Welcome to First 5 LA’s Essential Best Start Data narrative, created through the strategic partnership between Catalyst California and First 5 LA. The purpose of this partnership was to provide First 5 LA’s communities team with supporting data to advance g policy and systems change within the Best Start geographies.
This data narrative includes community priorities elevated in the spring of 2020, when Catalyst California first embarked on qualitative interviews with program officers and Regional Network Grantees of First 5 LA. Follow-up interviews were conducted in 2021 and 2022 to ensure any new or emerging priorities were also included in this study.
The beginning of the pandemic was an extraordinary time, but it is clear to those working on the ground that what has been observed is not unique to only 2020, but the result of systemic failures and inequities which have existed long before the Covid-19 era. The topic of essential workers was initially raised during interviews in the context of the pandemic. Understanding who essential workers are and how to support them inevitably brought the connection back to Best Start geographies, where a significant portion of these workers live and raise their children.
How to Navigate the Site
The data narrative is organized into this main page, and subsequent subpages are categorized by issue areas. The subpages can be accessed in the menu on the top right header of the page, under Essential Best Start Data.
The main page dives deeper into the Essential Best Start Data framework and highlights the work of the Regional Network Grantees and program officers. Data constructs only half the story, although these stories paint a clear picture of how communities have been supporting each other and filling the gaps created by systemic inequities.
The issue areas presented in the data narrative include: child care, food, health care, housing and transportation. Each subpage highlights data visualizations and analysis, policy opportunities, and findings from the interviews among program officers and Regional Network Grantees. Additionally, there is a subpage, Black Families Data Brief, with a narrative which focuses on Black families living in Los Angeles. Lastly, within the appendix is additional data resources and raw data tables which can be downloaded.
Subpages of the data narrative include a table of contents on the upper right which lists all the sections within that current page. Selecting the items in the table of contents will redirect you to that section within that page. For example, on this main page, you can click on Data Search Tool within the table of contents and be redirected to that tool. There, you will find a list of the data indicators that are analyzed in the narrative, be able to search for indicators by interest, and be redirected to where that indicator is located within the data narrative.
Methodology
The Essential Best Start Data narrative is the cumulation of two years of collaboration, sensemaking, and revisions with the communities team and other departmental stakeholders at First 5 LA. One-on-one interviews between Catalyst California and First 5 LA program officers and Regional Network Grantees kickstarted the process and established the foundation for the final deliverable. These conversations informed which data was analyzed, how the data should be framed, and overall layout of the final narrative. Subsequent follow-up conversations took place in 2021 and 2022 to share progress and obtain feedback, and capture any new or emerging community priorities. While the policy opportunities throughout this data narrative were not created in coordination with the First 5 LA Policy Agenda, there is significant overlap among the issue areas.
Data identified in the interviews or listed in the Best Start change agendas were analyzed and visualized for program officers and Regional Network Grantees to use in their work. Every visual in the data narrative is interactive, and the graphs can be exported as static images by clicking on the top three lines at the right hand corner.
The policy opportunities introduced in the data narrative identify what a better post-pandemic landscape looks like, while not losing sight of the immediate needs of families and service providers. Specifically, the policy opportunities in this report focus on closing opportunity gaps for Best Start geographies through:
- Systems change
- Infrastructure to support children and families
- Direct services and technical assistance
Policy opportunities and findings offer considerations for state and local leadership to impact the greatest needs for young families and their children.
Key Findings
Financial insecurity and the digital divide were the two top themes elevated by Regional Network Grantees and program officers in all five regions during the initial interviews.
Several First 5 LA program officers also cited the importance of understanding the nonprofit landscape in the Best Start geographies to support nonprofit capacity and potentially create new partnerships.
Overview
Los Angeles County’s essential workers are the backbone of the county and essential to the success of Best Start. The pandemic increased awareness for essential workers and their indispensable work, but these workers have always powered local economies and distributed important resources. With the added context of a global pandemic, this data narrative poses the question: What does it mean to support essential workers? While ensuring the public can safely meet their basic needs, many essential workers themselves do not earn enough income to access the resources they need to thrive.
Supporting essential workers and their families goes hand in hand with the work of Best Start. Majority of essential workers live and raise their families in the Best Start geographies, and most essential workers are Black, Latinx, and American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN), with Black and Latinx women disproportionately working in lower paying occupations. Supporting children and families in Best Start geographies necessarily includes families of essential workers and communities of color.
Why Supporting Essential Workers Matters
The challenges Covid-19 has created disproportionately impact communities where essential workers and Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other people of color live, including significant losses in child care, food access, income insecurity, and K-12 learning. These challenges stem from the systemic inequities which have always existed in communities of color and lower income neighborhoods. Generations of disinvestment and redlining have resulted in neighborhoods that lack robust infrastructure, creating less access to opportunities and resources. This contributes to a wider opportunity gap for children, especially those who are ages 0-5, within these communities.
Essential workers are supporting the county during a global pandemic and in order to support them in return, we must examine the systemic failures which drive the conditions and racial disparities many essential workers and their families face. If we want to create a more equitable post-pandemic world, then we must shift our mental models and reimagine how we can provide support for essential workers, their families, and communities to drive transformative and sustainable change.
As First 5 LA continues to shift towards a more anti-racist approach in its work, this data narrative seeks to support those efforts by connecting current conditions essential workers and their families face to racial and systemic inequities. Data throughout this narrative are also cut by race, whenever possible, to illuminate racial disparities and support advocacy centered in racial equity.
Essential Workers and Best Start
The map below shows a high percentage of the workforce within Best Start geographies are essential workers. Essential workers include health practitioners, food service workers, and early learning and care providers. The darker shaded areas on the map represent a higher percentage of essential workers relative to the lighter shaded portion, which represent a lower percentage. Most of the census tracts within Best Start geography boundaries (outlined in black) are within the higher percentages of essential workers, or the darker purple areas.
Why this matters: Supporting families in Best Start geographies in turn supports essential workers and their families. Best start geographies are predominantly Black and Latinx families, many with young children age 0-5, and Black and Latinx women disproportionately represent lower paid essential workers.
Data Source: American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year Survey 2016-20, Table S2401.
Who are the Essential Workers Living in Best Start Geographies
Understanding who lives in Best Start geographies is foundational to addressing the systemic inequities Best Start families and children face. Best Start geographies reflect communities with a higher Latinx and Black population, as well as a higher population of children who are under the age of five.
As First 5 LA reaffirms its commitment to anti-racism and combating anti-Blackness, it is imperative that the specific needs and experiences of Black families in the Best Start geographies are thoroughly examined. The Black Families Data Brief was created in collaboration with the Black Equity Collective workgroup to support those conversations. How anti-Blackness can be applied to Best Start work can be thought of in two ways:
1) Paying attention to racial disparities or unconscious biases that exist within systems as it relates to Best Start work;
2) Imagining new priorities and initiatives through direct and intentional engagement with Black community members and Black-led community partners.
What does it really cost to support essential workers
Promesa Boyle Heights (PBH) is a resident-led community organization working with residents in Boyle Heights and East L.A. on issues on immigration, healthy environments, early learning, and wellness and mental health support. During the pandemic and witnessing critical employment needs of the community, PBH repurposed existing grant funds to expand their stipend for the resident leader program to bring on an additional twenty-two part-time positions to continue and deepen the organization’s community-led work.
The work of PBH in collaboration with resident leaders aligns with a consistent theme that was mentioned often in interviews with program officers and Regional Network Grantees: financial security. Financial security, especially in conjunction with being rent-burdened, was raised as the highest priority for families across all five Best Start regions. Job loss and increased uncertainty during the pandemic places families in impossible positions as they continue to work. Rent-burdened, cost of food, and increased reliance on remote technologies are just some examples of specific needs that add financial strain to families.
To begin understanding the way in which financial security is connected to every essential aspect of a family’s life, this project uses the Real Cost Measure to illustrate what it really costs for a family with two children (one age 0-5 and one school-aged) to meet their essential needs in Los Angeles County. The Real Cost Measure takes into consideration cost of living in Los Angeles County and measures the minimum budget for the necessary domains of life: childcare, food, healthcare, housing, transportation, taxes and miscellaneous items.
Findings and Policy Opportunities
This section of the report dives deeper into basic need areas defined by the Real Cost Measure: childcare, food, health, housing, and transportation. These issue areas align with the Best Start change agendas and themes uplifted during conversations with First 5 LA program officers and Regional Network Grantees. The creation or enhancements of specific programs in child care or healthcare alone are insufficient to close the opportunity gaps essential workers are confronted with. Supporting essential workers and their families require policies which address immediate needs and long-term systemic change.
The policy opportunities introduced in this data narrative focus on three main areas:
- Systems change
- Creation of infrastructure to support children and families
- Direct services and technical assistance to close the opportunity gap for families of essential workers living in Best Start geographies
These policy opportunities are holistic approaches which extend across multiple issue areas. Each issue area subpage (i.e., child care) contains policy opportunities specific to that issue. Many policy opportunities cited in the data narrative stem from collective impact equity initiatives like Bold Vision, existing regional housing, health, transportation, and economic justice campaigns such as Healthy LA, Alliance for Community Transit, and from conversations with child care providers and dual language educators.
Systems Change
- Utilize a targeted approach prioritizing support for communities with the highest level of needs, where a large segment of essential workers reside, and using an equity index. Using a community-built equity index to allocate dollars equitably across child-focused systems. A research-based ranking of communities facing the greatest challenges would enable leaders to prioritize and repair under-investments within these communities, including those residing in Best Start geographies, at a time when our families need more support than ever.
- Build capacity for case management in child-focused systems to be welcoming, family-centered, and aligned so families of color and essential workers can easily access critical information, resources, and opportunities.
- Develop a single, uniform application and eligibility process for child-focused programs (e.g., CalFresh, Medi-Cal, Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), California Earned Income Tax Credit, Early Learning and Care programs). Integrating applications and safe data sharing practices across programs can address the challenges families encounter while using multiple and lengthy eligibility verification and enrollment processes. This can address delays in services, families inaccurately losing eligibility, and additional administrative costs, all of which have been exacerbated during the Covid era.
- Ensure no family falls through the cracks in obtaining information and resources for their children, starting from prenatal visits. Facilitate data sharing between hospitals, regional offices, county, and city levels with ongoing touchpoints to support families. Data protection and safety for undocumented families must be the priority in developing this aligned data system.
- Provide implicit bias and culturally and linguistically responsive training for all staff and case managers working with young children and families of essential workers. Anti-racism and anti-bias support and mandatory training should be provided to case managers, staff, and early learning professionals across programs so families do not fall through the cracks due to lack of cultural sensitivity, or complications in navigating paperwork and different bureaus.
Infrastructure to Support Children & Families
- Partner with school districts to provide every student and family with access to devices and internet (e.g., laptops and public hotspots). Children of color and who are from low-income communities are likely to suffer from widening opportunity gaps without access to technology at schools. During the past months, as school districts and organizations moved quickly to support families, technology and internet companies scrambled to offer free internet and Wi-Fi services for students and families residing in low-income communities. There is a need to grow and monitor these efforts to ensure that the needs of students facing the greatest and most urgent barriers to technology access and distance learning are met. Digital justice and digital divide concerns were raised across all Best Start geographies. One-third of LAUSD students in Region 1 are not able to access learning due to lack of digital and technology access.
- Create whole family wellness program hubs, such as the Magnolia Place Family Center, in highest-need communities, as determined by an equity index. Whole family wellness program hubs provide wraparound services (including prenatal and child care social services, mental and behavioral health supports) that are linguistically and culturally responsive to children and families through structured partnerships between community entities and service providers which are tailored to the unique contours of each community, as determined by assessment.
- Develop an early childhood integrated data system which includes critical community-based racial equity data such as race, home language, family needs, and preschool suspensions and expulsions to assist stakeholders in understanding the needs of children and families to strategize support for quality improvement. This data system will highlight nuanced data about program access, participation, and child outcomes.
- Engage families to share evolving circumstances and needs. Ongoing engagement with families could provide clear channels whicht connect evolving needs of essential workers with policy and decision-makers (such as the Covid-19 Parent Survey or Region 1’s Community Survey). And, ensure parents and families are compensated as they share their expertise and recommendations.
- Extend family fee waivers or prioritize funding support to remove fees for all state-subsidized early learning and care programs. This would support the many families of essential workers who are unable to pay fees for child care, and it would also protect child care providers from absorbing costs which place them in incredibly vulnerable financial positions to keep their homes and centers open.
- Provide support for direct engagement with Black and American Indian and Alaska Native families and individuals within the Best Start network. Ongoing direct engagement with Black, American Indian, and Alaskan Native families across the network would enable grantees to identify specific needs and support essential to these communities.
Direct Services & Technical Support
- Deliver family strengthening support, such as home visiting and community health worker and promotora programs. Community-centered, culturally, and linguistically competent, asset-based family strengthening programs, such as home visiting through calls, video chat, and text check-ins, are important as families shelter in place due to the pandemic. These programs connect families with community-based doulas, nurses, social workers, and other trained professionals who provide health and early education support.
- Create a universal basic income program. Ensure a guaranteed income for Best Start families. Create pilot projects like those that have been initiated in Stockton, California, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Child Care
During the pandemic providers like Sue Carrera, a licensed child care provider who has worked in Inglewood for thirty years, have had to adjust to constantly evolving safety guidelines, in some cases admitting older children, all while having to manage their own personal safety. This creates an immense emotional and financial burden on providers, who now have higher costs in order to stay open without the financial and technical support to match. Policies which provide more immediate financial support and tools to providers are desperately needed to ensure they are being placed in a position to succeed for the monumental task they have ahead of them. Supporting child care needs for families is dependent on adequately supporting child care providers. Providers are predominantly immigrant women of color and are caring for children of other essential workers.
More than 8,000 child care sites have closed since the pandemic started. Children are missing important educational development milestones which take place in classrooms, and parents, particularly single parent households or underemployed families, are potentially forced to delay returning to the workforce. In Best Start, parent advocates stepped up to ensure their children could continue learning during the pandemic. Preschool Without Walls (PWW), an initiative funded by Best Start, hosts free weekly education classes for young children in public parks and community wellness centers in Lancaster and Palmdale. Parent volunteers teach the classes and are actively involved in creating the curriculum. Free outdoor child care responds to the immediate needs of families during a pandemic, and tackles systemic issues that extend beyond the pandemic. The program, which started in 2020, has grown into several more sites. Four teachers have been added, and the program has seen three cohort graduations. Initiatives like PWW promote parent engagement with young children and provide an alternative to the status quo of lengthy waitlists and unaffordable early learning programs.
In Region 4, the Parent Leadership Academy (PLAY) is an important program that helps parents gain skills to improve their advocacy for Early Childhood Education (ECE) and other resources. The program, facilitated within theLong Beach Department of Health, always receives a cohort of Best Start families. Parents learn about the local government, how cities vote and pass policies, and how they can be their own ECE advocates. The childcare system was not built to provide access to all children and families. The barriers to equitable ECE access are numerous, making it important for parents to become their own advocates and leaders to ensure that ECE access aligns with their family needs.
Food
Systemic inequities in the food system created immediate and urgent need for food access during the pandemic. Currently, local food systems do not provide healthy and affordable food equitably across all local communities. The 2020 Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC) Food System Dashboard combines powerful numbers with personal testimonials to illustrate the landscape of local food systems within Los Angeles.
At the local level, First 5 LA program officers and Regional Network Grantees quickly ascertained the need for better food access in Best Start communities through outreach by phone and engagement with families living within their communities. First 5 LA recognized the need for families to be connected to food banks and other resources which were being made available but were not easily accessible. This prompted a partnership between First 5 LA and Metro L.A.. The result was the creation of a free program that delivers food and essentials directly to homes of low-income families. The program was so successful that it quickly expanded from Region 1 to all five of the Best Start regions.
In addition to existing institutions finding new opportunities to fill systemic gaps, grassroots organizations and community members quickly stepped in to support one another. Stories about community members delivering food to their senior neighbors and churches that quickly became food distribution centers were common throughout the five Best Start regions. In East L.A. a gardening collective was formed. They planted trees in their yards and delivered food and produce to the community. These grassroots models represent more than just an immediate response to an emergency, but real alternatives which require investment.
Failures of the current food landscape and the resulting inaccessibility to food became painfully clear during the pandemic. Significant investment is needed to reshape food access and empower communities to sustain their own community-driven sources of healthy, affordable food through green spaces and local businesses. While institutions, like K-12 schools, have traditionally been relied on as a solution to food access in low-income communities, these historical solutions have long been insufficient and inequitable. Funding must be directed to new sources of healthy food that are community-owned and will empower communities of color.
Health care
Covid-19 heightened the need for health insurance and access to healthcare facilities. The conversation surrounding the digital divide and access to technology must also include telehealth and support for families to receive healthcare services remotely and safely. Mental health, child safety, and healthy environments are additional aspects of health that are important to consider. Given the increased isolation children have experienced during lockdowns, ensuring that those children are living in safe home situations is more crucial than ever. Ultimately, investing in a comprehensive continuum of care is necessary to ensure families and children are safe and have their preventative healthcare needs met in a timely manner.
Housing
Housing is arguably the number one issue that concerns families residing in Los Angeles County, so it is unsurprising when discussing family priorities within Best Start geographies that housing came up consistently. Increasing job insecurity and financial strains from the pandemic have caused the high rent-burdened to feel even more strain. Policies must be quickly enacted to eliminate evictions and ensure housing security. In addition to improving housing security, investments will need to be directed to repurpose unused spaces for housing, health, and child care needs.
In Region 3, Regional Network Grantees quickly recognized the demand for direct service support. Best Start is not strictly a direct service program, so grantees like El Nido engaged other community partners to respond to the immediate needs they were hearing from families, such as rent assistance. The Care Portal is a network of churches and community members in the Region 3 area who want to support families in danger of losing their children to the foster care system. Through the Care Portal, case workers can submit stories and information for clients if all other avenues for assistance are exhausted. Examples of requests include monetary assistance which would allow families to avoid eviction. Churches often contributed to the requests made on the portal.
In Region 4, community members advocated for and won several significant policy wins in tenant protections and inclusionary housing for their communities. During the height of the pandemic, Best Start renters in Long Beach continued to experience severe harassment from their landlords despite being protected by the state eviction moratorium. The new anti-tenant harassment ordinance passed in November 2020 which bans landlords from these actions, with a violation subject to $2,000-$5,000 in fines. It is through the tireless efforts of community organizers and families that this ordinance passed, as they shared their stories and kept pressure on the Long Beach City Council to push this policy through.
Policies like this must quickly be enacted throughout the county to ensure housing security. In addition to improving housing security, investments will need to be directed to repurpose unused spaces for housing, health, and child care needs.
Transportation
Public transportation infrastructure is lacking in several parts of the county, in particular the Antelope Valley area, where families undergo severe commute times to and from their daily jobs. Families in the Antelope Valley also have a difficult time accessing healthcare facilities and services due to the lack of robust transportation infrastructure. Oftentimes, families who are facing immediate health crises are unable to get help for hours. In August of 2020, the Antelope Valley Transit Authority started a new program to improve transportation access. They began running until 1:00 a.m. and started an on-call service, so community members can be picked up by the bus. There is still a lot of work to do in the Antelope Valley and other areas that are disconnected from important services and resources because of the lack of accessible transportation options.
Public transportation is inherent to access, whether it is to grocery stores for food or child care centers for children. It is a core tenant of a community’s environment and requires robust infrastructure and investment to ensure all families are connected to essential services. In light of the pandemic, many families are feeling the consequences of poor public transportation infrastructure as inaccessibility worsens. Safety is also a growing concern as crowded buses further the spread of disease. A stronger public transportation infrastructure which includes more bus options and flexible transit improves the safety of both the rider and bus driver.
Data Search Tool
