Oregon Health and Education Collaborative

The Oregon Health and Education Collaborative is in its second year of operations as a statewide social impact organization and has already made incredible gains organizationally, with the upstream initiative, and an upcoming healthcare careers pathway even for youth. Most of our program accomplishments are related to the design and launch of the upstream initiative, which is a statewide effort designed to make community based systemic change for the first 1000 days of life. Listed below are the key outcomes achieved in 2023.. partnered with the children's institute to develop readiness criteria for the selection of five upstream initiative design pilots from geographically diverse regions around Oregon.. Conducted statewide outreach for 6 weeks and garnered 11 letters of interest from organizations representing healthcare and Education sectors.. raised funds needed to commit grants of at least $65,000 to each of the five design pilots. Developed a system for grants management that reduces administrative burden on design pilots, provides local flexibility for how the grant money is spent, and generates a cohesive product between all 5 design pilots.. Created the framework for learning communities, which will share best practices as we shape the child success model, and selected and onboarded three learning communities to include more counties and entities in the upstream initiative.. raised funds to contract with professional facilitators for a statewide learning Collaborative and designed and delivered a statewide learning Collaborative for all five design pilots and three learning communities. This brings together half of Oregon's counties with representatives from cross-sector entities, all engaged in a conversation of how to design a system for the first 1000 days of life.. raised funds to contract with a researcher to provide evaluation support to the learning Collaborative. Effectively conducted research throughout the upstream initiative.. raised funds to contract with a strategic communications firm to craft and drive storytelling about this project to key audiences.. each design pilot engaged in a local cross-sector process to conceptualize a blueprint for a child success model that is local to their community and is focused on ensuring all children and their families, from pregnancy to age 2, have what they need to thrive.. Existing relationships have deepened, conversations are more focused on this crucial and precious time period of the first 1000 days of life, and creativity for systems re-design has been unleashed through these local conversations.in addition to the upstream initiative, in 2023 the Collaborative partnered with the Oregon Health leadership council (ohlc) to address healthcare workforce shortages by designing an event for high school youth to learn about local Health career pathways. Together, the Collaborative and ohlc convened healthcare and Education leaders in both the phoenix-talent and umatilla regions to discuss what pathways currently exist and how to create an event that would highlight these programs for high school students.in summary, within one year of being formed as a nonprofit organization, we launched and funded a statewide initiative, secured top notch professionals to guide and evaluate the efforts, convened and resourced multiple partners from around the state, and are on track for an on-time and on-budget conclusion to phase one of the upstream initiative. The outcome will be five local child success models and a plan for legislative action that will provide funding and flexibility to these communities to implement their models. We are currently working to define and fund phase two, the upstream initiative bridge, which will involve contracting with local system change agents