Communities That Care

Posted on March 16, 2009

STAR Celebration March 18

The end-of-cycle celebration for the STAR after-school program will take place in the Wave Cafe at Camden Hills Regional High School on Wednesday, March 18th at 6PM.  There will be lots of delicious pizza, awards, and even a raffle!

For more information, contact Tarah Hall at 236-9800.

Posted on March 16, 2009

Next GGC workshop for local parents!

Five Town Communities That Care is once again offering the Guiding Good Choices (GGC) workshop series for parents of children who are aged 9-14.  GGC is a free, five-part series that is nationally recognized for its effectiveness in helping parents influence their children to make healthy choices. In research studies the program has been shown to improve parenting skills and the quality of parent-child interactions, to reduce adolescent substance abuse, to reduce adolescent depressive symptoms, and to reduce rates of self-harm by teens.  In these studies, children of participants showed 40% lower rates of alcohol and marijuana use, 54% less progression to more serious substance abuse, a 26% greater likelihood of remaining drug free if they weren’t already using drugs, 38% lower rates of self-harm and 28% fewer feelings of ‘worthlessness.’
 
For local mom Lisa Ettinger, the strength of GGC is that "they made it clear that there is more than one way to parent. You develop guidelines that work for YOUR family, and then they give you the tools to open up or strengthen communication."  Bruce Laycock shared, "The program offered varied ways of handling difficult situations. It gave different approaches to get kids more ‘plugged in’ to the family structure."
 
Past participant Cheryl Cassidy shared, "The best thing about the course was getting together with other parents going through this challenging period with their kids.  The whole issue feels a little more manageable now.  I strongly encourage all parents to give this a try.  It is well worth the commitment of time for both parents and children.”
 
The workshops series will meet Thursday evenings, April 30 – May 28, at Camden Hills Regional High School. All sessions begin at 5 PM (with a free dinner for the entire family from 5-5:30) and end at 7:30 PM.  Free onsite childcare is offered while parents are in the workshops from 5:30 to 7:30.
 
For more information, or to register, call 236-9800 or email info@fivetownctc.org. Registration forms are available in the school offices at AVS, HES, LCS, and CRMS, or you can download one and mail it in to the address on the form.

Posted on March 13, 2009

What do young people REALLY want?

As part of Five Town Communities That Care’s ongoing mission to promote healthy youth development and community involvement, the agency will be undertaking a series of youth forums in the coming weeks. The goal is to learn from the youth of the five towns what types of recognition they value, and what the barriers are to greater involvement in the community by young people.

Youth from Hope, Appleton, Lincolnville, Camden, and Rockport in grades 5-12 will be randomly selected to receive a packet of information inviting them to participate in one of several professionally moderated forums where they will be asked to discuss these questions. Interested students will be asked to return the packets and will be given further information about the process. Incentives for participation will be provided. Parental permission for students under age 18 will be required.

For more information, phone Dalene Dutton at 236-9800 or email dalene@fivetownctc.org.