First 5 LA’s 2024-29 Strategic Plan
Building a future where every child is born healthy and thrives in nurturing, safe, and loving communities.
Every child has the potential to thrive. The pandemic exacerbated disparities and laid bare what we have long known: that healthy food, secure housing, and families’ experiences of safety and belonging are critical to children’s well-being. It also showed we must go further.
Our Strategic Plan introduces our refined focus. Our goals and objectives center our work on children and families, recognizing young children’s continuum of needs, building from physiological safety to esteem, love and belonging, and toward self-fulfillment. We clarify we will advance our work through three core strategies: catalyze public policies, strengthen public systems, and continue to build a prenatal to 5 social movement in partnership with community members.
We are excited to announce that, on November 9, 2023, our Board of Commissioners unanimously approved First 5 LA’s 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. This new Strategic Plan reaffirms our commitment to creating a lasting and measurable impact, centering racial justice and equity in our work, and partnering with renewed urgency to create a future where young children and their families are prioritized in L.A. County and across the state.
The 2024-2029 Strategic Plan features new goals that promote the full developmental potential of L.A. County’s young children. Central to achieving these goals is a three-fold approach that prioritizes creating long-lasting impact, building partnerships and leveraging Results-Based Accountability. With this, we aim to go beyond mitigating the effects of growing inequities to address the root cause of disparities and build a more equitable future for our youngest children and their families.
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“First 5 LA answered the call to build a truly innovative plan, leveraging the power of partnership and community input, centering our commitment to racial justice and equity, and outlining bold goals and objectives to create the critical, long-lasting change needed to ensure every child in L.A. County has the opportunity to thrive by reaching their full developmental potential throughout the critical years of prenatal to age 5. If not First 5 LA, then who? It’s important we get it right because we all know L.A. County’s children and their families are counting on us to do so, and they deserve it.” L.A. County Supervisor and First 5 LA Board Chair Holly J. Mitchell |
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First 5 LA’s Vision, Mission, and Values drive how we partner to ensure all of our youngest children have what they need to reach their full developmental potential.
We envision a future where every child is born healthy and thrives in a nurturing, safe and loving community.
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We advocate for children and their families, amplify community voice and partner for collective impact so that every child in Los Angeles County reaches their full developmental potential throughout the critical years of prenatal to age 5.
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Central to our work are four core Values: Impact, Equity, Partnership and Integrity.
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To achieve our Vision and Mission, the new Strategic Plan Goals center on children and families.
1. Children prenatal to age 5 and their families have their basic needs met: Healthy food, secure housing and economic security are the essential cornerstones needed for all young children to reach their full developmental potential.
2. Children prenatal to age 5 have nurturing relationships and environments: Young children’s interactions in both social environments — with their families, caregivers and communities — and physical ones — the spaces where they live, play and explore — have lasting effects on their health and well-being.
3. Children prenatal to age 5 have a solid foundation for well-being, lifelong learning and success: Access to resources such as early care and education, early identification and intervention services, and culturally affirming services and supports are crucial in ensuring children reach their full potential.
To read the full 2024-29 Strategic Plan, click here.
For a full version of the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan in Spanish, click here.
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“First 5 LA’s new strategic plan marks a significant milestone for the organization’s path towards creating the greatest possible impact of L.A. County’s youngest children and their families. Our new strategic plan focuses on goals to collectively build toward ensuring the basic needs, psychological needs and self-fulfillment needs of children and families are prioritized, and leans into the power of partnership, so that together we can create a brighter, more equitable future for our youngest children.” First 5 LA Executive Director Karla Pleitéz Howell |
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Next Steps
Since the endorsement of our Strategic Plan in November 2023, we have been working towards implementation, which has included a thoughtful and thorough process to identify four primary initiatives that will organize our work, starting in Fiscal Year 2025.
Click here to learn more about our four initiatives and included tactics: Bringing Vision to Action: Creating a Brighter Future for Every Child in L.A. County
This process has included many voices across Los Angeles County, including community members, community based organizations, the First 5 LA Board of Commissioners and other stakeholders. Click here to review our acknowledgements page.
To get updates on First 5 LA’s Strategic Plan, sign up for our newsletters here.
