Community Action Washington County
“We are excited to announce that in December 2022, our Portfolio Management Team approved a new investment of SVP resources in Community Action Washington County!” exclaims Carolina Castañeda del Río, Director of Community Impact. “We look forward to expanding our reach into Washington County, and walking alongside Community Action as they grow to serve more children and the significant adults who care for them.”
Partnership Overview
Our partnership with Community Action includes a $25,000 general operating grant and a significant investment of Partner time. Community Action provides 30,000 Washington County low-income residents with critical services in the areas of housing, homeless services, economic empowerment, family development, and early childhood care and education. Their mission is to lead the way in eliminating conditions of poverty and create opportunities for people and communities to thrive. Our initial team of Partners will specifically support Community Action’s Family Stability department and focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, leadership development, and fundraising.
Lead Partner Darcie de Freitas shared how inspired she is by this partnership: “I'm moved by the opportunity to ensure every child in our culturally- and linguistically-diverse county has a place to enjoy the experience and the impact of quality early learning.”
Community Action’s Family Stability Department
The Family Stability department’s mission is to ensure Washington County families experience stable and inclusive access to the information, coaching, child care and education, and early childhood resources needed to thrive across a diverse population. The twin vision is to:
Grow the capacity to provide a continuum of culturally-responsive pre-birth and early childhood wellness information and education to parents
Scale the availability of quality early childhood care and education through educators
Ensuring a stable, skilled, and culturally and linguistically specific workforce for Washington County is a critical path to these two goals. It is also crucial that the public, parents, and providers are aware of the importance of high-quality early childhood care and education in order for children to thrive.
Vision for Growth
Community Action has strong, stable leadership and is interested in ambitious growth. It is a learning organization committed to quality, culturally-responsive/agile programs, outcomes measurement, and continuous improvement, with diversity, equity, and inclusion as a priority. They are prepared to expand preschool access should Preschool for All become a reality in Washington County, and they are well-positioned to help promising early childhood programs scale and meet demand.
With this shared vision for success in mind, SVP Portland will work alongside Community Action to build a strategic business plan for the Family Stability department as a whole, as well as each program (Child Care Resource & Referral, Help Me Grow, Healthy Families). This will enable the Family Stability department to implement excellent culturally-responsive programs and significantly expand their early childhood work in order to meet the growing needs in Washington County. Additionally, we will support Community Action in creating an internal workforce development plan, an Early Childhood Educators (ECE) Workforce Development plan, and a marketing plan to help bring awareness to the organization.
We look forward to the many meaningful ways we can support Community Action as they grow and work toward our shared early childhood goals.
