Informational Links

If you would like more information about the Council for Exceptional Children or the Division for Early Childhood, you may visit their websites.

Another link of interest is the Maine Support Network. The Network provides support and professional development for teachers from all grade levels and areas of specialty. It serves educators from all over the state of Maine by providing regionally based activities.

An internet community for parents, service providers, students and faculty at universities, and everyone else who cares about early intervention with infants and toddlers is the Global Early Intervention Network.

LINK MAINE is a website dedicated to promote people partnerships and community programs in the state of Maine.

The University of Maine's Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies (CCIDS) has several grants at this time that deal directly with young children with different abilities and those that care for them. One such grant is the Child Care Plus ME Project which offers problem solving assistance and training to support child care centers, child care homes, families, preschools, public schools, and community programs so that they may provide quality experiences for all children, including children with challenging behaviors and children with medical, physical, and developmental disabilities.

A second grant is the Early Learns Project. This is a staff development and technical assistance initiative supporting early care and education providers in Maine in their efforts to assure that all young children have access to high quality inclusive early care and education in order that every Maine student can achieve the Learning Results.

If you would like to get information about laws and lawmaking in the state of Maine, visit the official website of the state of Maine. This link will take you to a page that allows you to search for laws and check the status of bills, among other tasks.

IDEA has gone through some changes. Take a look at the Reauthorization Summary provided at CEC's website. On CEC's site, click on the link to IDEA Law and Resources.

As a new service on our website, we'd like to feature a favorite website each month. As a new site is added, we'll move the last month's website into a list. January's website is Center on the Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning. From the site - "The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning is a national center focused on strengthening the capacity of child care and Head Start programs to improve the social and emotional outcomes of young children." Links on the site include Partners in Excellence, Training Modules, What Works Briefs, Practical Ideas, a Chat room and their own Links.

As a gift from DEC, MDEC has two copies of the module (CD and videotape) - Promoting Social Emotional Competence. Click on the name of the module to read more about it.

Tufts University's Child and Family Webguide. This has links to the best sites about infants, children and teens. You will find information about family/parenting, education/learning, typical child development, health/mental health, and resources/recreation. 

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