 Best Start is First 5 LA's place-based funding effort in 14 high-need communities in Los Angeles County. Through Best Start, parents, church groups, businesses, local officials, nonprofits and others work together to build strong foundations for infants and young children and make our communities stronger. To understand how change occurs in our communities, First 5 LA has developed a comprehensive plan to capture outcomes at the child and family, community and organizational levels. Cross Community Evaluation
The Cross-Community Evaluation is the tool First 5 LA will use to measure change at the community and organization level in our 14 Best Start communities. Research & Evaluation is working in partnership with the Best Start Communities Department to develop a set of cross-site indicators that will be systematically collected across all 14 communities. Our cross-community indicators will help us analyze our overall contribution in the areas of community capacity building, policy, programs and community investment. Read more » Family Survey
 The Family Survey is a short, bi-annual survey that will be administered to a randomly selected sample of families with children ages 0 to 5 who live in Best Start communities. It will be a means by which First 5 LA can track its own progress toward change at the child and family level on our four priority goals. Read more » Implementation Evaluation
As First 5 LA embarks on this new place-based funding approach, it is important to document our implementation, as well as identify our role and contribution to change, in the 14 targeted communities. The Place-Based Implementation Evaluation, known as iEval, examines First 5 LA's process as we roll out our various strategies and provide support to the Community Partnerships, and we are documenting how each of the Community Partnerships in our 14 communities implements their respective plans as articulated in their community proposals. Read more » Pilot Community Evaluation
The Best Start Metro LA community serves as the pilot community for the various Best Start strategies. The community encompasses parts of three different Los Angeles neighborhoods: Pico-Union, Koreatown and South L.A. The evaluation assesses the extent to which Best Start programs, such as home visitation and other strategies in the Metro LA community, achieve the desired goals of improving family functioning, as well as expanding the capacity of the community to support families. Read more » For more information, please contact the Research & Evaluation Department at F5LAResearch@First5LA.org. |
