The Foster Care Fix: Invest in the Services Proven to Keep Kids in Their Homes

by CI Guest | Mar 6, 2019 | Oregon Policy, Home Visiting, Oregon Research, Parents and Families

Guest Column by Leslie Brown, Program Director, Children’s Relief Nursery at LifeWorks NW

Oregon’s Child Welfare System needs help. Our system for reporting abuse and neglect can be confusing, we do not have enough foster families or child welfare workers, and there are currently 84 foster children who’ve been sent out of state for care. These issues hit young children hard: according to the Oregon DHS 2017 Child Welfare Data Book, 45 percent of children in the Child Welfare System are under 6. While additional funding to improve this system is important, it is even more critical that we invest in programs that help keep young children out of foster care.

Fortunately, we know what it takes to keep kids in their homes. Relief Nurseries offer tailored, trauma-informed services to support families with children ages birth to 5. As a clinician working in the field of early childhood for 40 years and Program Director for the LifeWorks NW Children’s Relief Nursery, I have seen firsthand the impact Relief Nurseries can have on a family. We provide wrap-around services to families that reduce parental stress and social isolation. We teach parenting skills, strengthen bonds between parents and their children, and provide targeted services that reduce child behavioral problems and improve social-emotional development in very young children. These services include therapeutic classrooms for children, respite care that enables parents to take care of personal or family matters, regular home visiting to help families achieve family goals and build healthier parent-child relationships, and access to family counseling and consultation with an early childhood mental health therapist. Research shows that these types of primary prevention activities build the protective capacity of parents, keeping kids out of foster care.

According to the most recent evaluation conducted by Portland State University, the families Relief Nurseries serve have an average of 16 risk factors associated with abuse and neglect. This same evaluation shows that 98.5 percent of children working with Relief Nurseries between 2008 and 2010 avoided foster care placement. Children already in foster care who work with Relief Nurseries exit the system twice as quickly as those who don’t. Relief Nurseries provide additional benefits to parents and children, including increasing the percentage of parents reading to children, decreasing emergency room visits, and improving family economic stability.

LifeWorks NW is one of 31 Relief Nurseries and satellite sites operating in 17 counties in Oregon. According to a Children’s Institute interview with Cara Copeland, Executive Director of the Oregon Association of Relief Nurseries (OARN), these sites serve roughly 3,000 children in 2,600 families. But there are many more families across the state who could benefit from these services: based on the number of cases of reported abuse and neglect among children ages 0–5, OARN estimates that there are more than 36,000 young children across the state whose families need these programs.

Oregon has an opportunity in 2019 to keep children out of foster care by investing in Relief Nurseries. Governor Kate Brown, supported by a coalition of early childhood advocates, has called for a $5.6 million investment from the state to open two new Relief Nurseries and seven satellite sites, as well as expand the capacity of current programs. This is a smart investment for the state not only because Relief Nurseries have been proven to keep kids out of foster care, but also because for every $1 that the state invests in these programs, Relief Nurseries raise an additional $1.80 in private revenue.

I hope Oregon’s lawmakers will support this common-sense approach to fixing our state’s over-burdened foster care system. We should improve our Child Welfare System so that we no longer need to send foster children out of state for care. The best way we can do that is to provide families with the support they need so that children can remain in their homes receiving the love and care they need.

The Policy-Practice Feedback Loop: Putting Outcomes First

by CI Guest | Dec 1, 2018 | CI in the News

By Mari Megias

This piece originally appeared in the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Stories.

Swati Adarkar, a 1989 graduate of the two-year MPA program at Harvard Kennedy School, wants every child, regardless of family income, to have the best possible start in life. This is why she helped launch Children’s Institute to advocate for early childhood education, health, and safety.

“If you start to look at where you can make the biggest difference, it’s in early childhood. There’s abundant research on the critical impact of the developmental period for children prenatal through age eight,” she says.

Adarkar rattles off statistics with an ease that demonstrates her passion. She notes that families in the United States have a more difficult time than families in many other countries. “It’s not the same as places like Finland and Sweden, where there’s a real commitment to paid leave and childcare. Here in the U.S., we have a whole host of kids who are coming from behind. Those kids and families need supports, so what we do is work to improve lifelong health and education outcomes by increasing public investment in high-quality early childhood services like preschool.”

As president and CEO of Children’s Institute, Adarkar leans on her Harvard Kennedy School education daily. It was at the Kennedy School where she took courses on poverty and inequality from David Ellwood and Robert Reich, among others. “I received a great grounding in how to think about persistent social problems,” she says.

In 2007, one of those problems was under consideration by the Oregon legislature. The leadership of Children’s Institute’s persuaded the state to nearly double its investment in Oregon Pre-kindergarten (OPK), a state program modeled after the federal Head Start program that helps children ages three to five growing up in poverty to be ready for kindergarten. With this additional state funding, 3,000 more children received services than otherwise would have. “In addition to preschool, OPK and Head Start provide a connection to essential health and other stabilizing services and engages families,” says Adarkar.

This successful work put Children’s Institute on the map in Oregon. With increased public funding, Adarkar says, “we moved into implementation.” In 2010, Children’s Institute launched its Early Works initiative in one urban and one rural community in Oregon. Early Works supports high-quality early learning in elementary school settings, including preschool and family services like birth-to-three playgroups, parenting education, and health and housing resources. “We are interested not just in the why but the how,” says Adarkar. “Through the process of engaging with partners including school districts, Head Start, community-based organizations, and families to implement Early Works, we’ve seen a powerful ripple effect. Early Works demonstrates that high-quality preschool and supports for families can close opportunity gaps and help kids enter kindergarten prepared for success.”

The lessons learned through Early Works drive Children’s Institute’s advocacy work. Adarkar notes, “If you do traditional advocacy, your cycle of work might be to focus on a legislative session, make the case, figure out where you are at, retool, then do it again. But you don’t necessarily know what’s happening on the ground. The policy-practice feedback loop guides our effort and gives us a deeper understanding of what works best for kids and families.”

Children’s Institute continually evaluates its efforts, including through the ongoing longitudinal study at Early Works on the impact of increased investment in early childhood education in Oregon. And with Adarkar at the helm, thousands of children in Oregon already have a better start in life.

Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Alga’s Story

by CI Guest | Jun 29, 2016 | Educators and Workforce, Teacher Voice

Weldeindrias works with a student while volunteering in Katie Wiegel’s classroom.

“Alga, you always had your work prepared to bring to class and you took your academic responsibilities very seriously,” says Yolanda Buenafe, early childhood education instructor in Mt. Hood Community College’s Assistant Teacher Career Pathway program. “Your questions were very focused on what you wanted to accomplish.”

Alganesh Weldeindrias smiles as she listens to her teacher’s praise. Today is her graduation day, and she has earned a certificate from Mt. Hood Community College qualifying her to apply to the Oregon Registry for her Child Development Associate, or CDA. Not only has she completed her certificate program, but Weldeindrias had perfect attendance, attending the program four nights per week for ten months, and earned a 4.0 grade point average. She is now qualified to be an assistant preschool teacher in Oregon.

Weldeindrias says she loves working with children and is thrilled to make a career of it. “They’re funny and they’re innocent,” she says. “And they make me feel good.”

The Mt. Hood Community College Assistant Teacher Career Pathway program has operated for two years, with funding from Oregon’s child care division, to support people working with young children move up in their careers.

Weldeindrias receives an award for perfect attendance. Four nights a week for ten months, she never missed a class.

The program is a very successful example of how Oregon can diversify and professionalize its early childhood workforce. The state can build up existing human capital in communities by connecting people who work with young children to resources and educational opportunities.

Students like Weldeindrias and her fellow graduates are an example to Oregon of what can result when the state supports a true pathway to educational achievement in the field of early learning. As the state implements high-quality preschool programs like Preschool Promise, it would do well to increase investments in similar Career Pathway programs around the state. Research shows that high-quality teachers are both well-educated and representative of the students they teach. The Career Pathway program and others like it are sound state investments because they result in high-quality teachers.

“We give students the opportunity to take college early childhood education classes to earn a certificate that’s part of an early childhood education degree,” says Angelique Kauffman-Rodriguez, Career Pathway Specialist.

The program also helps students gather hours in the classroom, prepare their portfolios and study for an exam. Successful completion of these elements, in addition to being observed in the classroom, qualifies the students for their CDA. Graduating students who wish to continue their education, like Weldeindrias, are already halfway to an Associate’s degree.

“We’re developing a next-level program to help students earn their Associate’s degree because of demand from successful students over the past two years,” says Kauffman-Rodriguez.

In addition to early childhood education courses, the Career Pathway program provides support around college-level learning skills, including writing and studying. Because of the state’s funding, the students also receive scholarships covering the full cost of tuition, textbooks and exam fees. These supports are critical to the program’s success, and this year 11 students completed the program.

Weldeindrias is thrilled with what she’s learned. “We learn how to guide the children,” she says. “Social emotional, physical, cognitive, how to support the kids.”

She says that her most useful lesson has been the importance of understanding children’s feelings. “We have to understand their actions, why they do what they do. We have to listen and be at their level.”

This is a lesson that Weldeindrias has even put to use at home, with her own three sons.

Weldeindrias and her husband pose with her graduation certificate.

“I used to use a lot of time out for my kids, but it’s not helpful,” she says. But now when they fight or act out, she has a conversation with them about what is really bothering them. “If they have a problem, we solve the problem.”

Roni Pham, professional development specialist at the Oregon Department of Education’s Early Learning Division, spoke at the graduation ceremony to share this vision. “I’m really glad that the Early Learning Division had an opportunity to provide funding for this,” she said to the graduates. “You did exactly what we knew you would do. This is what we said this program was capable of producing.”

After the graduation ceremony, Weldeindrias posed for photos with her classmates, her family and with Earl Boyles Elementary preschool teacher Katie Wiegel, whose classroom she has volunteered in for the past two years.

“I like Earl Boyles,” Weldeindrias says. “It’s where my kids are. I would love to work there!” She has applied for an open assistant teacher role for the fall.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

by CI Guest | Jun 22, 2016 | Health and Development, Parents and Families

“Put your shaker on your nose, on your nose!” A dozen parents and caregivers, gathered in a classroom at Earl Boyles Elementary in southeast Portland, sing along together, encouraging their children to touch their egg-shaped shaker-instruments to their noses. Many of the toddlers are engaged in the activity, while babies listen and watch their parents perform the action with fascination.

A room full of infants, toddlers and parents at an elementary school may seem unusual, but it’s the new normal at Earl Boyles, a site of the Early Works initiative. Early Works partners at Earl Boyles have previously launched a preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds and are now turning their attention to providing programs for families with even younger children. The group has gathered weekly all spring to play and learn together with the guidance of facilitators. More than 30 children have participated.

Research shows that the first three years of life are a critical window of development. Reaching families early with services and support puts children on track for school and life success.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

Parents, grandparents and children celebrate on graduation day.

High-quality play and learn groups are a proven strategy to do just that. The play and learn group at Earl Boyles follows evidence-based quality practices by offering fun educational activities that can be done at home, ideas for transforming everyday activities into learning opportunities, and guidance around early childhood developmental milestones.

The facilitators – Early Works site liaison Andreina Velasco, play and learn program consultant Ginger Fink, and Earl Boyles parent Macy Kuang – launched their group to provide all these tools to families with children birth to age 3.

Moreover, the group serves to welcome young families into the school, tying directly to Early Works’ goal for the school to be a community hub for all families.

“Our goal was to make families very comfortable… and build relationships,” Fink adds. “We want families to be so comfortable at school it’s like a second living room.”

Ultimately, building relationships with families beginning when a child is very young makes the transition to kindergarten easy and seamless. For children, the school environment is familiar and for families, trust in the school has been established. For teachers, a child’s developmental progress is already known and any necessary support can already be in place.

A number of key factors were built into the plan for the group to ensure its success.

For example, an important consideration for the facilitators in planning the Earl Boyles play and learn group was ensuring it was culturally appropriate for families in the community. To this end, all of the group’s activities are conducted in three languages – English, Spanish and Chinese. The involvement of Kuang, a Chinese parent, is a critical component of expanding the group’s cultural relevance.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

Baby Leo discovers his reflection.

“Having Macy as the co-facilitator is a really great way for us to build our capacity and cultural knowledge of the Chinese speaking families in our community,” says Velasco.

Kuang says that in addition to helping facilitate, she wanted to be involved for her 2-year-old daughter. “I want her in the play and learn group so she can learn English, she can learn Spanish, and also learn Chinese.”

Research shows that language development happens at an explosive pace during a child’s first three years. The group’s trilingual approach takes advantage of this developmental window, allowing participating children to hear sounds and learn words in multiple languages.

Another consideration was including the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, or ASQ, as part of the program. The ASQ is a developmental screening tool for young children. It is easy for parents and caregivers to use to determine whether their child is on track developmentally as well as to identify and address any delays or gaps as early as possible. The screenings are available for parents to conduct while they play with their child.

“It’s really neat because it’s really valid. You see it happening,” says Fink. “If a question asks, can your child stack blocks, go play with the blocks and you’ll know.”

Because of the variety of partnerships Earl Boyles has formed with service providers in the community, the play and learn group has a mechanism in place to refer families to services and support programs if they have concerns or detect delays.

The program’s impact is easy to see when you attend. “Every week there’s a success story,” says Fink. “By pointing out to families that there’s a marker of development, or something exciting is happening with a baby, or all of a sudden a child who wasn’t saying any words three weeks ago babbles away. For us, that’s remarkable stuff.”

The families, too, feel that the program has had impact.

Bulla Chong Kainoa brought his son to the group to help him prepare for preschool in the fall. “I like that they teach my son gross motor skills and he’s able to learn how to be with his peers. I like how attentive the teachers are and you can tell that they care about the children.”

Candice Beard’s 2-year-old daughter spends much of her time at home socializing with her older brother who is four-and-a-half. “This group gives her a lot of exposure to babies who are her age and socialization with younger kids than she usually plays with,” she says.

At the end of May, Earl Boyles hosted its youngest graduation celebration yet for 12 infants and toddlers. Each family received a certificate and a gift bag full of activities and books. But the children’s favorite gift was balloons, which immediately captured their attention. As each family came up front to be honored, Velasco shared the developmental milestones that their children achieved during the program.

Plans are underway for next year, and the facilitators are working to ensure the program at Earl Boyles is sustainably run and funded. They also have advice for other schools or communities interested in launching a play and learn group to reach young families.

Velasco emphasizes how important it is to leverage talent already in the community by including a parent co-facilitator. “It builds cultural and linguistic capacity and it’s really wonderful to have an inclusive, intercultural space,” she says.

“Gather your energy, look for resources, find yourself some colleagues out there and start your own program,” says Fink. She recommends the National Women’s Law Center as a fantastic resource.

Eager Learners: Earl Boyles Serves Infants and Toddlers in Play and Learn Program

Andreina Velasco plays with Elsa San Juan and her son.

High-quality play and learn programs like this one are an effective way to build relationships between schools and families, provide parents with skills and ideas for teaching their children, and improve children’s kindergarten readiness and school success.

As Elsa San Juan, who participated with her 1-year-old son, puts it, “It is more than a game for kids, it is for a child’s learning so that they can strengthen and grow.”

Creating an enviable life for all kids: A Q&A with Nancy Anderson, retiring early intervention and special education leader

by CI Guest | Jun 21, 2016 | Educators and Workforce

Creating an enviable life for all kids: A Q&A with Nancy Anderson, retiring early intervention and special education leader

Nancy Anderson and Early Works partners visit South Shore School in Washington state.

Nancy Anderson, who leads Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education services in Multnomah, Hood River, and Wasco counties, is retiring after 40 years helping children achieve success. Although Anderson holds titles with both the Multnomah Early Childhood Program and the David Douglas School District, her work has spanned much more than these titles alone suggest. She is admired statewide for her leadership around professional development, has been an integral thought partner for educators and administrators, and has played a key role in the creation and success of the Early Works initiative at Earl Boyles Elementary. There she helped create a preschool that was funded by multiple agencies, including MECP.

The Children’s Institute is grateful to Nancy Anderson for her years of public service, dedicated to improving all children’s lives. “Nancy was fundamental in launching the Earl Boyles preschool program and in advocating for full inclusion of children with special needs in a universal preschool setting” says Swati Adarkar, President and CEO of Children’s Institute. “Nancy has been a key partner, not just for the Children’s Institute and Early Works, but across the state. She has pushed everyone to innovate, and has fought hard to improve the odds for all Oregon kids.”

“Nancy has been a leader in EI/ECSE since the very early beginnings of this statewide program,” says Anderson’s colleague Judy Newman, the Co-Director of Early Childhood CARES and a member of the governance consortium for Lane County’s early learning hub, the Lane Early Alliance. “She is a critical thinker and innovator, always striving to stay improve services and supports based on the current evidence in the field. She asks important questions and challenges us all to constantly evaluate what we are doing and to grow and change as needed.”

We talked with Anderson about her career, the current state of early intervention in Oregon, and what policymakers can do to ensure all kids have an equal shot at success.

CI: Why is the interplay between early intervention and early childhood education so important? For example, why should preschool teachers in public settings be dually accredited in special education and preschool?

NA: When I think about early childhood or our K-12 systems, kids come to us from wherever they are – there is a lot of diversity. If you have a group of 20 kids, 17% of them have a delay or disability, and/or are dual language learners and/or have experienced trauma. So what do staff need to do be able to deal with that? Teachers need to know enough in each area to be able to [address the diversity of issues]. That is where the importance of dual accreditation comes from – if the teacher has no background in knowing what to do with students with special needs, having a special education specialist come in once a week isn’t going to make a big difference. For kids with disabilities, inclusion early in school sets the stage for inclusion later and leads to greater success for graduation rates and career success.

CI: What has been your role in Early Works and the preschool at Earl Boyles?

NA: Years ago we first sat down with Swati Adarkar and a group of partners from around the county, asking what do we need and where should we do it? We decided to move forward with a preschool in the David Douglas School District. The Community Needs Assessment for the area showed that, out of all the things, the community really needed access to preschool. So we thought: If we built a preschool model what would it look like? We wanted the preschool to service all the kids in the catchment area, so we could impact the trajectory of kids prenatal to age 3 [P-3], and into the K-12 system. We worked to include kids in Head Start and Early Childhood Special Education. All of the detail work to get the preschool started was really complicated, hard work. You really have to have people who want to figure it out and who are willing to do hard work. But does it need to be done? Yes.

CI: Tell us about your statewide leadership around professional development.

NA: Last year, [Former] David Douglas Superintendent Don Grotting and I went to the Oregon Department of Education to offer a summer institute for professional development that would be open to anyone in the state. We created the institute in partnership with the Early Learning Division, Oregon Department of Education- Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education and the David Douglas School District. It was phenomenal. It was so popular that the department wanted to do it again this year, and extend it to an entire week. This year’s institute is offering seven courses on topics like coaching, dual language learners, and positive social emotional development. Educators from all sorts settings attend – child care, K-3rd general education, community preschool, Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education, and Head Start.

We learned people are really hungry for P-3 professional development and learning – and for something that isn’t just a day long.

CI: What are you most proud of having accomplished in your career?

NA: There isn’t any one project or initiative. It is probably more that I’ve always tried to ensure that kids and families have a shot at a full life – both at school and in their community. My focus has always been on making sure kids and families have what they need to be successful and have an enviable life. And think I’ve been pretty successful in making that happen!

CI: What drives you to push innovation at both the state and district levels? How have you gotten partners, teachers, parents, others, to buy in to early childhood investments?

NA: One of the things that makes a difference is to share some different experiences with them – show them what is positive and possible. People come to their work with certain experiences or lenses – and sometimes just don’t know what is possible! One of my biggest jobs as a leader is to really make sure I am bringing forward those stories and experiences of the partners and families we are working with to support their hopes and dreams.

For example, when talking to a parent of a young child with Down syndrome, they may have a dream of their child attending college. However, people in their life may be telling them it’s not possible. I might say ‘Oh! I hear you thinking about your child attending college in the future. Do you know that Northwest Down Syndrome Association is working with local colleges on a program called “Think College” which ensures students have access to college? It is possible!’ You have to kind of change the conversation.

And that is what Early Works has been about – showing people that it is really possible. At Earl Boyles, parent engagement has changed and they are getting great outcomes. It is important to share these stories and also share the data that shows things work. Once you put vision and outcomes together it is hard to say no.

CI: What is the number one thing parents and teachers could do to help more students succeed?

NA: For staff, kids, and families, the recognition that “this isn’t it.” There is always more to do. Things can be better. And when we bring people on board who understand that, we can always do even more.

CI: What is the top thing policymakers could do to help more students succeed?

NA: To ensure that whatever policies are being made to ensure kids have that best start – that it includes all kids. That when we say “all” and “every” that we really do mean “all.”

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