Early Childhood

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For the past two decades, a growing body of research confirms that children’s first years of life are critical to their academic success and overall well-being in later years. Best practice interventions support and strengthen children’s early cognitive, social, and emotional development; providing these opportunities to historically underserved populations can help mitigate early disparities.

Drawing on public input, local data and research, PCL adopted the following goal for early childhood investments: Support children’s early development and kindergarten readiness.
The strategies adopted to work toward this goal are:

Intensive Home‐Visiting for children prenatal – 3 years old.
Preschool, Head Start, or structured preschool‐like experiences for 3 – 5 years olds
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

See a full list of the Levy’s 16 Early Childhood investments for 2019-20.

PCL publishes annual performance reports on early childhood programs for each fiscal year. Performance of early childhood programs during the previous Levy period (2009-2014) is covered in PCL’s 5 year Report.

The Community Childcare Initiative

In 2015, PCL’s Allocation Committee invested unanticipated additional revenue into re-starting a childcare affordability effort, The Community Childcare Initiative. Currently, CCI makes a positive impact for over 300 Portland children, its families, and its childcare providers, as illustrated by a recent report summarizing its performance over the past 4 years. PCL originally created and funded the highly successful CCI during 2007 – 2012. External evaluation demonstrated its effectiveness in improving access to stable, quality childcare for children from working families with low incomes. Funding for CCI was cut during 2012-2014 when levy revenues declined in an economic recession.

The need:

As many as 30,000 children birth to 5 years old in Multnomah County could enter school unprepared for kindergarten.Children facing limited opportunities for early learning experiences come from historically underserved populations: children navigating poverty, children of color, children of single parents, and children of mothers with low levels of education.