Parent Voices Oakland

Parent Voices Oakland (PVO), a chapter of Parent Voices of California, is a parent-led, grassroots organization fighting for affordable, accessible, quality child care and other family-centered policies to build power for parents, children and childcare providers across Alameda County. PVO achieves this by building effective campaigns toward economic, racial, gender, and educational justice. For more information, please visit pvoakland.org. 

Some of PVO’S priority program areas include:

• Expanding access to high quality, affordable child care to all families.

• Improving working conditions and pay for child care providers, who are primarily Black and Brown women, thus building a sustainable early childhood education workforce that ensures a unified voice for ECE with parents and caregivers. 

• Building power among Bay Area parents with young children - particularly Black, Brown and Indigenous parents, and parents with moderate to low incomes to ensure they can transform the systems that impact their lives.

• Addressing the impact that institutional racism, lack of access to health care, economic supports, environmental health, and safety from policing has on the wellness of black birthing people and infants. 

Some of PVO’S recent wins include:

• Passing Measure C in March of 2020, a revenue raising ballot measure which will raise $150 million annually to ensure all families have access to child care, provider wages are increased, and fund a Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center at Children’s Hospital Oakland.

• Emergency child care vouchers and housing referrals for Alameda County families experiencing homelessness.

• Passing state legislation to ensure parents taking ESL and GED classes can access child care.

Please note that PVO does not operate community services directly. Rather, we support spaces for families to build relationships and develop their community leadership.