Young children have one of the strongest claims for public support. They are dependent on us and clearly not to blame for any economic hardships they face.

Early childhood is also a smart investment of public dollars, since providing a better start can lead to gains over an entire lifetime, as well as a substantial boost to economic development.

For these reasons, Oklahoma leaders in education, business, philanthropy, and politics have built early childhood programs and partnerships that earn national acclaim. Since 2003, Oklahoma has been ranked first in the nation for availability of public preschool, with a public pre-Kindergarten program offered by every school district and attended by about 71 percent of Oklahoma 4-year-olds.

At the same time, serious problems remain for Oklahoma children. Read the rest of this entry »

Monica Barczak is Director of Innovation Lab at Community Acton Project.

Oklahoma has the sixth highest infant mortality rate in the nation, with 8.5 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births; the rate of infant deaths for African Americans is more than twice the overall average.  Oklahoma’s infant mortality rate could be reduced if women had better access to basic health services, more knowledge about healthy behaviors and habits, and more opportunities to put that knowledge into action.  Healthy Women, Healthy Futures (HWHF) is a pilot program that has demonstrated tremendous success among the women fortunate enough to be able to participate over the past two years.  Operated by the College of Nursing at OU-Tulsa for women with children enrolled at several of Community Action Project’s (CAP) early childhood education centers and at Educare I, HWHF seeks to improve the health of at-risk women living in poverty before they become pregnant again, thereby minimizing their risk of premature birth or infant death. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: The following are the remarks of Andrea Baker delivered at the signing ceremony for HB 2131, the corrections reform bill authored by House Speaker Kris Steele and Sen. Patrick Anderson. For more on the Women in Recovery program, read this guest blog post by Amy Santee.

Good afternoon, my name is Andrea Baker. I am 39 years old and I am in recovery from 23 years of addiction to methamphetamine and alcohol,  among other things.

While in addiction I lost everything. I never thought I was worth anything more than the addict life I was living. Filled with despair, crippled by fear I had no hope for my future. Feeling trapped and not equipped to handle what was happening in my life, I thought I would always be an addict. I accepted that’s just who I was. As a result, I neglected my family and my responsibilities.

My parents raised my daughter from the time she was 3 years old. I missed her 1^st day of kindergarten, her graduation from high school and everything in between. On April 8, 2009 I went to jail facing two charges of endeavoring to manufacture methamphetamine. Being told I was looking at 15 years in prison, I thought it was the end of my life but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It opened the door for me to enter the Women In Recovery program. Read the rest of this entry »

Amy Santee, the author of this guest blog, is Senior Program Officer with George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa.

In my last blog post, I posed the following question: “Is it not better public policy to provide these (incarcerated) women with treatment and the tools to become better parents and productive citizens?”

Well, Women In Recovery (WIR) is the answer to that question. WIR is a pilot diversion program that Family & Children’s Services (F&CS) and the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) have built together that provides an alternative to incarceration for women in Tulsa county.

Oklahoma’s female incarceration rates have long been the worst in the country, yet little has been done to improve the situation for women in our state. GKFF has identified the problem as an area of top concern. Through “start up” funding provided by GKFF, Family and Children’s Services initiated a pilot program based on best practice and evidence-based models to offer a cost-effective, holistic approach to diverting female offenders from incarceration. WIR has established unprecedented collaboration with the local Office of the District Attorney, Office of Public Defenders, Tulsa County Court Services, Tulsa County Criminal District Judges, and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Read the rest of this entry »

In the heart of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oklahoma City, in a state-of-the-art facility beside the railroad tracks, the smell of fresh-baked bread and cookies wafts down the halls, which wind around the building to simulate streets in a town.

This is Educare, a premiere early childhood education and child care program, and Oklahoma City is one of only a handful of cities to claim one. In fact, at the time OKC Educare opened this summer, Oklahoma was the only state to have two Educare centers. (Tulsa’s opened in 2006.) Read the rest of this entry »