Funding Relief Nurseries is an Investment in Families and Communities

by Celeste Yager-Kandle | Aug 17, 2021 | Home Visiting, Oregon Policy, School Readiness

Oregon Relief Nurseries provide critical support to families with young children ages 0-5. They currently serve about 3,500 young children throughout the state and are an integral part of Oregon’s early childhood system. The Relief Nursery model is nationally-recognized and unique to Oregon, focusing on the specific issues of children from families experiencing multiple stressors, trauma and abuse, or families that are at-risk of having these experiences. These complex challenges put families at an increased risk of becoming involved in the child welfare system. To prevent this, Relief Nurseries provide tools and resources so families can strengthen parent-child bonds, establish healthy patterns, and build protective factors.

“Our vision is that all children in Oregon thrive in safe, nurturing and stable families,” explained Cara Copeland, executive director of the Oregon Association of Relief Nurseries (OARN). “The Relief Nursery model has over forty years of success in strengthening families and keeping children safe from maltreatment and unnecessary foster care.”

Unfortunately, low wages for direct service staff have put these programs in a precarious situation, putting Oregon children and families at-risk of losing needed services. One of the biggest hurdles facing Relief Nurseries today is a glaring pay gap, when compared to other salaries in the early childhood sector. While Oregon has made some progress by raising wages for early childhood direct service staff in other early childhood programs, such as Early Head Start and Oregon Pre-Kindergarten, wages for Relief Nursery staff fall short. This results in recruiting challenges, high staff turnover, a reduction in services, and disrupts relationships with families and children.

According to OARN, the average Relief Nursery teacher/home visitor would need a 19 percent wage increase to meet the Early Learning Council minimum salaries for early childhood educators.

During the 2021 legislative session, one of the Early Childhood Coalition’s (ECC) legislative priorities was to expand early childhood investments. This included providing wage parity for Relief Nurseries, with OARN as lead advocate. OARN and the ECC requested $4.8 million from the Oregon Legislature to increase Relief Nursery wages and maintain levels of service. Ultimately, Oregon’s Relief Nurseries received partial funding.

“We received $2 million of our request and will continue to fight for those dollars,” said Copeland. “The consequence of not having these funds is fewer families served and staff being recruited out of our programs to partner services. The turnover and transition of staff have negative consequences on children and families currently receiving services as well because they often drop out of services when a beloved home visitor or teacher leaves.”

Relief Nursery staff are critical in shaping the future for children, families, and communities. With the early years being such an important time for brain development, Relief Nurseries are essential for thousands of young children in Oregon.

Central Oregon Spotlight: MountainStar Relief Nursery

MountainStar Relief Nursery is just one of 38 Relief Nurseries in Oregon, serving young children and families in Bend, Madras, Prineville, Redmond, and La Pine. Families in MountainStar’s programs join voluntarily, often connecting to the program by word of mouth, but they may also be referred by doctors, social workers, and partner agencies.

Kara Tachikawa, executive director of MountainStar, attended the ECC’s advocacy kick-off event in May. She subsequently met with lawmakers during the 2021 legislative session, providing testimony in support of raising wages for Relief Nursery teachers, home visitors and support staff.

This summer, CI staff visited MountainStar at the East Bend Campus and toured the building, which actually houses multiple organizations that also serve children, youth, and families. We learned that this co-location provides convenience, allowing families to access more services in one place, and promotes collaboration and partnership between like-minded nonprofit agencies. Healthy Families of the High Desert, the Central Oregon branch of Healthy Families Oregon, is one such program that shares space in the building and partners with MountainStar to reach more families.

While there, we learned that in September 2020, MountainStar opened three Preschool Promise classrooms in Bend, Madras, and Prineville to provide more high-quality, publicly funded preschool for low to moderate-income families. Their goal is to provide early intervention so children are safe and healthy, build parental resilience, and strengthen families through integrated early childhood education and therapeutic support services.

Healthy Families of the High Desert

Healthy Families of the High Desert is a program through Healthy Families Oregon. It is a voluntary home visiting program that provides support and education to families expecting or parenting newborns. The program offers weekly home visits for families that need and want some extra help, and partners with MountainStar to reach more families with young children.

An image of the building that houses MountainStar Relief Nursery

A photo of a classroom at MountainStar Relief Nursery

Looking Ahead

Since the Oregon Legislature concluded in June, Relief Nursery programs are now moving towards implementation. At MountainStar, Kara Tachikawa remarked that she is hopeful about successfully navigating the season of change, as the program is expecting staffing changes, solidifying programs, and looking to expand services over the next three years.

As for the near future, she said, “We’re excited to move back into our regular services for therapeutic classrooms and to return to in-home visiting with families. We know that these connections provide the basis for positive social-emotional development for the children, and the support that families need to make it through the challenging, precious, irreplaceable time of raising young children.”

Additional Resources

Relief Nurseries help families stay together

by Niki Reading | Oct 3, 2017 | Child Care, Health and Development, Parents and Families

Parenting young children can be challenging for anyone. But for parents who struggle with substance abuse, lack of work, housing insecurity, a history of abuse, or a number of other factors, being a supportive parent can be even more of a challenge.

That’s where Relief Nurseries help. Relief Nurseries offer a mix of intervention and prevention programs and services to meet the needs of children age 0 to 6 and their families. Unique to Oregon, there are 31 Relief Nursery sites around the state run by independent nonprofits, serving nearly 3,000 families a year.

“We really look at the whole family,” says Mary Ellen Glynn, executive director of the Oregon Association of Relief Nurseries. That means free programming for children from birth to preschool that’s both therapeutic and educational, weekly at-home visits for parents, supplies like diapers and clothing, and assistance navigating the system to attain affordable housing, food assistance, education, and more.

“We know there are incredible developmental milestones in the first 5 years,” says Tim Rusk, Executive Director of MountainStar Family Relief Nurseries in Central Oregon. “That includes attachment, social-emotional learning, and a foundation for learning for the rest of their lives. If parents and families are distracted by issues like domestic violence, food insecurity, or housing insecurity, they have a harder time meeting their child’s needs.”

Relief Nurseries help families stay together

Relief Nursery programs and services work: “After a family has been in our program for more than six months, about 85 percent of them require no further involvement with child welfare,” Glynn says. In a 2011 study by Portland State University, they found 98.5 percent of children enrolled in Relief Nurseries between 2008-2010 avoided foster care and were able to live safely with their families.

Those are big results from a program that started 40 years ago as a project of the Junior League of Eugene. There were a growing number of child abuse cases in the community, so the Junior League began providing respite care for at-risk parents in a church basement. Since then, the model has expanded across the state into a nationally recognized network of independent nonprofits.

Glynn says there are many ways families connect with Relief Nurseries. “Some self-refer, others are referred by pediatricians and programs, others by child welfare. Our philosophy is that the door is open and there’s no wrong way to enter,” she says.

When a family enters the Relief Nursery program, they work with staff members to create a plan. “It’s all individual goals,” Glynn says.

Children attend Relief Nurseries based on their age and family goals. Babies usually visit the therapeutic class setting with their parent or caregiver once a week, and a session will typically have three teachers for every six infants. Toddlers may visit twice a week and attend class with three teachers for every 8 pre-kindergarten students.

The same teachers conduct the home visits, which Glynn calls the “secret sauce” of the program. Having the teacher visit the home means they can talk to parents in a constructive way about their individual child’s development, parenting tips, and the family’s needs in a way that supports the whole-family model.

Glynn says the nonprofit Relief Nurseries both help end the cycle of abuse and neglect, and helps kids from at-risk families be ready for kindergarten.

“The goal is to get those pieces in place so the family is strengthened and the child is ready for a successful K-12 career,” she says.

For more information about Relief Nurseries, visit www.oregonreliefnurseries.org. To learn more about Mountain Star, visit http://mtstar.org.