As the state lead for the National Family Support Network (NFSN), Maine Children's Trust is charged with working within a collective impact framework to ensure coordinated quality support for families. As such, Maine Children's Trust is launching a new collective impact effort, Family Support Maine, to enhance collaborations and partnerships among family serving organizations in support of parents and caregivers across Maine.
To support the coordination of family services and resources in Maine to improve child and family well-being.
Family Support Maine follows Chapin Hall's 5 Guiding Principles for Community Partnership.
1) People-Driven Collaboration - Centering community members' voices to co-create solutions that reflect local priorities and build resilient long-term relationships.
2) Asset-Based Partnerships - Building on existing community strengths and networks, both traditional and nontraditional, to foster trust and sustainable change.
3) Capacity Building - Investing in both people and systems to create equitable, adaptable, and enduring community support structure.
4) Shared Leadership - Promoting collective action, fair, power-sharing, that enable communities to respond effectively and sustainably.
5) Collaborative Evaluation - Co-developing goals, using both data and lived experience to measure progress, and creating feedback loops that ensure strategies evolve with community needs.
Collective Impact is a framework for addressing social problems whereby multiple entities work toward a shared goal with the support of a backbone entity that aligns and coordinates the work of the group. There are 5 components of a Collective Impact Approach:
1) Mutually Reinforcing Activities
2) A Dedicated Backbone Organization to Coordinate Efforts and Provide Infrastructure
3) Common Agenda
4) Shared Measurement Systems
5) Continuous Communication
To find out more, email us at
info@mechildrenstrust.org.
