A4
OPINION
Blue Mountain Eagle
Solutions for
child care
recovery
R
ural Oregon is facing a
diffi cult post-COVID
economic recovery.
The $1.9 trillion federal
coronavirus relief package will
undoubtedly help, but without
addressing some long-standing
barriers to economic develop-
ment, we will not grow and
thrive.
The lack of child care is one
of those barriers. We live in
a child care desert, where the
number of available slots is a
fraction of the need.
Without adequate and
aff ordable child care options
for children younger than age
5, a laundry list of problems
arises:
• Parents (women, mostly)
who want to work or attend
school may need to drop out
of the workforce or college,
harming their family’s long-
term economic future.
• Employers trying to
recruit and retain employees
have limited options, as poten-
tial workers are not available.
• A “brain drain” ensues, as
professionals leave rural Ore-
gon to pursue their careers
in areas with more child care
options.
• Rural school districts suf-
fer from diminishing student
enrollment year after year, as
young families move away.
• When there are few pre-
school options, many 5-year-
olds are not ready to learn
when they start kindergar-
ten, which undermines their
chances of future academic
success.
A strong child care sys-
tem is needed to solve these
problems.
The Ford Family Founda-
tion’s recent report, “Child
Care in Rural Oregon,” charts
a path to improve the quantity
and quality of child care. Their
fi ve recommendations should
be quickly enacted.
Their fi rst recommendation
is for the Oregon Department
of Human Services to use data
from surveys of child care pro-
viders across the state to accu-
rately model the actual costs
of providing child care, to cal-
culate reimbursement rates
that are fair across the state
and don’t put rural areas at a
disadvantage.
Second, do away with the
state’s current system of pay-
ing more for child care in
urban areas than is paid in
rural areas, and permanently
waive or signifi cantly lower
the co-payments for low-in-
come families who receive
child care assistance.
Third, recognize that both
home-based child care pro-
viders and child care centers
need consistent and reliable
funding. They need to receive
payments based on a child’s
enrollment rather than their
daily attendance.
Fourth, launch a statewide
system to link child care pro-
vider networks so that admin-
istrative services such as book-
keeping and payroll can be
shared by home-based child
care and child care centers
across the state, lowering costs
for all.
Fifth, make changes in Ore-
gon’s child care regulations
to allow small child care cen-
ters to be located in non-resi-
dential settings, so they can be
licensed as “Certifi ed Family
Child Care.” This would allow
for mixed-age groups of up to
16 children in “micro-centers”
located in schools and other
existing buildings.
These steps don’t solve
the underlying problem caus-
ing the shortage of child care:
This care is expensive to pro-
vide because of the high care-
giver-to-child ratios needed
for the safety of very young
children, and is not subsidized
by the government except for
very low-income families. The
brunt of the cost of child care
is primarily borne by families.
For many families, child care
costs more than their mort-
gage, and can be as high as
college tuition.
Ultimately, we as a nation
need to face the fact that a
child’s education does not start
in kindergarten. It starts at
birth, so the more tax dollars
we spend on high-quality child
care and education, the less
we will spend on remedial ser-
vices and social welfare sys-
tems, and the better off we will
be in the long run.
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
GUEST COMMENT
Need for foster homes greater than ever
O
ne harsh reality of the pan-
demic often goes unnoticed:
the continued need for fos-
ter parents.
Similar to many regions across
the state, Eastern Oregon faces a
critical shortage of foster homes for
youth in need. Unlike many other
areas, however, these rural and
frontier communities have a history
of joining together to address com-
plex challenges facing their most
vulnerable populations. We don’t
see it as an “agency” problem to
fi x but rather fi nd support through
community collaborations and from
the care of foster families.
In Oregon, an average of 7,345
children are in foster care on a
daily basis, according to state data
from 2019. Greater Oregon Behav-
ioral Health, Inc., (GOBHI) has a
foster care program that provides
homes for youth in local commu-
nities involved in the child welfare
system or for those youth being
supported by their local commu-
nity mental health program. Our
agency certifi es foster families and
works in partnership with the Ore-
gon Department of Human Services
Child Welfare to provide additional
support services to youth and our
foster families.
The ongoing need for foster fam-
ilies is well known. However, the
pandemic has increased uncertainty
for both youth in foster care, and
foster families. Despite this chal-
lenge, the people caring for fos-
ter youth are making remarkable
accomplishments in the lives of
youth every day. These families
make lifelong positive impacts on
the youth they serve, and are crucial
to the success of our communities.
I’m honored to work with and
support our foster families. Whether
the child they serve
stays with them
for a few days or
becomes a perma-
nent member of
the family, foster
families have the
Adam
unique ability to be
Rodakowski
the stable, support-
ive adult during a challenging time
in the life of a child. That leads us to
the common question: How does the
system work?
GOBHI is licensed by the state
of Oregon to certify and provide
homes for youth in local commu-
nities who are involved in the child
welfare system, or are receiving care
from their local community mental
health program. We certify homes
for children and teens ages 4 to 17.
In 2019, we certifi ed 54 homes in 18
counties.
GOBHI’s Therapeutic Fos-
ter Care program is a higher level
of service and support than you
would fi nd through traditional fos-
ter care. We empower foster fami-
lies to provide a safe environment
that supports a healing process for
our youth. Foster families receive
training and ongoing support to help
them create that type of environ-
ment. Training topics include trau-
ma-informed care, de-escalation
techniques, working with biologi-
cal families, cultural awareness and
evidence-based parenting practices.
Each home receives an assigned
case manager to support them and
the youth in their home. Our team
is available 24 hours a day, 365
days a year to provide support and
guidance.
Help doesn’t stop at the case
management level. Foster Plus is a
10 social service agency collabora-
tion. Its purpose is to connect kids
in need with the support and stabil-
ity of committed, caring foster fam-
ilies. GOBHI leads this collabora-
tive group dedicated to increasing
the number of safe foster homes and
supports other agencies to improve
services to children.
The positive impact that a fos-
ter parent can have on a child lasts
a lifetime. We often hear stories of
children who may have spent less
than six months in a foster home but
later in life contacted their foster
parent to express their gratitude.
“Deciding to be a foster par-
ent was rather scary for us. Now I
can say, I wouldn’t trade it for any-
thing else. I’ve seen such a diff er-
ence in their life, and also in ours.
The GOBHI team was right there
along the way and that’s exactly the
type of support we needed,” a foster
parent said.
If you have wanted to fi nd a way
to help children — especially those
children in your own community
— this is a way to do so. You will
be ensuring that all kids in Eastern
Oregon know they are wanted and
safe during a very scary time in their
lives.
If you have even considered fos-
tering, please reach out. There are
two options for people looking to
become a foster parent:
• Full time: A child may reside in
your home for 6-24 months
• Part time: Children will reside
in your home for 2-14 days
Everyone can help in ways small
and large. We welcome anyone
who’s ready to make a change.
Adam Rodakowski is the direc-
tor of Greater Oregon Behavio-
rial Health Inc.’s Therapeutic Fos-
ter Care program. Patrick Mulvihill,
GOBHI communications coordina-
tor, also contributed to this article.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
thetical theory of “potential reve-
City needs to
‘The defeat is going
nue through a government program”
look up the
to come from the
(urban renewal agency in this case).
In this recent city council meet-
defi nition of ‘no’
inside out’
ing, the city’s “push” plan is to
To the Editor:
In an article in the Eagle, the
headline read “John Day continues
push for study session with county.”
The key word is “push.” The last
two requests were a lecture to the
Grant County Court and in another
was to the Grant County Chamber of
Commerce. This lecture was a spiel
to the court about the court’s inabil-
ity to handle the people’s money
responsibly. This turned out to be an
insult to the county by anyone with
a small amount of intelligence. Not
long ago the city went on another
push with their idea of creating yet
another taxing district. The good
people of this county, overwhelm-
ingly, said no. We the people of this
county are getting tired of it. We are
one of the most fi nancially secure in
our part of the state. We did not get
here by spending money on projects
that, No. 1, are about a failing ide-
ology that “if you build it, they will
come” or, No. 2, borrowing large
amounts of money on the hypo-
include School District 3, the hos-
pital district and to the county one
more time, to leverage the minds
of the population and baiting strat-
egy to reach their ideology visions.
When Mayor Lundbom brought the
current manager to this county it has
been a “push” for a “my way or the
highway strategy.” Their money-le-
veraging plan has come to a point
where they have fi rm deadlines to
fi nish one stage for a designated
timeline. If they do not meet this
timeline then they will not be able to
put in for more free money. Fourteen
projects started, and the city has run
out of money. The city admits they
have no money. This is the city’s
fault and not ours. Pure and simple.
We all must live within our means,
and borrowing just to meet your
obligations is not a winning strategy
in any business. The city needs to
look up the defi nition of “no.”
Bob Pereira
John Day
To the Editor:
Fifty years ago I received a
draft notice. Doing the right thing,
I answered the call.
Somewhere along the line in
boot camp my company (a group
of about 75 boys not knowing what
was going to happen to us) had
a World War II Navy chief as an
instructor. We didn’t know if we
would end up as door gunners, on
a riverboat or who know what.
The chief calmly explained
to us, “Don’t worry — you guys
will never be shot at. The defeat
is going to come from the inside
out.”
Sure enough, chief! Fifty years
later it’s happening.
If the American people and so
called honest politicians don’t do
something soon our grandchil-
dren aren’t going to know how it
is to live in the greatest country on
Earth.
Eddy L. Negus
Prairie City
L
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