New director looks to 'community building'

Photo: Peter L. McGuire

OPPORTUNITY OF LIFETIME — Last week Jim Douglas started his new position as director of Healthy Oxford Hills, a project of Western Maine Health.

NORWAY — "Opportunity of a lifetime," is how Jim Douglas describes his new position as director of Healthy Oxford Hills.

Douglas comes to HOH with an extensive background in clinical therapy, particularly with youth.

He received a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1979 and a Master's Degree in Education from University of Maine in 1982.

Douglas has worked as a therapist and a substance abuse specialist in southern Maine. From 1996 to 2004 he was Pastor for the Durham Friends Meeting.

Since 2004 he has been a bereavement services supervisor for Androscoggin Homecare and Hospice in Lewiston and has lived in Norway for almost a decade.

Douglas says community-building has always been a focus for him – even if it wasn't in his job description.

"A passion and love of mine has been the community building ... potential of the work," Douglas says. "It has not always been the primary focus of the employer or the network at the time, but it is something I've always been aware of and interested in."

Now, Douglas gets a chance to put that passion into practice in his new director role.

"It struck me as an opportunity, really for the first time, to be directly involved in fostering that kind of community strength and associational ties in a way that I've never had quite this level of opportunity for."

Douglas has been learning about his job and HOH over the past few weeks from former director Ken Morse, but he's still "blown away" at the range of work HOH is engaged in.

The Oxford Hills community is fertile ground for HOH's work, Douglas says. There are already people actively advocating for and improving health and wellness with independent initiatives and projects.

The community also presents challenges, Douglas acknowledges – Oxford County comes in near the bottom in state health rankings and despite some progress, there's still lots of work to do. 

"There's no lack of opportunity for good things to happen," Douglas says. Community engagement is key to improving public health, he adds – change won't occur overnight, but HOH can help build on improvements that have already been made.

One of his goals is to develop the process of building partnerships with other stakeholders in the community, but otherwise, Douglas doesn't see an area at HOH he'd like to change dramatically.

The organization already has a strong foundation and talented staff, Douglas says – he only wants to build on it.

"This isn't a situation of coming in because something's broken and needs to be fixed," he explains.

"There is a lot of work being done by very capable, committed people."