Regional Care Teams
What are Maine Regional Care Teams?
The Regional Care Teams (RCTs) is a partnership between the Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC), the Place Matters team at the University of Southern Maine (USM), and the Center for Youth Policy and Law (CYPL) at Maine Law. Place Matters provides facilitation, data, and research to support individual system-involved youth and their families and to help inform broader system change.
The Regional Care Teams are a network made up of individuals from youth-serving agencies, systems, organizations, and communities in each Department of Corrections (DOC) region who meet monthly to share resources, fill in gaps, and respond to local needs of youth referred to the initiative, and also develop strategies to inform policy and practice at the systems level. Additionally, the state Juvenile Justice Advisory Group (JJAG) has provided federal juvenile justice and delinquency prevention dollars to assist these teams in supporting youth in their community. Regional Care Teams is co-designed with our community partners in wraparound case management and emergency response fund administrations: Wings for Children and Families (Region 3 and 2) and The Opportunity Alliance (Region 1 and 2).
The goal of these Regional Care Teams is to facilitate shared accountability to the health, safety, and wellbeing of systems impacted youth and their families so they may thrive in their chosen communities. We do this by strengthening cross-system, provider, and community involvement to inform local resource development and increase supports, resources and opportunities for youth through a local community-based continuum of care.
For more information on the Regional Care Teams, check out our RCT one-pager.
Refer a Youth to Regional Care Teams
Since the inception of the Regional Care Teams, we have had hundreds of referrals and provided supports to youth to meet a variety of needs. Youth may be referred by anyone- including a juvenile corrections staff member, other agency staff member, social worker or case manager, or anyone who is working with a transition aged youth (age 14-24) who is at risk of or currently involved with the justice system.
Do you know or work with a young person who is involved or at risk of involvement with the juvenile justice system and could benefit from extra support? There are TWO ways to support youth through your RCT: Request a Care Team Review OR Request Funding.
Once a form is completed, the responses are sent to a USM staff member who coordinates with the facilitators for the specific region to review and approve the request. For more information about our funds request approval process, please refer to this guide.
CLick here to submit a youth referral
RCT Monthly Meetings
The Regional Care Teams meet monthly in each region. Meeting participants share information, resources, and strategies to assist in supporting a specific youth and will also help to identify and inform regional and statewide systemic changes that will improve youth, program, and population outcomes.
Monthly meetings also serve as a time to provide case consultation for individual youth upon referral to the Regional Care Teams for support. The meetings use a case sharing approach to triage and help develop responses to unmet needs.
Interested to learn more about monthly meetings? Check out our Meeting Guide.
Regions & Contacts
Each region supports a network of people and organizations ready to work together to support individual youth and their families AND to help inform system change. If you are interested in joining the network as a partner for your region you can email the DOC Regional Correctional Administrator or facilitator for that region.
Region I
Counties
Cumberland and York
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USM Facilitator
Jill Ward
jill.ward@maine.edu
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Regional Correctional Administrator
John Coyne
john.coyne@maine.gov
Region II
Counties
Androscoggin, Franklin,
Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Oxford, and
Sagadahoc
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USM Facilitator
Ahmen Cabral
ahmen.cabral@maine.edu
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Regional Correctional Administrator
Sue Nee
sue.a.nee@maine.gov
Region III
Counties
Aroostook, Hancock,
Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo,
and Washington
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USM Facilitator
Stephanie Nicoson
stephanie.nicoson@maine.edu
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Regional Correctional Administrator
Steve Labonte
steve.labonte@maine.gov
The Impact of RCTs
The Place Matters team and the Regional Care Teams network is dedicated to monitoring data and evaluating our impact so that we may continue to improve the initiative and make data-informed decisions. In this effort, we maintain a dashboard featuring data about RCT referrals and we publish reports about the initiative. We also seek out feedback from our partner network on an annual basis. To learn more about the impact of RCTs check out the resources below.
RCT Referral Data Dashboard
Click on the dashboard below to explore the data about RCT referrals.
The Latest RCT Report
