Leaving Our Children Behind
The Oregon Legislature adjourned on June 27 without bringing the Child Success Act (SB 1167) forward for a vote. This legislation, which enjoyed strong bipartisan support, would have funded seven locally designed and locally directed Demonstration Pilots to show the value of primary prevention through investments in the first 1,000 days of life, from conception to age 2, when 80% of brain development in children takes place. The failure to move this legislation forward will cost the state billions of dollars in future biennia.
Early Childhood Investment Should be a Top Priority for Oregon Business
I attended a breakout session on Early Childhood at the recent Oregon Business Plan Leadership Summit. Having been involved in launching the Oregon Business Plan and Leadership Summit at the end of my second term as Governor in 2002, I’d like to make a few observations that are relevant to the summit in general, and to the relationship between early childhood investment and the Business Plan.
I appreciate that the 2024 Leadership Summit decided to include a breakout session on early childhood. I want to suggest, however, that if we are serious about the future health of our business sector, this should be a main stage topic, not a breakout. The downstream impact of early childhood trauma and adverse experience is draining the vitality from our business community, undermining the effectiveness of investments to rebuild our workforce, and saddling us with billions of dollars of avoidable cost.
Rebuilding the Oregon Community
ENSURING EVERY CHILD, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY HAS AN EQUITABLE OPPORTUNITY TO SUCCEED Speech to the Oregon Alliance May 5, 2022 American novelist Wendell Berry once said: “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, […]
Ensuring Every Child Has an Equitable Opportunity to Succeed
There are over 45,000 children born each year in Oregon, and we cannot afford to lose a single one. Yet every day that passes without an effective way to ensure that each and every one of these children truly has an equitable opportunity to succeed, some will be lost. And every time that happens, we are all diminished and we lose a little bit more of the soul of our state. It is imperative that we act on this now—our children can’t wait … and neither should we.
Children and Families
I wanted to share this link to a podcast on Transforming Health Care for Kindergarten Readiness that I did recently for the Oregon Children’s Institute. We know that among the factors that contribute most to lifetime health status, our medical system is a relatively minor contributor. Far more important are things like healthy pregnancies, housing, nutrition, stable families, safe […]
AMA Adopts Resolution on Pregnancy Intention Screening
If we are to be successful in effectively addressing the socioeconomic and racial inequities and health disparities that continue to plague our society, the sources that lead to these adverse outcomes must be identified as early as possible during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to age two), when the foundations of optimum health, growth, and neurodevelopment are established.
Fulfilling Our Responsibility to the Future
Throwing Children Under the Bus
VOTE YES ON BALLOT MEASURE 101 (To maintain funding for the Oregon Health Plan) The legislators who are attempting to undermine the Oregon Health Plan by throwing 350,000 Oregonians under the bus—many of them children—have adopted an Oregon version of the congressional efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act with no viable alternative to replace […]
The Greatest Threat to America
Contrary to what we are being told by our current political leadership, the greatest threat to America is not terrorism, immigration or our trade deficit with China. It is the fact that nearly sixty percent of our children are exposed, at a very early age, to one or more risk factors that can severely and […]