An agency providing social and community services to Hancock and Washington counties is taking steps to merge with its equivalent in Aroostook County.
Downeast Community Partners and the Aroostook County Action Program announced Wednesday that they are formally exploring forming a three-county organization.
The announcement comes as the Down East agency has spent years trying to address financial problems, recently gave up one of its largest programs because it became ineligible for grant funds and earlier this month fired its CEO less than a year after she’d been hired.
As a community action agency, Downeast Community Partners coordinates services for low-income people and tries to eliminate the causes of poverty, primarily through a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that is administered by individual state governments.
These regional agencies throughout Maine run services such as Head Start early childhood education, heating assistance and transportation. The Down East organization also offers adult day care, health programs for mothers and children, home repairs, weatherization, financial coaching, youth development programs, service navigation and food assistance, among others.
It relinquished operation of Head Start to the Aroostook agency in June, and the two organizations are now looking into integrating in order to preserve and improve essential services “in the face of significant financial and operational challenges currently facing DCP,” the two agencies said in a joint press release.
Downeast Community Partners was formed in 2017 out of a previous merger between Child and Family Opportunities and the Washington Hancock Community Agency. Six years ago, the Aroostook County Action Program was the first agency in the Northeast to start a “whole family” restructuring that focused on integrating services for all ages, an approach that has had success and drawn attention from outside the state.
The Down East and Aroostook agencies aim to make sure programs will be sustainable for the long term and strengthen their systems while keeping local representation in decisionmaking, they said.
The groups have formed a joint committee to lead the merger process and make recommendations, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by both boards.
The Aroostook agency’s CEO, Jason Parent, will also consult for Downeast Community Partners as it navigates “urgent operational and contractual needs” during the transition, according to a press release.
Both agencies plan to work with their funders to evaluate their contracts and adjust them where necessary to continue providing programs and services.
“This process will be guided by the principles of transparency, collaboration, and responsiveness to community needs,” the groups said. “Protecting and strengthening services for the people of Washington, Hancock and Aroostook Counties remains the top priority.”
