The Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative is a multi-year initiative led by The Ford Family Foundation, The Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) and Oregon State University. Financial supporters include the Meyer Memorial Trust, the Collins Foundation and OCF Donor Advised Funds. The initiative’s partners believe that parents are their children’s first and most important teachers, and that investments in strong parenting are a critical strategy for ensuring that all children are ready to learn. The initiative’s vision is a stronger statewide system of programs, information and support for all parents. Through grants and technical assistance, the initiative supports expanded access to best practice parenting education programs, with a focus on programs reaching parents of children prenatal to age six, and efforts to develop and strengthen regional parenting education “Hubs.”
The initiative was launched in May 2010 with six new regional parenting Hubs serving 12 counties, and nine Small Grants to provide evidence-based classes and/or home visiting for specific groups of parents. Six new regional parenting Hub grants were awarded in May 2011. Click here to download a complete list of the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative grantees.
The Executive Summary of the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative's Year One Report (2010-2011) is available to download here. The full report will be available in December.
The goals of the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative are:
- To further expand access to best practice programs for parents of young children
- To increase the capacity of parents to play a positive, primary role in the care, nurturing and development of their children in their first years
- To help build community for parents of young children, thereby reducing social isolation
- To strengthen families while reducing the potential for child abuse and neglect
- To increase efficiency and coordinate the use of parenting education resources
- To raise awareness of the importance of effective parenting and promote parenting education as a community norm
- To leverage previous investments
- To continue efforts in building a state wide parenting education “system”
- To continue evaluation and research of the impact of such programs
More Information
An evaluation of the first year of the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative will be available soon.
What we know about parenting education.
Snapshot of Parenting Education in Oregon (Oregon State University, April 2009)
For more information, contact Mary Louise McClintock, OCF Early Childhood Program Director, at 503.227.6846 or via email.