In advance of the 2025 legislative session, the Child Care for Oregon coalition adopted a new process that allows parents and providers to have a more direct say in its policy agenda. The process now begins with a call for them to name the barriers they face and describe the future they envision for child care in Oregon.
Oregon is facing a child care crisis that affects families, providers, and the state’s economy alike. More than 10,000 families are stuck on an indefinite waiting list for child care assistance. At the same time, providers struggle with chronic understaffing and razor-thin margins that threaten their ability to stay open. For many parents, the lack of affordable, accessible care means making impossible decisions between a paycheck and caring for their loved ones.
The Child Care for Oregon (CCFO) coalition is supported by the Alliance’s Child Care NEXT initiative and was formed to tackle this crisis, shift power, and push for a universal, publicly funded child care system that is inclusive, culturally relevant, and community-led. It is determined to set a legislative agenda that care champions can pass once they enter office. To realize this vision, the coalition believes its policy agenda must be shaped by the parents and providers most directly connected to these issues. Family Forward Oregon, APANO, PCUN, AFSCME, Imagine Black, the Children’s Institute, and Unite Oregon are among the participating groups, all of which have deep ties to their communities and are trusted organizations with a history of spotlighting underrepresented perspectives. Composed of BIPOC-led organizations (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) that participate in candidate-endorsement processes, the coalition is focused on electoral organizing and building a bench of people in the state legislature who will champion care issues. By truly valuing the voices of parents and providers, the coalition is reimagining what child care in Oregon can look like and building a movement that can usher in systemic change.
Uplifting parent voices is not just an idea but a lived practice for the coalition. In advance of the 2025 legislative session, it adopted a new process that allows parents and providers to have a more direct say in its policy agenda. Until recently, the agenda was drafted by the policy committee and only later shared with parents and providers. Now, it has developed a new process that begins with parents and providers by asking them to name the barriers they face and describe the future they envision for child care in Oregon. Those insights then become the foundation of the agenda itself. “It’s really flipping the hourglass over. We are leaning into the value that those closest to the problem are also closest to the solution,” said Marchel Kaleikini, Political Director at Family Forward Oregon, one of CCFO’s co-leading organizations.
This new process has also revealed important lessons about how to invite authentic participation. When parents are asked to suggest “policy solutions,” many hold back, feeling they lack the technical expertise to answer. When the conversation is reframed around lived experiences, values, and hopes for the future, however, parents begin to open up. “One of the biggest lessons is that when you frame it as ‘what could a proposed policy solution be?’ folks feel hesitant to weigh in because they do not think they have the right policy answer. Language choice and delivery is something that we have to dive into a bit more so people feel more encouraged to fully and authentically share their thoughts and solutions,” said Kaleikini.
Parents see their perspectives reflected in policies from the coalition, demonstrating that their insights are not merely symbolic but central to the work. “When they look at our one-pager and see the language they submitted reflected back to them, we are building trust and showing them that their input is valued,” said Kaleikini. “They see that they are, in fact, part of the solution.” To build on that trust, the coalition also created a parent cohort, a program of weekly trainings designed to demystify the legislative process and give parents the tools to turn their lived experiences into advocacy. The sessions cover everything from how a bill becomes law to how to share a personal story with lawmakers, helping parents recognize the impact they can make in their own communities. Through the cohort, parents gain skills and confidence to step into leadership roles, while the coalition gains a growing bench of experienced advocates.
Family Forward has already seen a significant return on investing in parent leaders and has hired two former members of the parent cohort, Andrea Metheney and Lisa Ebony Amador, to advance its work. Metheney, now Legislative Coordinator at Family Forward, is a solo parent and survivor of domestic violence and sex trafficking who struggled to find safe, affordable child care. She describes the Coalition as a place of “unabashed authenticity,” where parents know that their perspectives matter, and hopes to continue empowering other parents.
Amador, now Family Forward’s Southern Oregon Regional Organizer, described how not being able to access child care ultimately put her family into homelessness. She feels compelled to help others and show how child care issues can easily spiral into real consequences for families. “I am someone who is on the other end of it that can speak very directly to how it happens, and how easily and quickly it happens. Once you’re in that pit, it is very difficult to get yourself out of it. It felt like a responsibility, almost, to talk about it.” She also stressed the unique barriers families face in Southern Oregon, especially Black and Brown families who can encounter a lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity in child care settings. “My children missed out. They should have been able to go to a daycare where they were safe and where they were heard,” she expressed.
By lowering barriers and creating spaces where parents can speak openly, the coalition is helping to build stronger policies. “It is necessary to listen to people’s stories and allow them to envision, in an ideal world, where their child would be while they are working. Once we have that vision and we can see how many other people really want the same thing that we want, it builds community. It takes away some of those divisions that we just assume are between us and gives us a starting point,“ said Amador. This approach also leads to better policymaking, according to Kaleikini. “It allows us to have stronger legislative solutions that are not based on theory or textbooks, but based on experiences of those on the ground and based in how it will truly affect people who are navigating these systems and applications every single day,” she explained. “Because it is driven by community, it also builds trust between government accountability and transparency.”
Oregon’s child care challenges will not be solved in a single legislative session. Sustaining this momentum requires that parents and providers remain engaged over the long term and feel connected to a movement that they can see themselves reflected in. “Policy change takes time, but building a movement led by parents and providers creates a foundation that can keep child care at the top of the agenda year after year,” said Jacy Montoya Price, Senior Director of Advocacy and Issue Campaigns at the Alliance for Early Success. “When parents are at the table from the start, the policies we create are grounded in lived experience, which makes them stronger, more effective, and harder for legislators to ignore. It changes the entire trajectory of what is possible. I am so glad that the Child Care for Oregon coalition is embracing a best practice too often overlooked by working with communities, not for them. They are putting parent voices at the center, directly and authentically.”
Looking ahead, the coalition is excited to deepen its work in rural and coastal regions of the state, with the support of Metheney and Amador, and is committed to laying the groundwork for a universal child care revenue campaign. By empowering parents and providers, those who know the system most intimately, Child Care for Oregon is building a strong foundation for transformative change.
“This last legislative session, I was blown away by the power of the people that are in the trenches…our presence was felt in the building, and I know that it impacted the way that a lot of the legislators viewed things,” said Metheney. “It shows longevity in the movement and we made it clear that we are here and we are not going away.”