Southern Oregon Community, As you may be aware, there is a child care crisis in our region, exacerbated by the pandemic. • Only 23% of children have access to a child care slot, due to limited availability • Only 17% have access to a child care slot, due to lack of affordability • Child care centers have closed classrooms because they do not have the teacher workforce to open them • 14 of our rural communities in Jackson and Josephine Counties have no licensed child care available to residents • 58% of our current early learning workforce is second-guessing their career choice, due to an increased number of dysregulated behaviors in preschool classrooms without adequate support.

This event is a call to action. Child care is called out as a key stabilizer for education, health and economic prosperity of our state: • Oregon Business Council’s current strategic plan includes “make child care and early learning more accessible”. • Our local workforce board and local employers have identified that soft skills – those directly tied to early social-emotional development - as the key ingredients needed for a successful employee. Employees can be trained to do the function of a job, but an employer cannot teach self-regulation and pro-social skills on the job to an adult. • Southern Oregon’s Community Health Assessment has identified families having access to child care as a Community Health Improvement Plan Goal. • Longitudinal research by economist James Heckman has identified high quality early learning prior to kindergarten as an indicator of social and emotional regulation and subsequent academic success. Cost SAVINGS over time. 7-10% return on investment over the lifetime of children who experience high quality preschool.

We hope you will join Southern Oregon Early Learning Services Hub (SOELS) on Thursday, November 30th from 12 – 2 p.m. on Zoom to become part of the solution to this crisis. At this event you will: • Learn what the need is, based upon regional data analysis, as well as family, teacher, and child care program survey data • Hear directly from families and child care programs impacted by the child care crisis • Be informed of the current strategies we have in place to address the needs • Be invited to sponsor new investment strategies to stabilize and expand child care here in Jackson and Josephine counties: • Slot Expansion & Scholarships • Building More Child Care within Rural Communities • Recruitment and Education of Child Care Workforce • Behavioral Health Supports for Children in Classrooms The Early Learning Hub brings cross-sector partners together to identify gaps and needs in the early learning system supporting families with children 0-5. We invest funding into the region to build capacity and start new initiatives that will best address those gaps and needs, but our funding alone isn’t enough. We need you to join our efforts. It will take all of us, working together, to get more teachers trained, open more classrooms, ensure more families have access to care, and more children get the support they need when they need it. Please share this invitation with your colleagues. We need private sector business, health care, K-12, higher education, social services, philanthropy, faith communities and all concerned community members to join in this conversation.

REGISTER HERE