Shifting Systems to Support Rural Children: Meet Kali Thorne Ladd

On this episode of Community Possibilities, Kali Thorne Ladd, Executive Director of the Children's Institute joins me. Kali shares her journey from passionate classroom teacher to a visionary leader, driving policy change to bolster the well-being of children and, subsequently, Oregon communities. I first learned about the Children's Institute when I saw a video sponsored by the Ford Family Foundation about the transformation of the Yoncalla Elementary School.  Yoncalla School District leaders and community members, including parents of young children, worked together to reinvent the elementary school’s approach to family and child support. The school now is thriving, drawing families from across the region. 

By nurturing genuine partnerships in communities like Yoncalla, the Children's Institute has catalyzed impressive strides in school attendance and literacy rates, demonstrating the unique power rural areas hold in shaping the future of young children. 

We talk about the synergies of health services and education through shared leadership and the innovative concept of universal home visiting in Oregon. Kali shares insights on integrating healthcare into schools and strategies for overcoming obstacles that hinder a child's ability to thrive in school. We reflect on the power of cross-sector collaboration and the universal appeal of early childhood issues to unify across political divides. Tune in for an episode that's not just a conversation but a call to action, one that champions the collective responsibility we share in nurturing the potential of our youngest community members.

Kaili's Bio: Previously, Thorne Ladd was the co-founder and executive director of KairosPDX, a culturally specific organization dedicated to eliminating educational opportunity and achievement gaps for historically underserved children. Through that work, and as a visionary leader in multiple capacities in the region, Thorne Ladd has a long track record of working to transform early learning and healthy development for children and families in Oregon. This has included serving as the chair of the board for Portland Community College, serving on Governor Brown’s Early Learning Council, and serving on the board at the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation based in Portland. Kali worked on education strategies in the mayor’s office in the City of Portland and at the Oregon Department of Education. She holds a MA in education policy from Harvard University and a BA in elementary education and psychology from Boston College.

Show Links:
Kali's Email: kali@childinst.org

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Transcript

Ann Price: 0:05

Hi everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today I'm going to be speaking with Kali Thorne Ladd. Kali is the Chief Executive Officer at the Children's Institute, based in Oregon, and I came to know about the Children's Institute through a video from the Ford Family Foundation where they were highlighting their work in the Yoncalla School District in Oregon. And you might remember that I had Crystal Atson from the Ford Family Foundation on the podcast last February, episode 39. And I'll link to that in the show as well as the YouTube video that I'm talking about.

Ann Price: 0:44

The reason why I wanted to talk to Kali is that they have done some amazing work where they are engaging families and community members in what was a very underperforming school, rather, and have really turned that situation around so much that people are wanting to move into the school district. Anyway, you're going to learn more about that work, as well as other work that the Children Institute is involved in. So a little bit about Kali. She is a visionary leader. I so enjoyed our conversation. She has a long track record of working to transform early learning and health development for children and families in Oregon. She is a former classroom teacher, so she knows what it's like to be on the front line. She's very involved in the city of Portland with the Oregon Department of Education. She has a master's degree in education policy from Harvard University and just is an all-around amazing person. I think you're going to enjoy our conversation, so let's dive in.

Ann Price: 1:51

Hi everybody, welcome back to Community Possibilities. I want to introduce you to my guest, Kali Thorne Ladd. Kali, I would like you to first just kind of introduce yourself, tell us about the Children's Institute, and I guess, before we kind of get into the conversation, I should say that you and I have not actually never met. We just met in Zoom land, but I found you all because I had had Crystal Atson from the Ford Family Foundation on the podcast.

Ann Price: 2:28

I know they're a big supporter of yours and I had seen a video of your work, the work with early works and that led me down a rabbit hole and I just wanted to talk to you about the work that you're doing out there. So welcome to the show and I will, yeah, talk to you about the work that you're doing out there. So welcome to the show and I will. Yeah, thank you, and I will just kind of hush now and let you introduce yourself to our audience. I always give people the opportunity to kind of, you know, personalize their introductions. We're not necessarily looking for all of your bona fides or your great education, which I'm sure is amazing, but just really tell us how you came to be who you are.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 3:07

Well, I have been passionate about children for a long time, since I was young, as I recall, and thought I would be a teacher. So I did start my career as a classroom teacher. I am from New England. I was born in Philadelphia, raised in the New England area and then, in my 20s, moved across the country to Portland, Oregon, where I do my work now.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 3:33

But the consistent thing that I've done is focus my career on children and though I'm not in the classroom anymore, I think I wound up getting my master's in policy because I think systems are designed for adults very largely and not for children, and we see the result of that in the outcomes that we see for children that are disheartening right now when it comes to not just their academic growth but their social, emotional well-being, the support that they have from the adults around them. And I think there are societies that measure their success on the health of children, and if we were to do that in our country, we would see that we have a long way to go. So I would say my purpose is about improving opportunities and outcomes for children. Right now I'm very focused, obviously in Oregon, but it's a passion of mine that extends beyond this state and really believing that if we are to thrive as a society, then our children need to thrive as well.

Ann Price: 4:38

Absolutely. And when you say some countries measure their success by the health of children, do you mean the physical health, the emotional health, all of those things, or one or the other?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 4:53

I would say all of those. I mean there is research to show that when children's outcomes are well, health indicators as well as academic indicators are strong, then you see better outcomes when it comes to.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 5:08

GDP and other things. And there's an organization that is focused very specifically on getting more people in the business industry and public safety industry engaged in children. It's called Council for a Strong America ministry engaged in children, it's called Council for a Strong America and their whole premise the reason why they're able to engage some of these folks is because it's an issue of national security. You have the defense ministry saying that our children doing well is an issue of national security. So you know, the strength of a nation does lay in the hands of the children in a lot of ways. And how are we prioritizing children in our policies and systems? How are we anchoring their success? And success is interwoven. I think I use the word well-being to describe sort of that holistic look at children being successful and thriving in society.

Ann Price: 6:05

Yeah, I've heard it said that some places estimate the number of prison beds they need based on third grade reading scores. I don't know if you've ever heard that before.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 6:20

I've heard that.

Ann Price: 6:21

I'm not sure if that's legend or real, but there is certainly a connection between illiteracy and incarceration rates someone out there listening can shoot me an email and give me the citation. But yeah, definitely speak some. And we know that when kids are not doing well in third grade, that does predict later on. It certainly predicts whether or not they're going to be promoted, and if they're held back they're more likely to fail. They're more right. And then that domino.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 7:01

Well, and early childhood trauma has a direct connection to addiction and substance abuse later in life. So we know how destructive addiction is to a family and generationally. But early childhood trauma is a direct source. It is a greater predictor than genetic predisposition to addiction.

Ann Price: 7:25

Yeah, yeah, that is like powerful stuff.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 7:28

So then, how are we protecting our children, right?

Ann Price: 7:35

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great follow up to a conversation I just had earlier with a colleague of mine who he works in in trauma informed, you know, doing trauma-informed work in communities. And, fun fact, I started out as a clinician and worked in addiction spaces. I thought I wanted to be a clinical psychologist and worked in primarily with adolescents who had substance abuse disorder and misuse substance misuse but we didn't call it that back then and you know so many of them were victims of trauma, whether that be, you know, abuse in the family, sexual abuse, substance abuse in the family, all of those things. Yeah, and I got pretty burned out on that, but this is not about me, but that's how I.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 8:31

That's how I got into to prevention actually yeah, and it's funny we have that in common. I don't know that you would know that about me, but I was a double major in education and psychology and I also worked in behavioral facilities for children who had a lot of behavior issues. So behavioral health work.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 8:51

But more youth that were school age, you know, 10, 12 year olds and I too got burned out really quickly. So I was a teacher. Then I worked in this behavioral health space and safe homes where children in the welfare system go when they're removed from their homes, but it is hard work.

Ann Price: 9:10

Right. Yeah, it is hard work and it sounds like you and I both wanted to go upriver.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 9:16

Yes, exactly. How do we stop this from happening?

Ann Price: 9:19

Exactly Because it's heartbreaking to see those kids. It really is, yeah, and treatment. So let's switch to the positive. Let's do something about it and talk about your work at the Children's Institute. When I was doing my prep work for this, I was really interested in early works. That's really kind of what led me down the oh, I want to talk to this person, but you guys do lots of things, so tell me about the work of the Institute. I want to talk to this person, but you guys do lots of things, so tell me about the work of the Institute. However, you want to present that.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 9:49

Okay, well, we, our mission, is to leverage research, practice, policy and advocacy so that we can shift systems towards justice for children and their families. And we're focused on children prenatal to grade five, so early years, early grades, and we like to say we're trying to make Oregon the best place to be a kid, and so we do that through two main strategies. The first is our policy and advocacy work. So Children's Institute has helped secure over a billion dollars for the state of Oregon to invest in young children in a myriad of ways. And we continue to do policy work and advocacy, not just for public investment but for all, to also change policies so that they work better for children, and both in the early care space and the early health space. One of the innovative things we've done in policy is the creation of a social-emotional healthcare metric, which was an incentive metric to get the CCOs, which are coordinated care organizations. They're providing insurance and support for children and families on Medicaid, and 50% of people on Medicaid are children under the age of 10.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 11:03

So lots of children, and this was a metric. There was nothing to incentivize CCOs to do any sort of screening around mental health and social, emotional well-being for children before they enter school. So the idea was to change the behaviors so that we're looking at what is happening with children before they go to kindergarten with the intention of being able to provide more support so that when they enter kindergarten they are starting ready to learn, and so that's, you know, it's kind of a nerdy but relevant policy and almost a programmatic thing that we were able to do at CI. The other sort of bucket of our work would be our school-based strategies and school-based initiatives, and that's where Early Works falls, and so we do that and we have three different school-based initiatives.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 11:52

If I were to distill it, I would say it's focusing on transformation of K-5 through early childhood research and best practice, and we are really anchoring early childhood principles and practice to inform educators and administrators on how do you create spaces where children are going to thrive, that are developmentally appropriate for children, that engage families in meaningful ways so that you know, by third grade they are more likely to be literate and enjoying school and their families understand how to engage the educational system. So that work. We work with districts across the state. Our deepest dive has been our work within a couple communities. We call them our proof points and, honestly, our work in the schools and in communities informs our policy work. So we're not just creating policy based off of theory. We're looking at what is happening on the ground and that is informing our policy strategy. So it's really a practice to policy loop, feedback loop.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 13:00

Oftentimes, having spent a lot of time in public policy, there's a lot of great ideas that are good at theory and not realistic in practice, and I think this work that we've done in schools and in communities helps us test how good the policy is and inform what is needed in community.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 13:21

The early works was our deepest dive, and I would say that work was about true partnership with community, which I don't think we do enough. I think it's easy to come in and say we've got a lot of research and answers. You should do this but not truly partner with community. And I was a Peace Corps volunteer with community and I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I can tell you that community change cannot be sustained unless there is authentic partnership and relationship with community. And so the Early Works Project to me exemplifies best practice in terms of how do you partner, how do you listen to community, understand where they are, respect the community and support the community to find their own agency to create change.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 14:06

And so we did that and we came in with research, but we did that over a 10-year horizon, recognizing that you couldn't just go in and say we wanted to start preschools but they didn't want preschools. That's not a very effective way to go. What has been beautiful was what's developed over time in our partnership in Yoncalla and Earl Boyles. And Yoncalla is particularly, I think, interesting because it's a small rural community and you know I spent most of my career in education and all of it and work for children. Almost I would say 95% was focused on urban areas, and yet the amount of concentrated poverty that we have in our rural communities is significant.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 14:56

And so it's surprising to me. You know, I mentioned to you I went to a conference for grantmakers for education. There was only one session focused on rural communities in the US. So, knowing that every state has many rural communities and knowing that disproportionately, I listened to a podcast that was led by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child and a man was talking about he looked at the hundred most impoverished communities in the US. All but nine, all but nine of those 100 were rural communities.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 15:28

So, you know, being able to figure out how do we support our rural communities in transformative ways is important, and the Yoncala Project was just that, and it was about partnership. And what we're seeing now are outcomes where the community is growing. There is a demand to be in these schools and they're increasing in their attendance, in their literacy scores, like all the things that you want to have happen. And now there's a neighboring rural community that is very interested in copying the model, and you know so that's part of, I would say, copying the model, and you know, so that's part of, I would say what we're excited about here at CIS.

Ann Price: 16:07

Yeah, yeah, and I got to say because we this is not a video podcast. I love the smile on your face as you talk about it. You can see it like in your eyes and you know in your smile that you're so excited about this work. And you know we have 159 counties where I live in Georgia and, just like you said, most of them are rural. Many of them are impoverished, many of them.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 16:34

You know, the school system is the only game in town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions, as there are with many communities that aren't mainstream. I guess there's misconceptions about, you know, mindsets and things, and I think in the political sphere there is, and what I find is that I think this is true of all people, particularly moms. Like people want their children to succeed. No one is wanting ill, for the most part, you know, and coming with an asset-based lens and believing that the community wanted what was best for their children, despite generational challenges, was part of what enabled us to have a fruitful partnership and do meaningful work. You cannot do sustainable work. If you feel like you're doing something for a community, the community has to really do it for themselves. All we can do is sort of provide a template and we watch this community own the challenges of the past. Families engage and say, hey, we've made these mistakes. Even teachers and principals say this is what I thought was best and I was wrong.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 17:44

And this is what now I understand is best for children, and they changed and we didn't make that happen. They made that happen and I feel like that's a much more empowering stance that we need to think about when we talk about work in our rural communities.

Ann Price: 17:59

So now my head keeps going back to like 10 years because so often you know things are funded for. You know you have three years, you have five years to do these like very to change these very intractable problems that are so convoluted with generational poverty and you know workforce and lack of affordable housing and lack of access to healthcare, all the, all of the things. So I don't know how much we have we could get into. Like what did that initial groundwork look like? If you can speak to that, I don't know if you were at Children's Institute.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 18:46

I was not at Children's Institute but I have asked that question, of course, to understand, and so this is, you know, once removed information. The woman who was here for the startup is still a part of is still on staff. She's the director of Marina Merrill, who's the director of strategies and research for Children's Institute, and she shared that the Children's they identified the community partially because of the poverty rates and the academic outcomes were amongst the lowest in the state and there was intention of wanting to work with the community. That had a lot of barriers to success. The Children's Institute came in wanting to start preschools and you know we had done this already in an urban community. That was, you know, beset with challenges as well. But, unlike the urban community, there was just sort of like we don't need your preschools, we don't you urban people like we don't need what you're bringing, and so there was sort of like, okay, what could we do for you that you would find useful?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 19:59

And so it started with, I think, helping provide baby showers and diapers and things like that for families. What we were able to do, though, was hire someone in the community to be the community liaison and really lead the work, and that was key.

Ann Price: 20:17

Yeah, bingo.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 20:19

Yeah, yeah and I would say that again as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Ann Price: 20:24

It's like, oh, that makes sense, Like that's what you would do, yeah, yeah, because we talk about well, we need to, you know work with the community. But I don't know if folks always go to that like extra step, Because I'm sure you all heard that in your early days. You alluded to that. Well, you city folks, right, we hear that a lot. So if I'm in rural communities, I am technically in the metro area but I'm way outside. I mean, my house backs up to a 40 acre horse farm. So I don't usually say I'm from Atlanta, I'm not from Atlanta, I don't live in the city of Atlanta. But there is a sense in the rural communities that that's kind of the. They get all the resources, they have all the stuff. And there is some truth to that.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 21:10

Yeah, so you know it was gradual, it was relationship building. It was, you know, partnership with the principal and administrator of the schools and building trust with community members, with families, and that took time and you know, I think things only move at the speed of trust. So as they say so I think we yeah it wasn't quick. Now I will say this. Someone asked me recently because they were thinking about well, how do you scale that, how do you do that in more places If it takes 10 years for everyone?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 21:49

to do it then that's a real hard, that's a long timeline eye that is interested, but the proof point really makes a difference. When you have something that works, that the other surrounding communities could see the change, it's a much easier sell. You're not spending as much time and in this case, someone who is already from the community and is trusted as an educational leader in the community is the one that wants to lead a similar change in her community and Ford family is looking at supporting it. But it's going to move a lot quicker because the conditions are different than what we started with and I do think that's why doing this work more matters, because I think, as other people see it, it isn't. You know. If people see people like them doing this kind of change work, it's easier to sell and believe it.

Ann Price: 22:42

Yeah, I've had that experience because I have done quite a bit of work in schools and I have noticed when Principal A implements something that works, you know Principal ZD through the rest of the alphabet are really keen on following that thing. Yeah, that's true. So this community leader then is, I would imagine, going out into the community. They're part of the community already, so they're working on relationship building.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 23:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and bringing other people in, and you know, and there's a lot of excitement and this is, you know, it's small community. So this is the family's well-known multi-generational family who's respected in community.

Ann Price: 23:28

You know things like that that are conditions that make it amenable, yeah yeah, and then if you, then, from what I remember from the video and you were just talking about that, the school really has turned around and now you have people wanting to move there, live there, get their schools in which I could imagine could present other challenges.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 23:50

Yes, they are. They are busting out of the seams and now they need to build a new high school, but we've we've tried to connect them with resources. You know we do have access to resource where we're situated and who we are. So we try to be a bridge to more resources for this community and we would do that for any and I think highlighting their work and the partnership we have helps, you know, bring visibility to their needs as well.

Ann Price: 24:23

Yeah, I was curious, also related to that work. And then I want to try to remember to go back to the social, emotional learning, because that's definitely a hotbed issue I've seen in some communities. But this idea of shared leadership, what does that look like in practice? Is that parents, businesses, school personnel all coming together like a I don't know, like an advisory group or a leadership team? I'm trying to get my head around what does shared leadership? Because I can also imagine superintendents, principals and teachers kind of not being so keen on the idea of shared leadership.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 25:11

Yeah, I think you know there was intentional. There continues to be intentional engagement of student or student family voices, parent voices, and they were brought into the table and honored and the community. The staff person who is staffed for Children's Institute was sort of the bridge between the families and the administrators. She's currently now the principal of the elementary. She's only 25% now of our staff and she's majority working now for the district, but when she was doing the work of just being community leader on this project she was a bridge between the administrators and the families and was able to create space and a table for the families to share their concerns and their hopes and they were consulted on curriculum, particularly curriculum around social emotional development.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 26:08

It is a word that is controversial, which is unfortunate to me because we can talk about that later. It's unfortunate, however, because the families got to be engaged in what was being learned and they could own it. It was easier to do a rollout of the work and I think again, this is a small community, but the superintendent and the principal I mean everyone knows each other and they all live, you know, in the community and there was a willingness.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 26:41

I think the focus is on how do we make this the best place, you know, for children. Everybody wanted the children to be successful, and so that shared goal and vision I think helps strip away some of the ego elements and allows real conversations to happen around. Well, what can we do to support children better? What does that look like?

Ann Price: 27:00

Right happen around well what can we do to support children better? What does that look like? Right yeah, when I work with community coalitions, I often tell them that they have to take, like, their individual hat off and set it aside and keep the mission right, the thing that they most care about, and in this case it's, you know, the success, the wellbeing of our kids, because that helps you put, as you say, your ego aside, your agenda right, if we can all like, just like, stay focused on that.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 27:27

If only we could all do that.

Ann Price: 27:29

Yeah, yeah, every day. Well, let's talk about SEL, because I can remember not too long ago, everybody wanted SEL in their schools and everybody was super excited it was being implemented everywhere. And now it seems like there's pushback in communities about social and emotional learning, that somehow it's gotten a little a little question mark political. But when I think about when I was going through school, when, even when my kids were going through school, it was all about, you know, character education and our word for the week is empathy or you know, yeah, right, all of the things, I don't, I don't, yeah. So are you seeing the same thing where you are?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 28:19

Certain communities, it's not everywhere, and it is. I would say more so in rural communities than our urban communities. The pushback I think it's unfortunate. I think this is where politics and political agendas can usurp what is best for children and we lose the message. And so all the neuroscience and the research talks about how important children how they feel impacts how they think and how they feel therefore impacts how they learn and their ability to learn, and so the fact that it could ever be seen as a bad thing to create spaces of belonging for children.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 29:01

I don't understand it, because the science doesn't support it.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 29:04

And if we want children to be successful just in the learning, then we need to understand the conditions that impact that. And when children are feeling stressed or distressed, the part of their brain, the executive function part of their brain, shuts down and they make poor decisions. They have no impulse control. All these things, the hippocampus, you know, is not able to rotate. So to me it's, it's not like if I, you know, it's I, I think if we have to use other vernacular, use other vernacular, but how are we supporting the regulation of children?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 29:40

in their their, their, their emotional state so that they can actually be in a state to receive information and retain it. And you know the definition of learning, um, and I think most people that's all they want. I I honestly don't know how it became political. I don't know the backdrop of it. I just know it's not good for kids.

Ann Price: 30:03

Yeah, yeah, agree, a hundred percent, a hundred percent agree. And I and I guess my head goes to yeah, and there's some I would say that parents, teachers and other adults also need some social emotional learning training. Right, I mean, I just think about even being. You know, I have, I have three children. They're all grown now, but I can remember certainly how stressful it is to get them out the door to get the bus and, you know, hurry up, and how come you're not ready?

Ann Price: 30:35

right. All the, all the things that we stress out about as parents, or trying to get them to do their homework, or whatever. Whatever it is right. We all carry our stress in so many ways and they're watching us.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 30:46

Yeah, yeah.

Ann Price: 30:48

Yeah, and then, oh my gosh, my heart just goes out to school personnel and teachers. It's hard to be a teacher these days for so many reasons. They need that space to be in tune with their bodies, what their body is telling them that when, when they feel that stress, because they're reacting right and they, they are, you know, taking care of those kids under really stressful environments. And when I was growing up, we did not have to worry about, uh, people coming and, you know, with a gun or yeah, or yelling and screaming and some of the things that are kind of going on that we see at, you know, school board meetings and all of the things.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 31:32

Yeah, it's. It seems that we've lost the connection with one another's humanity and it's very dangerous when that happens in a society, and I feel like even when I was growing up, you didn't have to agree on all things to be civil and kind to one another just because you exist as a human being, and the fact that we're also taking that out of teaching children to be kind to people, to listen despite differences.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 32:00

Again, you don't have to agree with everyone. We don't all have to be kind to people, to listen despite differences. Again, you don't have to agree with everyone. We don't all have to be robots in the same, but I should be able to be in a room and have a conversation with you. That is civil, whether or not I agree with everything you say because that's what it is to be in community together.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 32:16

And the fact that we are not incorporating those traits within the educational system is also problematic, because we don't. This friction is not good for us as a country and it's not good for any community. And I do remember I was a child, my formative years were in the 80s, where you know it was different in terms of being able to, you know they, they talked about the body politic and you know there was just a diplomacy in terms of listening to people across difference, and I've seen that go away and we were taught more around empathy and listening, and you know.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 32:54

Anyway, I'm hopeful that. But we won't. We won't get to a better place as a society in the future If we abandon those qualities of character now for children.

Ann Price: 33:06

Yeah, Well, let's shift from social emotional learning. I want to talk about the health support that you all are providing. Yeah, I live in a state where we have, yet again, not expanded Medicaid, leaving a lot. Yeah, we have peach care for kids, but we have a lot of kids, a lot of families who just cannot access what they need, and I know you guys are doing some innovative things in terms of health support for families, so I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 33:38

Yeah, I mean the social-emotional metric is exciting. We do offer Medicaid to all families or all children, I believe, under the age of 10 in Oregon. So our children are fully covered, which is huge. We are working to expand coverage to include postpartum care for moms, more maternal health supports. In general those years I think we have good coverage prenatally but then the first thousand days of a child's life also is huge and the mother getting the supports she needs is huge. We have an earned income tax credit that passed last session, which is important for low-income families. We have we have sort of declared universal home visiting across the state. We're still in the process of rolling it out and implementing it, but ensuring making it. So I think the idea is that you take away the stigma, like there are many countries that have home visiting.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 34:42

It's just something that happens when you have a child that's not based on income qualification, but because every mother needs support based on income qualification, but because every mother needs support in those early years. I also have a parent of two. My kids are teenagers now but like those early years are tough.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 35:00

So we are working to help roll out universal home visiting in the state and generally just working with CCOs and with the health agency to prioritize, look at data and identify who are the kids that are most in need and ensuring making a linkage between that and services and supports. So we are actually growing our work in the early health space. There is more that's needed, so I think Oregon is ahead of the curve in many ways, but there is a lot of room for growth and so this is a big issue when we look at the long session of 2025 for the Oregon legislature. Working with the legislator, Rep Reynolds, who is actually also a pediatrician, to put together a momnibus bill that is focused on improving the health and well-being of moms through the birthing process.

Ann Price: 36:00

Yeah, I love that, so it sounds like you are definitely in that policy space as well. We are.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 36:08

And then, you know, in our early works project in Yoncalla we also partnered with the health agency to bring on a physician, a community health physician, that is serving families in that community because, you know, dental needs are a huge barrier to going to school. And so now and she also came from a neighboring rural town, she grew up in a rural community, so she was trusted and now she serves a lot of the families, not just the kids in the school but the families themselves.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 36:34

Like the partnership between health and education, I would say, is really critical to children succeeding and beyond the social-emotional health needs. There are a lot of physical health needs that children have. I think dental issues are one of the number one reasons why, children miss school. And we have an attendance crisis as well right now, and so we are doing what we can from a policy standpoint to make it easier to access health services, and access them in schools, because children do go to school Right.

Ann Price: 37:08

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, cause I actually worked on, um, uh, oral health project. Uh, I with, uh with a friend of mine who was at the CDC at the time, um, and so, yeah, we know that in cardiovascular health is linked to dental health. But I do want to kind of underline the one thing you said about, like um, maternal visiting programs. Right, Because one of the things that really just oh just hurts I don't know, it just grates me is what home visiting programs that are targeted to certain high risk I'm doing air quotes folks, high risk populations that bugs me, which is not to say that folks don't need support, but it is. It is very stigmatizing and, to your point, everybody needs and it's not just certain people who have the potential to not be able to take care of their kids or to emotionally harm them or physically harm them, right.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 38:09

We all have that 100% and postpartum depression is real and it happens to many women and it doesn't discriminate based on income or race or age even, and when moms are dealing with that. They aren't reimbursed for the support or counseling that they need. They don't access it and then both mom and child suffer for it Right.

Ann Price: 38:36

They may not even understand what's happening to them because we don't name it.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 38:43

No, very true. When I had my daughter, I had a good friend that was in England and also having a child, and I remember being astonished. She's American but she married a British guy and when she told me what she was getting like, she got a year off from work, with her job guaranteed. Oh my gosh Someone visiting the home, all these things that I thought oh, what a difference and it was very eye opening.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 39:09

That was probably the first time. It was long before I was doing this policy work, but it was the first time that I realized, wow, there are other places where just think of low income families and what they. It's hard to be middle income and find the services. Low income families have such a harder time accessing and being able to afford support. So yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely so.

Ann Price: 39:50

I one of the things I had to ask you about was your CQI process, your continuous quality improvement process, because I do evaluation. So I had to ask, because you guys actually look at your results. So can you kind of talk about that? You do a lot of great things and you actually study what you're doing and then learn from that. I wonder if you could speak to that a little bit partner with the university.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 40:34

And then for our current ESS project, the early school success projects, we just wrapped or signed a contract with N Northwest, which is an education research entity, but third-party evaluation to look at and collect both quantitative and qualitative data to see what our impacts are in our work over time, and then we've produced reports that highlight what our findings are. And I think I said in the beginning, part of the reason why we wanted to do some of this practice work is to have proof points to point to, to impact policy. So you have to do evaluation and you have to do it with a third party in order to ensure that you actually have a proof to point at.

Ann Price: 41:20

We didn't just make up the numbers.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 41:23

So yeah, I think that has been part of the theory of action that Children's Institute has taken in our work from the beginning and it was always the intention and the work that we do with early school success. We actually really follow improvement science and this idea of continuous improvement in education. So we adopt that for us as an organization but we're also working with schools to understand improvement science and continuous improvement processes so that they, too, can use their data in ways that are empowering and that can help shift practice, and they can be nimble enough to understand how to be the best at their craft, and so that is part of what

Ann Price: 42:09

we're training our educators on the best that they're craft, and so that is part of what we're training our educators on. I love that. Thank you for that. So is there anything about Children's Institute that we haven't talked about? That you want to be sure and highlight or share?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 42:22

Well, we have a podcast. Oh, yay I invite people to listen to that as well. We've tried to interview just different leaders doing work and different community leaders. Sometimes it's more thought leaders, policy leaders, sometimes it's community leaders just doing important work that impacts young children. So we have that.

Ann Price: 42:47

And the name of the podcast Early Works.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 42:50

Early. Well, of course I believe that's.

Ann Price: 42:54

I didn't know that that's okay, no worries, we're going to, we will link it's early link it's early link.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 42:59

Early link. Okay, what else? We've been around for 20 years. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary, so that's exciting. 20 years. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary, so that's exciting, I think. To look at the 20 years of impact, I had a board meeting earlier this week where I had a chance to present to the board you know, just the footprint that Children's Institute has had in this state and the lives of children that have been impacted because of this work. So that feels really good and I don't take credit for it. We have an incredible team that I think is all mission driven and has a high standard of excellence that has enabled us to do this work.

Ann Price: 43:38

So, yeah, Well, what would you say to other folks in communities who are trying to do this community-based work? What would be a couple of takeaways that you would share with them?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 43:57

I think partnership with community is important and, as I said, listening and coming with an asset based lens is critical. I think innovation is important. It's a core value at Children's Institute. I think in education it could be not a great word, but we have to think outside the box and I think the ability to adapt and to be innovative enables us to really come up with solutions that work for community. I would encourage folks to bring people together across sector as much as possible, particularly in the early childhood space.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 44:50

I spent more of my career in K-12. And you know, coming into early childhood it feels very siloed. Yet you have to look at everything for children to succeed, and so we have done a lot of work to set tables that build coalition across sectors outside of education, be it, you know, private sector faith community outside of education, be it private sector faith community you name it Because, at the end of the day, it betters all of us when our children are doing well, and so, being intentional and setting tables and I think it doesn't have to just be grassroots I think bring in leaders from different sectors and inform them, educate them about the importance of early childhood and you know the science behind learning. So there can be a case. The return on investment is very clear, but I don't think everybody knows that, and so the more I think we engage partners across sectors and geographies, the more likely we are to see changes that we need to see.

Ann Price: 45:55

So what's next for Children's Institute? What do you hope the next couple of years bring?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 46:04

Well, you know we're looking at how do we scale some of our work and touch more communities, certainly across Oregon. More school communities. We want to work with more, we want to bring our learning to more folks and we want to elevate the issues on the policy side. We want to see more investment in preschool across across the state. So we have Portland has a tax that is funding preschool, but it's a state. So we have Portland has a tax that is funding preschool, but it should be a statewide thing. Learning 90% of brain development happens in the first five years of a child's life, and yet we only have guaranteed education starting at age six.

Ann Price: 46:45

So I think, we don't.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 46:48

We're looking at different ways to bring preschool and mixed delivery preschool system to four-year-olds and some three-year-olds as well, and I think that's important. But in order to do that, we have to elevate the issue and make it something everybody sees the return on investment on and is willing to invest in, the return on investment on and is willing to invest in. So that's going to be a big list, but I'm confident we can get there. And also the things I shared around the momnibus bill and investing in early health for women.

Ann Price: 47:29

Well, kali, I want to thank you so much for joining me today and I want to ask you what community possibilities do you see?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 47:40

Community possibilities for Oregon or just broadly.

Ann Price: 47:44

However, you want to answer that question.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 47:51

One of the things that I love about Children's Institute and this work in early childhood specifically, is that it is an issue that is less political and bridge building, and we all of our legislation most of the legislation we have has bipartisan support and brings people across the state together from different geographies, and I love that and I love the idea of children being a bridge across difference and that we can have a unified voice for them, and there is so much possibility in that.

Ann Price: 48:32

That is an awesome positive space to be. Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, how can people get in touch with you or learn more about the Children's Institute?

Kail Thorne Ladd: 48:44

I invite folks to go to our website. I think it's wwwchildinstorg. We have an Instagram page. Follow us on Instagram. I have a LinkedIn account and we have a Children's Institute LinkedIn as well, but if people want to follow me, they're welcome to Kali K-A-L-I, Thorne, Ladd, you can find me if you look for Ladd L-A-D-D. And yeah, just stay connected to our work. There's good things happening.

Ann Price: 49:19

Awesome and I'll put links to all of those links in the show notes and I'll definitely link to your podcast. I'm going to go download it as soon as we get done and start listening. I love that and thank you again so much for coming on the show.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 49:36

Thank you, thanks for having me.

Ann Price: 49:43

Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of Community Possibilities. If you've liked what you've heard, maybe it's helped you think about something that you weren't aware of. Maybe this conversation has helped you think about something a little differently, or maybe you've just been inspired. Could you do me a favor, could you like and share the podcast wherever you listen? And if you could take that extra step of posting a comment, that would be so helpful. Thanks so much, everybody. See you next time.

Kail Thorne Ladd: 50:26

Thank you.