Children's Institute says many Oregon children at risk for poor emotional and social health in critical first years of life
By Bill Graves, The Oregonian
April 07, 2010, 1:44PM
Teacher Heather Mains holds a child in the infant and toddler room at Gracie’s Place, a relief nursery in Salem for children whose families are in crisis. Teachers also make home visits to help parents with their skills. The relief nursery puts an emphasis on emotional development: trust, stability and security, qualities that help form the base for learning in young children.Oregon offers promising programs to support the social and emotional health of infants and toddlers in the critical first years of life, but those efforts reach only a fraction of the kids who need them, a child advocacy group reported today.
By not investing more in "upstream" prevention programs for infants and toddlers, "Oregon will continue to flood its downstream mental health treatment programs, its alcohol and drug addiction services, and its criminal justice system," writes the Children's Institute of Portland in its report,"From Risk to Resilience: Building the Social and Emotional Health of Oregon's Most Vulnerable Young Children."
"Future generations of Oregonians will enter kindergarten lacking the skills