La Pine, OR -- Mountain Star Family Relief Nursery recently celebrated a new location in La Pine. It will open by the end of the year, offering abuse and neglect prevention services for families with young children. Executive Director Kara Tachikawa says they’ve worked for several years to get a building in the area, “We have had an individual worker in La Pine serving South Deschutes County since 2016. And we've been working to try to find a way to bring more services, to bring therapeutic classroom services specifically, to that community since that time. Initially, we plan to have four staff working on site and eventually to expand to have seven staff. During this first year, we are anticipating having about 15 kiddos in the classrooms. But then another 10 Children and their families who will be receiving the wraparound support.”

The first location opened in Bend in 2001. More facilities followed in Madras and Prineville. Redmond opened in 2020. “For this last year, we served just a little over 300 children across the region and we expect that number to continue to increase over the coming year,” Tachikawa says.