The report, Oregon’s Care Economy: The Case for Public Care Investment, outlines problems with the current caregiving system, such as rising costs and low wages, and provides evidence of the high economic returns to public care investments.

Highlights from the report:

• Accessing care for children, seniors and people with disabilities places enormous financial stress on many families in Oregon. For example, an average single-parent household in Oregon would need to spend 51 percent of its income to pay for infant care.
• Demand for care in Oregon is large and growing. 70,000 people work in caregiving jobs in Oregon. However, the average care worker earns just $20,000 per year.
• Investments in care can create good jobs that will boost Oregon’s economy. Caregiving jobs are among the fastest growing profession in Oregon. These jobs cannot be outsourced or automated. On the other end of the care economy, access to care allows parents and family members to stay in their own jobs rather than leave the workforce to care for their loved ones.
• There is a wealth of research showing that care investments can promote equity, generate stronger economic growth, and strengthen families and communities. For example, the return on a public investment in 3 hours a day of universal pre-K care for 4 year olds is estimated to be nearly 7 percent annually.

The post Check out Oregon CareWorks! appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

Kate has been working with us for the past few years as our lobbyist, helping us to pass critical policies like paid sick days, increasing the minimum wage, pay transparency, retirement security and so much more.

Some other things to know about Kate:

Kate has been working in  Oregon policy spaces for over 15 years — in the legislature, for the Bureau of Labor and Industries, and in many other settings.  She has developed a wide range of policy experience, including: legislative work, government agency operations and management, policy research, media relations, advocacy, voter outreach, campaign management and fundraising.  She is excited to (officially) join the Family Forward team because of her passion to support women and working families, which she’s done both in her personal and professional life.

If you have any questions for Kate, you can reach her at kate@familyforward.org. We are so happy that she’s joined our family and is able to contribute such valuable expertise to help win policies that support all Oregon families.

The post Welcome Kate, Our New Policy Director! appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

Sign up here to join us on October 20th!

PRESENTING PARTNERS:
Family Forward Oregon; along with Lane Community College’s Early Childhood Education Program, Social Science Division, and Family Connections of Lane and Douglas Counties

Screening will be held at:

Lane Community College
4000 E 30th Ave, Eugene, Oregon 97405
Building 31, The Longhouse

Free parking is located in lots A & B

If you have any questions about this event, contact Regional Outreach Director, Laurie, at laurie@familyforward.org.

The post October 20th: Raising of America Film Screening in Eugene appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

Executive Director from the Women’s Foundation of Oregon states,

“There is a reckoning coming,” Evans said. “We have this perception of ourselves as a progressive state and a great place to live. When we dive into the data, we’re finding it’s incredibly challenging for women and girls in Oregon, more challenging than it is in many, if not most, other states. But there is something hopeful about finally knowing the full measure of the problem. Then we can move past the speculation of whether it is a problem and move toward creating solutions together.” The Oregonian

The report was a huge collective project, in which Family Forward was honored to be a part of. We look forward to using the report to support our campaign for our upcoming campaigns on a statewide paid family and medical leave program!

To read the report visit the Women’s Foundation of Oregon’s website.

The post Check out ‘Count Her In’ a comprehensive report on Oregon’s women and girls appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

The post Welcome Luann, Our New Communications Director! appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

BECAUSE FLOWERS AREN’T ENOUGH.

Join us in Salem on May 8th to talk with our state legislators about modernizing the public policies that affect Oregon mothers every day.  

You know they’re broken, we have solutions, and they need to hear both!

Parents know that there are too many broken workplace and public policies in this country that make it hard to be a good employee and a responsible provider and caregiver for our families. We know because we live it every day.

But if it’s ever going to be better, we need to speak up about the fixes we know need to happen – so our decision makers understand, too.

The way we see it, the solutions are known, but the will to put them into place needs a serious nudge!

From us.

From you.

From every Oregon parent and caregiver who suffers under our country’s outdated work & family policies that haven’t kept pace with the reality of today’s families.

And what better reason than Mother’s Day to share our experiences and policy solutions with our state representatives?

Join us for a MOTHER’S DAY LOBBY DAY on the morning of Wednesday, May 8th to tell our state legislators what all of us already know: we need better workplace and public policies that support our hard work to provide and care for our families – young and old – while being good employees, too.

RSVP here or contact our Policy Director Lili Hoag with questions: lili@familyforwardoregon.org.

Details, details:

• Where: Oregon State Capitol in Salem (map here)
• What: Mother’s Day of Action to let our sate legislators know how much we want them to update our broken, outdated work-family and care policies
• When: Wednesday, May 8th from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM
• Why: Because our work-family and care policies aren’t working, we know the policy solutions, and they’ll never happen if we don’t let the right people know what they are and how very much we need them.
• RSVP: Just click here so we know to expect you!

We look forward to celebrating Mother’s Day with you in a whole new way this year!

The post Mother’s Day of Action | 5.8.13 appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

We accomplished a lot in 2012!

Here’s a smattering of our great work together:

Workplace Flexibility:  We hosted our second annual Great Ideas @ Work luncheon, where we honored 25 Oregon employers for modernizing their workplaces to make work work in today’s economy, for today’s families.  We also awarded the second annual Family Forward Leadership Award to a true leader in workplace flexibility. We believe that flexibility works better for today’s employers and employees alike.

Paid Sick Days: We put our community’s paid sick days problem on the radar of elected officials at the state and local level.  And we attracted plenty of press coverage, too.  Our goal is to ensure that all workers in Portland can earn paid sick time when they work.

To succeed, we brought together a broad coalition of non-profit, union, and business supporters and are actively working with our elected officials to solve this community problem.  We believe that all workers deserve to know that if they or a loved one get sick (we all do!), they have the time it takes to care for their own and their family’s health.

Family-friendly Faces in Salem: Our political action committee, The Mother PAC, successfully channeled our voices into support for key family-friendly candidates in this fall’s election.  A whopping 87% of our endorsed candidates won, creating a more supportive legislature for the policies today’s families need.  Without more “yes” votes, our broken, outdated policies will remain broken and outdated.  And that simply won’t do.  We believe that it’s time for our state’s lawmakers to start prioritizing today’s families.

Can Mothers Have It All? We jumped right into this explosive national conversation when Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic was first published.  On Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud radio show we shared our expertise on work-family issues, especially as they affect mothers, and brought in the much-needed perspective of everyday working Oregon mothers (people who worry more about losing it all than having it all).

We also hosted a conversation in Portland that brought people together for a passionate discussion about their own experiences combining work and motherhood.  We believe that motherhood is political and that mothers — and fathers  — need modern workplace and public policies to successfully provide and care for themselves and their families.

A Growing Voice for Change:  More and more Oregonians – parents, grandparents, employers, employees, volunteers, policy-makers, activists, donors, foundations, and others – are fueling the movement toward a, well, family-forward Oregon!  We believe that together we are powerful.

These accomplishments and activities are but a sampling of the exciting things we’ve been doing  – together – to make our state a great place to raise and care for a family.  There is simply no other organization in Oregon leading the charge to modernize the policies that shape the way we care for our families.

Click here to become a member of Family Forward Oregon to keep us on the fast track to making Oregon an even greater place for families.  2013, here we come!

The post 2012 was a big year for FFO! appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.

We were recently in Washington, DC representing Oregon at the National Summit on Paid Sick Days and Paid Family Leave, a productive event hosted by two of our strong national partners: the National Partnership for Women & Families and the team at Family Values @ Work.

The Summit was empowering, as we saw advocates from all over the nation who are working overtime to make paid sick days and paid family leave a reality for all working families.  We also made time to visit with four of our representatives in Congress about work-family issues: Representatives Suzanne Bonamici and Earl Blumenauer, Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.

Still failing our families

But sometimes we’re still struck by how incredibly disappointing it is that (in 2012) we don’t already have laws in place protecting the most basic needs of working families.  We are, in fact, the only industrialized nation in the world to not have national labor standards on both paid sick days and paid family leave.  That’s right, the. only. one.  And most states — including Oregon — have failed to fill the gap in leadership at the federal level by taking action locally to support our working families..  As a result, too many families – and the businesses they work for – suffer the consequences.

When it comes to family leave, only 11% of employees in the U.S. have paid family leave programs through their employers, and less than 50% are eligible for unpaid family leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

As for paid sick time, 40% of all private-sector workers and 80% of low-income workers have no paid sick days from their job – not one.  Yet every single one of us gets sick!

As you can see, our family policies are just plain out of date and broken – and we’re lagging  further and further behind the many countries that have successfully moved to a 21^st century model that works for today’s families and their employers.

There’s a very promising movement afoot

Fortunately, there is a powerful national  – and local – movement afoot to modernize our nation’s workplace and public policies.  The overarching goal is really quite reasonable: to establish modern workplace and public policies that allow parents to be good employees, good providers and good caregivers.  We call them 21st-century workplaces for 21^st-century families.  We’re thrilled to see more and more employers understanding that the changes we seek will deliver them a healthier, more committed and productive workforce.   Turns out, pro-worker policies are pro-business, too.

We invite you to read about the summit here.  We’re excited to share with you the momentum that’s picking up around these issues nationwide.

The post 2012 National Paid Leave Summit appeared first on Family Forward Oregon.