Career Pathways and the Economic Impact of Early Care & Education Industry in L.A.
Overview
Only eight states have a population larger than Los Angeles County, and more than 170,000 babies were born in Los Angeles in 2006 alone. The early care and education (ECE) industry in Los Angeles has a huge task to prepare these children for school and enable their parents to work. To identify ways to strengthen the ECE industry, the Insight Center worked with a unique collaboration between the City of Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board; the County of Los Angeles Child Care Planning Committee; and Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP). These three agencies pooled resources to create the first ever career pathways and economic impact study of the ECE industry in the City and County of Los Angeles.
The Insight Center staff and key partners in Los Angeles formed two advisory groups to complete the studies. First, a technical advisory group comprising experts in early care and education data and research helped to ensure the study methodologies were accurate, comprehensive, and credible. An advisory board of business leaders, ECE experts and economic development specialists gave feedback on the findings and developed recommendations for strengthening the ECE workforce and outcomes for Los Angeles’ children.
Outcomes
In early 2008, the partners co-hosted an event to release the findings and engage key leaders in Los Angeles in a discussion about how to strengthen the ECE system. LAUP announced that it would form a workforce task force to address issues of the workforce and implement recommendations in the report. The Workforce Investment Board presented the findings to its Board of Directors.
ECE leaders in Los Angeles continue to advance workforce efforts. First 5 LA has funded efforts to recruit high school students into ECE training programs and to develop career development initiatives across the county. LAUP awarded grants to collaborative teams of community colleges, universities, and feeder high schools to implement innovative projects to excite and promote entry into the ECE industry. During the first year of implementation, 2007 – 08, grantees developed, implemented and expanded programs designed to recruit, train, advance and/or support program participants.