Dear Friends of OPHI, 

When I think about what OPHI has accomplished over the last year, I am truly inspired. It’s been a year full of challenges, grief, and uncertainty, but our work has given me a constant source of hope. A year ago, we didn’t know what the future would hold. We had to set aside our plans and trust our values of equity and partnership to guide us. And it’s working: in the last year, OPHI has saved countless lives, created hundreds of jobs in communities hit hard by the pandemic, helped Black childcare providers stay healthy and afloat, and grown our team beyond what I ever could have imagined. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, Oregon needed contact tracers to stop the spread of the virus and save lives. In response, OPHI and our partners at the Public Health Institute created “Tracing Health,”which provides culturally- and linguistically-responsive contact tracing support to health departments. Tracing Health started in Washington County, Oregon, where we hired 60 staff to serve as contact tracers for the local health department. All of them were Washington County residents and 90% of them were bilingual, multilingual, or brought lived experience as a member of a community hit hard by COVID-19, enabling them to meaningfully reach out to the county’s most vulnerable residents. Within a couple of months Tracing Health was also supporting Clark County, Skamania County, and Spokane Regional Health District in Washington State. Today, Tracing Health works in Oregon, Washington, and California, with a diverse team of almost 600 people who speak over 30 languages. 

We have also stepped up our support for Black childcare providers during the pandemic through our Right From the Start (RFTS) program, now in its seventh year. RFTS has always recognized Black childcare providers as community health leaders who support the health and economic wellbeing of the families in their care, and during the pandemic this role has become even more important. At the same time, the pandemic has threatened the viability of Black childcare providers’ businesses: reduced enrollment, health risks, and ever-changing regulations have made it very challenging to stay open. To help Black childcare providers stay open and financially viable during the pandemic, OPHI provided over $100,000 in income recovery payments and over 5000 pounds of PPE and cleaning supplies directly to 30+ Black providers in the Portland area. We also created a multilingual (Amharic, Tigrinya, Swahili and English) video series that coaches providers on supporting Black breastfeeding families during the pandemic. We’re looking forward to building on this series with additional videos on oral health and the importance of immunizations.

Our challenges continue and the work is never done. At OPHI, we’ll confront those challenges with the same commitment to health equity and partnership that has carried us through the last year. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more about our work and what’s ahead for OPHI. 

As always, thank you for your support.

Emily Henke 
OPHI Executive Director