Healthy Child Care

Oregon Infant Care: Parent Voices for Change

Oregon families, especially those with infants and toddlers, struggle to find care and education for their children. In fact, families with infants and toddlers in every Oregon county live in a child care desert. Parents’ ability to work, their physical and mental health, family stability, and children’s health and development, are all tied to having quality, affordable choices for infant care. It’s critical for partners, advocates and decision makers to be aware of this very real problem for Oregon families, and inform system and policy decisions related to infant care.

Oregon Families’ Stories

Watch and listen to these six powerful stories of Oregon families and how they have been impacted by the struggle to find quality, affordable infant care and other related supports:

Here are some ideas to improve access to affordable, high quality child care in Oregon:

Learn about Oregon’s child care supply crisis so you can talk about it with others:

Oregon Child Care Supply

Cost of Care in Oregon

Learn more about why the quality of child care matters so much:

WhyEarly Experience Matters: Harvard University Center for theDeveloping Child

Learn more about why affordable and accessible child care matters so much:

Learn more about Oregon Child Care Rules so that you can advocate for safety and quality in all programs

Oregon Early Learning Division

Get involved with groups that champion the cause of women,
children, and families

Check out these resources and tell others about them:

Questions? Contact Oregon MCH

If you believe storytelling is an effective way to change systems, check out StoryCenter

High quality child care is essential for our children, our families and our society

Childhood care and education (CCE) providers play a key role in children’s lives. Healthy, safe and nurturing CCE environments and a skilled CCE workforce using best practices can preserve, protect and promote children’s health and well-being and build a foundation for lifelong health and learning.

When CCE is healthy, families can work, go to school and participate in their community assured that their children’s needs are met, and their community will have a healthier future.

Oregon Kids: Healthy and Safe

Oregon Kids: Healthy and Safe (OKHS) is a training and online resource that early care and education professionals can use to provide healthy and safe environments and practices for children in their care.

Learn more

Download OKHS Marketing Cards

in English (pdf) in Spanish (pdf)