Follow our Workgroup and Collaborative updates for the months of September and October 2017

Current list and description of L.A. Compact collaborative initiatives>> 

Stewardship Group

The L.A. Compact Ad Hoc Goal working group met in August and September to formulate draft language for a new fourth goal related to the success of the whole child. Working group members included representation from LAUSD, Mayor Garcetti’s Office, UTLA, AALA, Cal State Dominguez Hills, and the L.A. Area Chamber. The group reviewed several youth developmental models, including research on social and emotional skills and the Ready by 21 framework. Suggested goal language was reviewed and revised by the Stewardship Group at their Oct 20th meeting.

At its August and October meetings, the Stewardship Group worked on developing a list of Beliefs and Principles of Collaboration to document what it means to be a collaborative partner through the L.A. Compact. When finalized, the Beliefs and Principles of Collaboration will become part of the agreement between the Compact’s 24 signatories.

 L.A. Regional STEM Hub

UNITE-LA, the education and workforce development affiliate of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, has partnered with the Amgen Foundation to continue the Amgen Biotech Experience-Los Angeles (ABE-LA) program.  UNITE-LA will enhance ABE-LA outreach to underserved students and increase diversity and inclusion in under-resourced schools across the great Los Angeles area. Learn more>>

Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Collaborative 

Los Angeles Educator Pathways Partnership (LAEPP):  The Los Angeles Educator Pathways Partnership’s “Technical Advisory Group” met for the first time via video conference with Education Analytics in September.  The group is working with Education Analytics to develop data analysis and visualization tools to allow teacher preparation program partners and LAUSD to answer some of their agreed-upon research questions.  The partners will reconvene this fall to review some of the early data analysis.

Student Success Workgroup:  The Student Success Workgroup recently won designation for Los Angeles as one of seventeen “Talent Hub” sites nationwide for its work to develop a reverse transfer partnership in the San Fernando Valley. Talent Hubs is an initiative of the Lumina Foundation, a private philanthropic organization dedicated to increasing postsecondary attainment in the U.S. in order to promote informed citizenship and success in a global economy. As a Talent Hub, the L.A. Compact higher education partners will work to streamline transfer pathways between California State University, Northridge and three L.A. Community College District campuses in the San Fernando Valley to enable adults with “some college, no degree” to complete a college credential more efficiently.

The Student Success Workgroup also spent the month of September finalizing plans to host a convening focused on student success in college math. Entitled “Working Across Systems to Promote College Math Readiness,” this event will bring together approximately 45 faculty and administrative leaders from across L.A. Unified, the L.A. Community College District, and partnering four-year universities in the area. The event will take place Thursday, November 2nd at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Finally, the Student Success Workgroup also welcomed Dr. Patricia Turner of UCLA to the workgroup. As Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, Dr. Turner will contribute a valuable perspective of how our local University of California campus can work collaboratively to improve student success in the region. The next meeting of the Student Success Workgroup will be on Tuesday, November 7th. 

Regional Workforce Systems Collaborative

The Regional Workforce Systems Collaborative and its partners launched the Center for a Competitive Workforce in September to assist employers, workforce development organizations and educational institutions in meeting labor market demand. The Center is a partnership of the 19 L.A. community colleges, the Chamber, the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, the Center of Excellence for Labor Market Research at Mt. San Antonio College and the Southern California Leadership Council. It will combine research on the demand for talent with the formation of six regional industry councils. These councils will be responsible for validating labor market data, advising on necessary occupational skills, and designing curriculum and programs. The L.A. Area Chamber will lead the health services, and the information and communications councils for the consortium. The other four councils will focus on entertainment and digital media, aerospace, advanced transportation and bioscience. The Center’s partners believe that this coordination will position our region for great success as the economy transitions at an accelerated pace toward intellectual property and knowledge as primary factors for job performance.

Recently, the Center released its first report, L.A. & Orange County Community Colleges: Powering Economic Opportunity that includes an analysis of 20 middle-skill occupations for which community colleges offer degree and certificate programs. It is estimated there will be approximately 67,450 job openings over the next five years in these 20 occupations. According to the latest data available for the academic year 2014-15, only 7,800 academic awards were conferred in programs training these 20 target occupations. If this trend continues, only 58 percent of the labor demand in the region will be met during the next five years. Post-secondary institutions now have valuable information to guide decisions on investments necessary to fill skills gaps. This data will help build systems and curriculum that tightly align workforce development programs with the needs of local business and industry.

First 5 LA has entered into 8 Strategic Partnerships with school districts and communities to collect Kindergarten Readiness data using the Early Development Instrument (EDI). School districts and communities include:

1. City of Pasadena, Office of the Young Child
2. Connections for Children (Santa Monica)
3. El Monte City School District
4. Los Angeles Unified School District Local District South
5. Mountain View School District
6. Pomona Unified School District
7. Rosemead School District
8. Valle Lindo School District

Data collection for 6 of these school districts will begin in February and continue through March 2018.

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

OYC Stewardship Group: The OYC Stewardship Committee will convene on Wednesday November 8th from 12-2pm at the LA Chamber of Commerce. The scheduling of this meeting has a dual purpose of enhancing the OYC presence at the L.A. Performance Partnership Pilot (LAP3) meeting that morning and discussing follow-ups on an impact statement for the Stewardship group. The meeting will also feature a discussion on strategies to address foster youth’s challenges with homelessness.

OYC Quarterly Meeting: The OYC Quarterly meeting will be held at Goodwill Southern California on November 15th from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm.  This convening will feature data from recent youth focus groups on education and employment, a panel of foster youth addressing the need for more youth-centered, youth driven systems and programs, and an update on the recent L.A. County Board of Supervisors’ motion on TAY Self-Sufficiency from Harvey Kawasaki of from L.A. County’s Chief Executive Office. 

iFoster Jobs Program: iFoster recently wrapped up their Fall cohort of training and assessment for the iFoster Jobs Program.  During the months of August and September, iFoster and the L.A. TAY Collaborative held simultaneous workforce development trainings at Compton and L.A. Trade Tech Colleges.  The culminating event was an assessment day at iFoster’s new offices at the WeWork Fine Arts Building in Los Angeles.  Aside from the general testing, youth were given mock interviews by local hiring managers, HR representatives, and executives from public and private organizations.

OYC Young Leaders: Demontea Thompson, YL, spoke at the Fostering Connections to Higher Education Summit on October 3rd. 4 young leaders: Doniesha Thomas, Jesse De La Cruz, Autumn Taylor, and Catherine Gonzalez all received scholarships to attend the BluePrint Conference, that took place from October 15th-October 17th. This conference connected those who work with foster youth, or are foster youth themselves, to help youth prepare, enroll and succeed in college. Young Leaders Flo Valenzuela and Demontea Thompson will both speak on Saturday October 28th for the organization United Friends of the Children’s College Within Reach conference, to share their experience with other foster youth wanting to pursue higher education. We also had our monthly meeting with the young leaders on Saturday October 14th to discuss active participation in workgroups as well as a personal development workshop on entrepreneurship.

Foster Youth Career Pathways/Subsidized Jobs, convened by UNITE-LA: In October, the L.A. Area Chamber Foundation submitted a proposal in response to the California Workforce Development Board’s Accelerator 6.0 RFP to develop a Foster Youth Accelerator Network in the L.A. region. The primary goal of the Foster Youth Accelerator Network will be to enhance and integrate a regional referral and enrollment process for foster youth between L.A. County’s child welfare system and workforce development programs. If funded, the proposal would build from the successes and lessons of the OYC Subsidized Jobs workgroup and the LA P3 Strategic Plan which identifies the enrollment of AB 12 youth in regional WIOA programs as a primary strategy.

OYC Foster Youth College Advancement Program (FYCAP), convened by the John Burton Foundation and UNITE-LA: The OYC Foster Youth College Advancement Project (FYCAP) has been working closely with key child welfare stakeholders in L.A. County to improve higher education outcomes for foster youth. In August, it hosted another strategic planning session with the L.A. County DCFS Regional Offices in the Antelope Valley to develop a pilot that will better support youth ages 14 and up in college planning. The FYCAP partners assisted DCFS regional leaders in identifying students to participate in this pilot and cleaning students’ educational records, bringing up record accuracy to over 90%.

The FYCAP partners also secured a letter from the entire L.A. County Board of Supervisors supporting SB 12 (Beall), which was signed by Governor Brown in October. Among other provisions, this new law will require all county child welfare agencies statewide to identify in a foster youth’s case plan who will be assisting the youth to complete college and financial aid applications. The pilot in the Antelope Valley is thus timely, and will help the agency implement this provision of SB 12.

In September, FYCAP trained 100+ counselors from the LAUSD Foster Youth Achievement Program and the DCFS Independent Living Program (ILP) on financial aid application processes and college support resources. FYCAP is now working with both groups to plan a series of three L.A. Cash for College workshops in late October and early November to directly assist foster youth with completing their financial aid applications and complete their ILP eligibility screenings.

Lastly, on October 3rd FYCAP partnered with Court Scholars to host a regional convening of 120 DCFS ILP workers, peer advocates and caseworkers from the Children’s Law Center, and campus support program staff from across L.A. County colleges and universities. The purpose of the convening was to connect service providers who are working with transition-age foster youth and youth in extended foster care so that they can better collaborate to help youth navigate college. Judge Margaret Henry, presiding judge of the Non-Minor Dependent Court and the Edelman Children’s Courthouse, provided keynote remarks. FYCAP will next convene on Monday, October 30th to continue developing its strategies around financial aid attainment for foster youth.

100K Opportunities Los Angeles Coalition (100K), convened by iFoster, the Alliance for Children's Rights and UNITE-LA: The LA 100k Coalition partners traveled to Aspen, Colorado in October to participate in the Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund annual fall convening which brings together hundreds of intermediaries, advocates, youth, and employers to discuss strategies to support career pathways for opportunity youth. The LA 100k partners had the opportunity to hear from several employers who are reviewing and revising their own internal processes to improve the hiring and retention of opportunity youth.

Performance Partnership Pilot (P3), convened by L.A. City EWDD: The CSU5, an alliance of the five California State Universities in Los Angeles County, is working to establish a multi-campus institute to sustain key aspects of the Los Angeles Performance Partnership Pilot’s mission.  The focus is on sustainable systemic change that will provide support to public sector and nonprofit organizations in improving education, employment, housing, and health and well-being outcomes for disconnected youth (16-24) throughout the Los Angeles Basin.  The name for the Institute is descriptive of its vision: the Reconnecting LA Youth (ReLAY) Institute. Establishing the ReLAY Institute will increase collective action and leadership that will build and strengthen the capacity of public systems, nonprofits, and other service providers to achieve demonstrated results for disconnected youth. The ReLAY Institute is a central strategy of the LAP3 Strategic Plan which was adopted and endorsed by the Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles Unified School District and Los Angeles Community College District. The plan and the creation of the ReLAY Institute was also supported by CSU Chancellor Tim White in a recent letter to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.  The Institute will launch a collaborative planning process in the coming months.