Description:
As First 5 LA celebrates its 15th year, it is taking stock of its myriad of past achievements, celebrating progress, and planning for future opportunities and challenges ahead. A key ingredient of this work is to better understand the "landscape" of early care and education (ECE) in Los Angeles County; that is, the current state of access to ECE programs for families of young children, the nature of the ECE workforce, and the quality of ECE in Los Angeles County. The following report describes ECE access, workforce, and quality separately in three parts. The first part of the report focuses on families' access to ECE services, by describing the population of children under five years of age living in Los Angeles County, identifying the early learning opportunities that are available to them and where they are located, and determining areas in the county where need exceeds services. The second part of this report looks at the professionals who provide ECE services in the county including their backgrounds, training, and qualifications, as well as the professional development opportunities available to these professionals. The third part of this report investigates the quality of ECE programs in Los Angeles County largely through data from the three Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (ORIS) efforts in the county. This report is the first in a series of three reports. The second report is titled "Past Roles and Strategies of First 5 LA and Other Funders" and the third report is titled "Opportunities and Considerations for Addressing ECE Gaps in Los Angeles County." (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Executive Summary
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