Keeping Kids First — Quirk Portland Employees Support the Kids First Center
Divorce and separation are hard on adults. For a child, they can be bewildering. Since 1998, the Kids First Center has existed for exactly that reason — to minimize the emotional and sometimes physical trauma children experience during the separation and divorce of their parents.
The employees of Quirk Chevrolet of Portland selected the Kids First Center for their latest employee-funded donation, presented to Associate Director Barbara Quinn on the showroom floor in Portland. The gift supports the center's groups for kids, its co-parenting education for parents, and the training it provides to the counselors, attorneys, and educators who work with separating families.
What sets the center's work apart is its neutrality. Children get a room where they can say out loud how they feel without worrying about which parent is listening. Parents get practical skills for keeping conflict away from their kids. Nobody is asked to pretend the situation is other than it is.
Our thanks to Barbara Quinn and everyone at Kids First for the steady, quiet work they do for Maine families — and to the Portland team for pointing this one their way.
Every child who walks into the Kids First Center gets something rare in the middle of a divorce — a neutral room, and an adult whose only job is to listen to them.