A message from ELM Director, Frances Sallah.
This month, ELM helped the Early Learning Division host the Early Learning Hub Learning Collaborative in Portland. These collaborative meetings are held twice a year and are an opportunity for all 16 hubs across the state to work collectively on system alignment for early childhood. The Department of Human Services graciously allowed the use of their new facility on 118th and Glisan for three days of hands-on work among the hubs and CCR&Rs. What a great space!
Our goals during the collaborative meetings are always to have real conversations, to learn from our colleagues across the state, and to help create a strong shared vision for an equitable early learning system statewide.
While we had many thought-provoking discussions over the course of the three days, there were two conversations in particular that piqued my interest:
- The Directors and Governance Councils had a system visioning session with the ELD Director Miriam Calderon and Karen Ponder from the BUILD Initiative. This was a great way to get all of the hubs thinking collectively about what an equitable, aligned, family-centered early learning system looks like and how that system will ensure school readiness for children across Oregon.
- We reviewed early childhood legislative priorities for the 2018 session. A big push this year will be for a yes vote on HB 4066 to establish an Early Childhood Equity Fund to assess and invest in culturally specific early learning models that lead to better outcomes for children of color.
We’re looking forward to our next gathering in August. Meeting with our talented colleagues from hubs across the state reminds us that this work is bigger than Multnomah County and we are all learning lessons in our own regions that can make an impact elsewhere.