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 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.

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.