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Ruel Nolledo | Freelance Writer |
March 27, 2024
The First 5 LA Board of Commissioners convened in person and virtually on March 14, 2024. The agenda included the approval of a new Early Care & Education agreement, an authorization for First 5 LA staff to receive funds for the California Early Care and Education Workforce Study Los Angeles County, and a presentation on the Help Me Grow LA initiative.
L.A. County Supervisor and Board Chair Holly J. Mitchell began her remarks by wishing attendees a happy Women’s History Month. “Happy Women’s History month to one and all. This board itself has been led by a series of powerhouse women leaders including our current leader, ” Mitchell said. “So, to all the women who helped keep First 5 LA running, we pay tribute to you and thank you.”
Mitchell also commended Commissioner Brandon Nichols and his team at the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for their work on the Blind Removal Pilot Program, which focuses on addressing the disproportionality of Black children in L.A. County’s foster care system. The Supervisor added that she spoke at a recent convening at the Pritzker Center, which focused on the release of a new report on the pilot.
“It was a great gathering,” Mitchell reported. “I appreciate it — really having that space to hear the results, to have the students from the Pritzker Center there looking at our next generation of advocates and having the conversation as we have about disproportionality the role implicit bias plays into the ongoing cycle of hurt in terms of vulnerable families.”
Mitchell also took the opportunity to welcome Dr. Priya Batra as the newest member of the Board. Batra serves as the Deputy Director of the Health Promotion Bureau for the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Before joining the Department, she worked for several years in Medi-Cal managed care leadership for the Inland Empire Health Plan. Commissioner Batra has a background in health services research and is an adjunct physician policy researcher with the Rand Corporation.
During her remarks, Executive Director Karla Pleitéz Howell expressed her gratitude toward Mitchell, DCFS staff, the Pritzker Center and all those who participated in the discussion on the Blind Removal pilot. She noted that the conversation brought home the importance of moving past data and the acknowledgment that structural racism exists and toward concrete action.
“Our Chair reminded all attendees that whenever government touches systems, it needs to leave families better off than when it initially started,” Pleitéz Howell said. “One of the places where we find a lot of alignment here at First 5 LA is the possibility of what our systems can actually mean and do for our families.”
Turning toward First 5 LA’s new strategic plan, Pleitéz Howell noted that the Board would have two parallel tracks of activities over the next few months. The first track, taking place in May and June of this year, focused on the approval of a programmatic budget aligned with the previous strategic plan. This action, she explained, was vital to ensuring First 5 LA partners had a fiscal glide path so as not to experience sudden changes in funding as the agency transitioned to its new strategic plan. The second track centered on the development of new tactics aligned with the new strategic plan.
For additional remarks from Pleitéz Howell, click here to see the March Executive Director Report.
The Board next turned their attention to a presentation on the planned update of First 5 LA’s policy regarding Records Retention Schedule and Records Retention and Destruction. Enterprise Content Management Specialist Danna Schacter began the presentation by providing an overview of the agency’s records retention schedule and related policy, noting that the revision had been planned for several years but was put on hold due to shifting priorities during the pandemic.
“The retention schedule should be reviewed every two to three years to ensure it is compliant with changing laws, regulations and standards,” said Schacter. “Our current schedule was developed and approved in 2018 and has not been reviewed since.”
Schacter wrapped up by noting that the new retention schedule and policy would be presented to the Board in May for their approval. Once approved, annual training will be made available for staff before the end of 2024. The new retention schedule and policy will inform the implementation of several projects, including the renewal of the records disposition review process.
For more information on the updated Records Retention Schedule and Records Retention and Destruction Policy, click here.
The Board next heard a presentation on Help Me Grow LA (HMG LA), a joint initiative undertaken by First 5 LA and the LA County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) to address early identification and intervention in Los Angeles County. Health Systems Director Tara Ficek was joined by the Department of Public Health’s MCAH Director Melissa Franklin and Program Director Steve Baldwin to provide updates on the initiative and discuss emerging learnings that could inform tactics development specific to First 5 LA’s focus on early identification and intervention.
Ficek began by providing an overview of early identification and intervention in California along with a brief history of the Help Me Grow effort in Los Angeles County. She also called attention to newly available data showing that California dropped to 49th place in terms of developmental screenings, down from 31st place as the original data indicated.
“That means only 25.2% of our children are receiving timely developmental screenings,” Ficek emphasized. “This is from 2020 to 2022, a difference in just two years, and largely influenced by the pandemic. But it clearly signals a situation that has gone from bad to worse.”
Baldwin and Ficek next provided updates on the four core components of the Help Me Grow LA system: Centralized Access, Family and Community Engagement, Child Health Provider Outreach and Data Collection. In addition to offering insights gleaned from the work in the field, the two also highlighted various sustainability strategies that were being considered for each core component, such as scaling up partnerships with health care plans and philanthropies, developing collaborations with the African American Infant Maternal Mortality project and the Early Needs Response for Infant and Child Health (ENRICH), and exploring community health worker reimbursement through Medicaid.
Following the scheduled meeting break, Ficek and Melissa Frank spoke next about the critical need to shift HMG LA toward centering parent and family voice and equity. Frank stated that Help Me Grow LA was accomplishing this through the inclusion of parent and community champions with deep early identification and intervention experience on the Help Me Grow LA Advisory Council.
“On this Council,” Frank remarked, “parent champions serve as strategic planning partners and advocates representing the family perspective and holding First 5 LA and DPH continually accountable for ensuring that we are centering the voices of families of children with developmental needs at every opportunity.”
Frank continued. “We believe that parent and community perspective is critical for ensuring relevance, accessibility and accountability.” She cited recent examples of how parent and community champions have played a key role in shaping outreach and communications, informing project planning, and more.
For more information on the Help Me Grow LA presentation, please click here.
The final item on the agenda was an update on First 5 LA’s Strategic Plan. Chrissie M. Castro and Rigoberto Rodriguez of Chrissie M. Castro & Associates led the Board through a strategic plan refresher on First 5 LA’s vision, mission, values, goals, objectives and strategies. They also walked through the 12-month three-phased milestones calendar for internal and external work toward tactics development and implementation. The phases include engaging organizational leadership and employees to develop a shared approach to tactics development; engaging community, systems, and policy leaders to gather input and feedback by goals and objectives; and finalizing tactics and transitioning to action.
Following their presentation, Commissioner Jacqueline McCroskey noted how important it was to build opportunities for Commissioners to be partners in the process. Rodriguez agreed, noting that one crucial role for Board members lay in identifying the key partners in the community to invite to stakeholder meetings; this would ensure the right people were present to provide input on what has and hasn’t worked, as well as what needs to occur in terms of systems change.
During the meeting, the Board also approved two items on the consent agenda:
- A new Early Care & Education agreement for outdoor marketing for the Quality Start Los Angeles (QSLA) Dual Language Learner (DLL) Communications Campaign. For more information, please click here.
- Authorization for First 5 LA to receive funds from the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). The funds would reimburse the agency for an ECE report conducted by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California Berkeley. For more information, please click here.
The next Board of Commissioners meeting is scheduled for May 9, 2024. For more information, please visit www.first5la.org/our-board/meeting-materials 72 hours in advance of the meeting date.
