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Grant brings specialized poverty training to Franklin County

5 mins read
Last year’s Community Health Needs Assessment Forum with guest speaker Dr. Donna Beegle

A grant from the Maine Health Access Foundation is providing Franklin County with a new resource to address the growing issue of poverty in the region.

The grant will provide the means to implement a peer-to-peer model to connect those living in poverty with the resources they need. The Opportunity Community model addresses the key barriers when facing the issue by thoroughly training community members to better understand and work with people living in poverty.

Inspiration to apply for the grant surfaced after guest speaker Donna Beegle addressed the public at last year’s two-day workshop on poverty awareness. Beegle, who grew up in inter-generational poverty in a migrant family, is the founder of Communication Across Barriers, an agency that works to alleviate poverty nationally. Her agency created the Opportunity Community model after working extensively with educators, social service professionals, justice professionals, faith-and community-based organizations and health professionals across the country.

Beegle has received national acclaim for her ability to passionately and succinctly address the issues of poverty. She is the author of See Poverty, Be the Difference, a resource book for professionals who work with people living in poverty.

Last year’s workshop brought over 160 educators, service providers, first responders, human resources administrators and community members to the workshops held at Mt. Blue Campus and Spruce Mountain Middle School.

“Some of our teachers, who are long time teachers, walked out of there saying ‘I’m going to do things differently,’” Superintendent Thomas Ward said. “It was rejuvenating to see people thinking about this issue in a different way.”

But despite good attendance and an impactful conversation, Ward walked away feeling like there was a piece missing.

“Out of all those people that came, none of them were the ones that needed to be there,” Dr. Ward said.

This observation stood out to be an integral barrier on the path to solving issues of poverty. People who are experiencing extreme poverty often have a difficult time connecting with the resources available to them. The reasons vary from case to case, but can include fear that their children might be taken away, fear of judgment, too much pride to ask for help, lack of transportation or lack of a phone to call.

“We do have a lot of resources in this area. It’s just a matter of getting people connected to them,” Andrea Richards, program coordinator at Healthy Community Coalition, said.

Richards is one of the three-person steering committee working on the implementation of the Opportunity Community model. She, along with Ward and Michele McCormick of Franklin Memorial Hospital, have slowly but surely been laying the groundwork for the model.

McCormick, a pediatrician at FMH, sees the impacts of poverty every day when it comes to health issues for people in poverty.

“I hear a lot of physicians saying if I could just get this person food, or a vehicle, or whatever it might be, then they would have the energy to deal with diabetes, or whatever the health issue is,” McCormick said. “This is the first time ever that the hospital is talking about poverty as a root to the problem.”

Through extensive training, the model will prepare community members to better understand what it is actually like to live in poverty- outside of the stereotypes that are so commonly placed.

“We need to learn how to help from their perspective, not from what we’ve been taught so far.” Richards said.

An event on March 22 will kick off implementation of the model and will again host Dr. Beegle as a guest speaker. More information to come.

The model will require the work of many different roles, including the peer to peer work as well as behind the scenes support and organization. Anyone who is interested in getting involved should contact Andrea Richards at amrichards@fchn.org or 779-2435.

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3 Comments

  1. A much-needed focus:

    “Through extensive training, the model will prepare community members to better understand what it is actually like to live in poverty– outside of the stereotypes that are so commonly placed.”

    “The reasons vary from case to case, but can include fear that their children might be taken away, fear of judgment, too much pride to ask for help, lack of transportation or lack of a phone to call.”

  2. One glaring problem faced by residents of Franklin is lack of public transportation.

  3. very very good stuff
    Lu is right- transportation is huge
    And as a physician- all of us in the medical community talk about this all the time.we will take any help we can get.

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