Who we are

Silhouettes of children playing with blocks

We’re making Oregon the best place to be a kid.

Children’s Institute has always worked passionately to improve outcomes for Oregon’s kids. Since our founding in 2003, we’ve come to know that a brighter future for our state rests on a foundation of love and care for every child and family. Love sometimes requires a reckoning.

We have to grapple with a difficult truth: many policies and practices designed to address economic inequity do not meet the needs of children of color and children living in rural communities.

We’re committed to shifting these systems toward justice. And we invite you to join us.

Mission

We leverage research, practice, policy, and advocacy to shift systems toward justice for families so that all of Oregon’s children, prenatal to grade 5, have access to opportunity.

Vision

We envision a socially just and equitable Oregon where all children have the love, care, and education they need.

Mission

We leverage research, practice, policy, and advocacy to shift systems toward justice for families so that all of Oregon’s children, prenatal to grade 5, have access to opportunity.

Vision

We envision a socially just and equitable Oregon where all children have the love, care, and education they need.

Values

Honor

We see children as complete people and value their contributions to the world. We honor all children and families by centering their humanity, respecting their dignity and self-determination, and uplifting community wisdom and voice.

Equity

We center and advance equity in all of our work.

Learning

We embrace multiple ways of knowing and pursue growth and learning through research and our connections with each other, the children and families we serve, and the communities in which we operate.

Innovation

We will be bold, think creatively, and take risks to ensure that we are doing all we can to help children thrive.

Connectedness

We believe children develop and grow in connected communities, so we work to build bridges and deepen our relationships with and in families, communities, and systems to support early learning practices.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice

All children are born precious, powerful, and full of potential, but young children who experience barriers to opportunity due to racism, economic injustice, and other systemic inequities often lack access to programs and services that strengthen early learning and healthy development. Children’s Institute is working to create a future where race, ethnicity, income, geographic isolation, disability, language, immigrant and refugee status, houselessness, and foster care no longer predict the outcomes of children living in Oregon.

As a policy, advocacy, and research organization oriented toward building, funding, and expanding an early childhood system for children prenatal through third grade, it is imperative that we work to create a system that does not replicate bias, discrimination, and inequality.

Because we know that many early childhood policies and practices designed to address economic inequity have still historically left children and families of color and rural communities behind, our work must drive toward equity across the state. And because issues of race and poverty are inseparable in the United States, fighting against poverty, and the effects of poverty on children, families, and communities, necessitates a fight against systemic racism. Working at the intersection of racial and economic justice will serve as an accelerator for true social change, and is a way to honor the humanity of all children.

Children with their teachers on the playground

We commit to centering justice in everything we do. To that end, we will:

Listen deeply to our children, families, communities, and providers and honor their experience and wisdom as those who are closest to the work
Leverage our power and privilege to amplify the voices of those most impacted by structural racism and other oppressions
Foster an inclusive table that shares power, resources, access, knowledge, and opportunities and encourages learning and humility
Interrogate and challenge dominant culture practices in order to create conditions of safety, comfort, and belonging for racially diverse people who join us in our work
Deliberately and continuously center equity in policymaking, decision making, and policy implementation to identify and eradicate systemic racism and other structural oppressions in our child-serving systems
Continuously challenge ourselves, our partners, and decision-makers to take an inclusive and critical approach to data and research that recognizes and uplifts the full diversity of cultural knowledge, lived experience, and community wisdom as valid sources of data
Create and nurture an internal culture of belonging where staff members from all backgrounds have the psychological safety to bring their whole selves to work