humane Society. Children in the Williams Cone SACC program are currently working on making baby quilts for MidCoast Hospital. This project is under the direction of our Family Focus Office Manager Anne Pappas.

Another partnership has been with theTedford Shelter. SACC children worked on a “Day of Service” based on Martin Luther King and his work on service. The children interviewed volunteers from the homeless shelter who shared their stories. They then supplied personal hygiene baskets for males, females and children. More than 400 personal items were collected.

Recently the Kids Consortium in collaboration with the Main Mathematics and Science Alliance provided our SACC program staff training for energy conservation teaching. The service learning project model was combined with the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) style of learning. State Farm and the Maine Community Foundation provided financial support. The children learned about energy through various curriculum activities. They then researched the needs for energy conservation in our local area, identified a problem, developed a solution and implemented it. This project allowed students to engage in real world problems and experiences through project based, experiential learning activities that lead to higher level thinking.

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