2-1-1 Maine News

2-1-1 Maine Hires Program Director for Call Center

On September 11, Karen Turgeon, LCSW, began work at the 2-1-1 Maine Call Center as the first Program Director.  Karen will oversee all the day-to-day operations of the call center and be instrumental in the overall implementation of quality measurements, standardized training and maintenance of system protocols.  Karen has a master’s degree in social work and joins the staff at Ingraham after ten years of employment at Community Counseling Center in Portland.

River Rock Foundation Extends its Support

The River Rock Foundation has approved a second grant to 2-1-1 Maine, to support its outreach effort to multicultural communities.  This funding will support the work of Dominic Suru, the Multicultural Resource Specialist.  In addition, 2-1-1 Maine is currently translating materials into ten languages for distribution around the state.  River Rock Foundation board members have been encouraging and supportive of this effort.

2-1-1 Maine Receives Collaborative Leadership Award

The Institute for Civic Leadership bestowed its prestigious Collaborative Leadership Award  to 2-1-1 Maine at their Annual  Gathering on October 26, 2006.  In making the award, ICL “recognizes, United Ways of Maine, Ingraham, and the State of Maine for their remarkable ambition in designing and facilitating a collaborative process and for the results they achieved.”  Receiving the award were Brian Petrovek, 2-1-1 Maine Board President; Eric Buch, Vice-Chair United Ways of Maine and President of United Way of Eastern Maine; Joe Everett, Associate Director/Business Development, Ingraham; and Lucky Hollander, representing Commissioner Brenda Harvey of the Department of health and Human Services.

Call Center Celebrates Milestone
On September 27th, 2006 the 2-1-1 Maine Call Center provided assistance to its 10,000th caller.  It was an important milestone to the staff, after many months of training and implementation.

Thank You to Oxford Networks
Special thanks to our Telecommunications Partner, Oxford Networks, for their assistance during the months of our development. Oxford Networks is not only providing our telephone service but is also hosting our website. We appreciate their support and assistance.