As COVID-19 cases increased, it became clear that no one agency could provide LA County ECE providers with the support they needed to navigate the pandemic. OAECE, LA County Office of Education, and First 5 LA met to discuss the situation and decided to invite key stakeholders to create the Response Team. The goal of the Response Team is to stabilize the ECE system and support child care services. As a collaborative, it was imperative to invite innovative leaders who had the will and the organizational support to respond quickly to community needs. Every partner brought unique strengths to the work. Once the Team launched in March 2020, the participants met weekly to assure prompt response to emerging issues. Planning took place through shared leadership with OAECE bringing topical expertise on the public health approach to COVID, LA County Office of Education providing technology support, and First 5 LA facilitating the meetings; while all partners shared ECE expertise. Although roles evolved as the pandemic shifted, it was essential to begin by identifying each organization’s skills to maximize collective assets.
Since the Response Team remained nimble to community needs as they arose, activities evolved over time. A critical early step was the development of partnerships with the health sector and other key sectors to ensure workforce access to child care. Next, the Team addressed supply needs. LACOE, the LA Education Foundation, and the Center for Strategic Partnerships focused on soliciting donations, while Child Care Alliance of LA, Child Care Resource Center, and Pomona Resource and Referral established a distribution system. The Response Team worked with the LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment to develop a unified ask to philanthropic partners for $1,000,000 to support technology needed to enhance Resource and Referral capacity, supply distribution, and stop gap funding for 1,000 child-care vouchers for low-income workers. The Team orchestrated acquisition and distribution of over 9 million items, including diapers, facemasks, books, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, and thermometers for providers. This strategy was led by the Child Care Alliance of LA in partnership with the County’s seven Resource and Referral agencies. To support this effort, First 5 LA rented a commercial warehouse for receiving and sorting the shipments.
At the same time, the Team sought to ensure that providers were kept abreast of information in an ever-changing state of emergency. OAECE and First 5 LA took responsibility for organizing and leading webinars and developing a best practice website. During a time when many felt isolated, the Response Team convened 21 community-wide briefings to inform ECE stakeholders about public health guidance and policies, vaccination safety, availability of resources, and mental health support. These calls averaged over 500 participants. The Response Team enlisted VIVA Social Impact Partners to support development of a streamlined, provider-and parent-friendly website showcasing original content and videos that modeled ways to achieve compliance with public health guidelines. All of these efforts were designed to apply to both center-based and family child-care environments and infant/toddler care.
All partners had a role in vaccination coordination, while OAECE, the Child Care Alliance, and 11 alternate payment agencies led child-care voucher distribution. To ensure that the County health system could continue to function, partnerships were developed with hospitals and emergency responder agencies (Child and Family services, Mental Health, Fire, Sherriff) to identify staff in need of child care. The County partnered with the Hospital Association of Southern California and these agencies to provide information and promotional materials for employees. In January 2021, the Response Team once again switched gears as vaccines became available. The coalition worked closely with LA County Public Health to disseminate information about vaccine eligibility, availability, safety, and the MyTurn appointment scheduling system. These efforts included specific clinics for ECE workers hosted by Children’s Hospital LA and appointments reserved at County Mega Points of Distribution (PODs). To assure that these resources were reaching ECE providers the Response Team administered a survey. Over 80% of respondents reported getting a vaccine appointment. Of those who had not, the biggest challenge cited was fear or distrust of the vaccine. Using this information, the Team enlisted a communications consultant and the statewide First 5 Association to create materials on vaccine safety. In April 2021 the Response Team partnered with the City of Los Angeles and College Promise to hire five students to support survey administration. The students communicated with surveyed ECE providers, addressed concerns, and provided information around the COVID-19 vaccine.
Community power was established by following an asset-based approach and engaging partners based explicitly on the strengths they brought to the effort and a shared motivation to act. Although LA County faced an unprecedented pandemic, every member of the Response Team had strengths to contribute to the solution. Particularly critical was the alignment established between LA City and LA County regarding ECE. At the beginning of the pandemic, each was developing its own strategies and its own quest for philanthropic support. The Response Team averted competition by inviting LA City to join in a unified approach. This led to the ability to focus donation requests, pool resources, coordinate across public systems, and align investments. By leveraging this partnership, LA County and LA City maximized federal funding through CARES Act to increase child care access for low-income families and essential workers.