The L.A. Compact has been busy this summer! Check out the L.A. Compact's updated workgroup descriptions and read up on our progress in the August workgroup update.

Stewardship Group

At their June meeting, the Stewardship Group discussed a process for updating and adopting additional big goals for the L.A. Compact. The Compact’s goals have not changed since partners first signed the agreement in 2010:

1) All students graduate from high school;

2) All students have access to and are prepared for success in college; and

3) All students have access to pathways to sustainable jobs and careers.

In 2017, the Compact will be considering additional goals related to the success of the whole child, school readiness, and equity. After agreeing on shared criteria for the goals revision process, the Stewardship Group created an Ad Hoc Goals Working Group to develop recommendations related to the new “whole child” goal. The Goals Working Group met on August 1 to seek consensus on defining priority elements of whole child success, such as social/emotional development, positive relationships, community connectedness, and leadership.

Additionally, the Compact will convene stakeholders in early childhood, postsecondary education and workforce development to advise further revisions to goals in these areas. 

Joint Advocacy Workgroup

The Joint Advocacy Workgroup celebrated a major victory in California’s 2017-18 budget signed by Governor Brown in June: allocation of $15.5 million in 2018 and $31 million ongoing to create the Emergency Child Care Bridge program for foster families. The Bridge program will provide:Foster families with an emergency voucher to help them pay for child care for up to six months following a child’s placement in their home. This voucher would pay for care while the foster parent is at work, school, or fulfilling training and home approval requirements.
Child care navigators to identify the long-term child care plan and immediate options for the child.
Trauma-informed training to child care programs that will serve foster youth.

 Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Collaborative

The L.A. Compact is partnering with the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to engage business, education, and civic leaders on LACCD's new strategic plan. The plan lays out LACCD's strategic vision and includes goals related to increasing certificate, degree and transfer completion; improving organizational effectiveness; and ensuring fiscal integrity.  On July 26, the Compact convened an Education Leaders Roundtable where cradle to career education partners, including members of the IHE Collaborative, provided feedback on the draft plan.

Los Angeles Educator Pathways Partnership (LAEPP): Since its June meeting where the LAEPP partners agreed on a plan for data analysis, UNITE-LA has contracted with Education Analytics to develop tools to assist the partners with a coordinated data analysis effort.  Education Analytics has executed a Data Use Agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District to allow them access to the shared data.  A subset of the partners will begin convening as a “Technical Advisory Group” to Education Analytics in August.

Student Success Workgroup:  In June, the Student Success Workgroup kicked off the summer with a look back at key milestones and group achievements during the 2016-2017 academic year. The conclusion of the school year also brought transitions in workgroup membership; new representatives from Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Dominguez Hills, and CSU Northridge joined the group in August. The Student Success Workgroup also gained representatives from LAUSD and Loyola Marymount University, adding valuable perspectives from K-12 education and from the private, nonprofit higher education sector.

In addition to building out its membership, the Student Success Workgroup has established goals for the 2017-2018 academic year, set a quarterly meeting schedule, and made progress in planning a fall 2017 convening of K-12, community college, and university math faculty and administrative leaders to focus on math pathway alignment. This convening will be timely, given the California State University system’s recent moves to reform algebra prerequisite requirements, overhaul assessment examinations, and transition from non-credit to credit-bearing developmental education. In developing the agenda for this convening, the group has consulted national experts from the Spokane Math Symposium, from the Dana Center at the University of Texas, Austin, and from the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium. The group will next convene via phone in early September to finalize details for its math pathways convening.

 Regional Workforce Systems Collaborative

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce is excited to announce the launch of the L.A. region’s first Center for Competitive Workforce, a public-private partnership dedicated to producing and sharing applied research, economic intelligence and labor market information.

The Center is a result of a partnership with the Chamber among L.A. County’s 19 community colleges, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, Southern California Leadership Council and the Center for Excellence for Labor Market Research at Mt. San Antonio College.  The Center will assess and analyze current labor supply, demand in specific occupations, and the growth of industries. Using this data, the Center will help inform workforce development priorities to create alignment among career technical education programs.  Additionally, the partnership will support the development of six regional industry councils which will be responsible for validating labor market data; advising colleges of the necessary occupational skills and workforce education performance objectives; and informing regional model curriculum and program design for regional adoption, program development and modification.  The Chamber will lead the health care and tech councils for the consortium. 

 L.A. Compact Data Workgroup

At its last meeting on July 14^th, the L.A. Compact Data Workgroup discussed recommendations for indicators that will better track outcomes and progress for special populations of students—including foster youth—across ECE, K-12, Higher Ed, and Workforce.  The group is nearing completion of the indicator lists and will be working in consultation with content experts in ECE, Higher Ed and Workforce prior to finalizing our recommendations on optimal indicators to track Compact progress.  
 
Health Sector Collaborative: The Health Sector Collaborative is working with the Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) to develop a dissemination plan for their new hospital workforce white paper, a document-updating stakeholders with new hospital workforce figures for the region

L.A. Opportunity Youth Collaborative (OYC), convened by the Alliance for Children’s Rights

Launched Youth In Partnership (YIP) Pilot with DPSS, WDACS, DCFS, Shields, AYE, Westside Family Services and the LA TAY Collaborative:

• 10 youth graduated in June and cohort #2 begins in the fall
• Led an Employment Workgroup at #Hack Foster Care LA.
• Integrated P3 provider resources into LAOYC.org Resource Guide 

OYC Stewardship Group:  At its August 1^st meeting, the OYC Stewardship Group reviewed progress across the collaborative’s diverse initiatives and discussed strategies for how the OYC should be engaged in addressing the significant housing and homelessness issues faced by L.A. County’s transition-age foster youth. The group began discussing the formation of an impact strategy for the OYC to identify more targeted goals and metrics that will guide collaborative strategies moving forward.

OYC Quarterly Meeting:  The OYC held its quarterly convening in June on the topic of career technical education (CTE) at Los Angeles Southwest College, featuring Dr. Ryan Cornner, Vice Chancellor with the Los Angeles Community College District.  The majority of foster youth enrolling in postsecondary schools in California attend community colleges. 83% of young adults who have experienced foster care want to attend college (Courtney, & Charles, 2015); 40% complete at least one year of college, and only 8% earn a degree (Courtney, Dworsky, Brown, Cary, Love, & Vorhies, 2011). Too often, for students who are or have been in foster care, the path to college achievement is prescribed, narrow, and full of bumpy terrain comprised of remediation, limited support and resources, and unfulfilled basic needs. What’s more, advisors and mentors often communicate a bias in favor of four-year universities, misconstruing the value of career technical education and the worth of vocational skills in the job marketplace. CTE should not be a path that is overlooked for foster youth transitioning into adulthood. 

Dr. Cornner highlighted critical elements of the Los Angeles College Promise, which serves LAUSD and charter school graduating seniors through a comprehensive strategy and set of supports designed to make sure students “start right” on their way to “ending right” with a degree, university transfer or workforce certificate in a timely and efficient manner.  Using the LA College Promise model for a foster youth CTE pathway is one promising way to put foster youth transitioning to adulthood on a trajectory for career success. The LA College Promise is not only about free tuition; it is also about providing additional support so students can successfully navigate their first year in college.  Dr. Cornner and his team outlined different CTE pathways that lead to jobs offering living wages and stackable credits toward a baccalaureate degree, and the group began to think through strategies for realigning the guidance we provide to foster students. Increasing our awareness of CTE options and leveraging the LA Promise for the benefit of foster youth is the type of rethinking we need and foster youth deserve. To learn more about the L.A. College Promise, click here. To view an infographic on California’s CTE options,  click here

 LA OYC Jobs for Foster Youth:

• Completed cohorts #7 and #8 of the iFoster Jobs program in San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles.
• Began planning, outreach, and enrollment for the iFoster Jobs Program, Cohort #9 starting in early September featuring trainings at CRCD’s Academy and Compton College.  Presented the iFoster Jobs Program to DCFS regional offices in SPA 6. 
• Partnered with WDACS Year Round Employment enrollment fair at LA Southwest College. 
• Conducted outreach to connect foster youth to the 100K Opportunities Hiring Expo at USC.
• Met Deputy CEO, Stephanie Wiggins, with Metro to discuss strategies around the BOS Motion on educational and vocational training program via Metro.

LA OYC Young Leaders:

• Young Leaders received separate trainings on child welfare policy, public speaking and strategic sharing. 
• Launched the Advocacy Academy, a trauma-informed training in public speaking, strategic sharing, and advocacy. 
• A Young Leader served as the keynote speaker for the DMH TAY Convening.
• A Young Leader hosted the PBS So-Cal Foster Change Initiative. 
• Conducted four TAY focus groups on employment and education.

OYC Foster Youth College Advancement Program (FYCAP), convened by the John Burton Foundation and UNITE-LA:

FYCAP is experiencing a busy summer! In June, the group worked with the Office of LAUSD Board Member Mónica García to develop a board resolution to amend the district’s current Cal-PASS Plus MOU to include foster youth data. The resolution passed on consent and the district’s Office of Data and Accountability has already executed an updated MOU that will enable LAUSD to track foster youth cohort indicators beyond high school, such as college enrollment, financial aid attainment, and college success rates.

The FYCAP partners also engaged the L.A. County Department of Workforce Development, Aging, and Community Services to enroll Mt. San Antonio College and Cal Poly Pomona as summer employment sites so that the campuses may provide subsidized on-campus employment for foster youth. This will address both the limited employment opportunities for youth in the region while also promoting youth’s college retention.

Between June and August, the FYCAP partners helped facilitate three planning meetings with L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) leadership and staff in the Palmdale and Lancaster regional offices to develop a coordinated service delivery plan to support Antelope Valley foster youth to college. This effort will embed college planning activities within DCFS core practices, such as within Child and Family Team meetings, within transition to independent living and 90-day transition plans, and within referrals to the DCFS Independent Living Program and to external community-based services. In this work, the partners have made efforts to align to regional efforts by groups like FosterEd, Antelope Valley College, and L.A. County Office of Education (LACOE) Regional Learning Network. 

Working with the Children’s Law Center (CLC), the FYCAP partners also updated court orders from the 18 and Up Court (formerly the Non-Minor Dependent Court) to include stronger provisions for postsecondary planning. The FYCAP partners will next convene in full on August 22nd with ad-hoc committee meetings in between to advance various aspects of this work. 

100K Opportunities Los Angeles Coalition (100K), convened by Leader’s Up

The Los Angeles 100,000 Opportunities Coalition Initiative™ (LA 100k Coalition) comprised of LeadersUp, The Alliance for Children’s Rights, Opportunity Youth Collaborative (OYC), iFoster and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce collaboratively developed a multi-year Strategic Plan in July 2017.  This Strategic Plan includes the following set of core goals with corresponding objectives that will be delivered over an 18-month project term by the 100K LA Coalition Partners:      

• Construct a Robust Cross-Sector Collaborative;
• Elevate Youth Voice, Ownership and Engagement;
• Leverage Employer Commitments;
• Build a Sustainable Infrastructure;
• Leverage Public Resources; and
• Integrate 100,000 Opportunities Initiative™ into a long-term OY Strategy.

Leaders Up led a NET Opportunity Career Expo in partnership with USC Civic Engagement on June 20th.  The LA 100k Coalition intermediary partners supported the success of the event to connect opportunity youth with hiring employers.  In total, 661 job seekers attended the event, 22 employer partners conducted on-site interviews, 529 interviews conducted on site, and 323 conditional offers of employment were made.  Job seekers were 43% Black or African American and 39% Hispanic or Latino with 36% high school diploma or GED equivalency and 21% enrolled in community college or trade school.

Los Angeles Performance Partnership Pilot (LAP3), convened by LA City EWDD and LA County WDACS: In July 2017, LA EWDD finalized and published LA Performance Partnership Pilot’s (LA P3) Strategic Plan.  At the LA P3 quarterly meeting on August 2nd, LA EWDD and partners unveiled the LA P3 Strategic Plan Rollout.  One highlight of the meeting’s agenda featured several transition-aged P3 Ambassadors from different YouthSource sites discussing how the program helped them and expressing their gratitude for both a job and being able to help the next generation.  “They were able to help me get back on track,” said Ashly Palomares, one of the LAP3 Youth Ambassadors at the event. “Now I’m at Cal State LA working toward becoming a social worker.” The meeting also highlighted current implementation status of the LAP3 collaborative model.  “We’re really seeing that the model is working,” said Angela Rosales, Youth Systems Integration Manager for Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a LAP3 partner.