LOS ANGELES---The First 5 LA Commission today approved the Central Long Beach area as its second Best Start LA demonstration community, clearing the way for an investment of up to $9.7 million to improve the well-being of that community's infants and toddlers. Best Start LA's vision is to help create environments that support the growth and development of young children while strengthening existing community resources.
The First 5 LA Commission funds will be used to launch broad-based partnership with families, community organizations, urban planning specialists, government agencies and neighborhood associations in Long Beach who all share a commitment to build resources and provide access to activities that improve the development and care of children age 3 and under, and provide quality care and resources to pregnant women and parents of newborns.
"Best Start LA focuses on the first few years of life because they are critical to making sure that children get the best start in life in order to reach their full potential," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, chairman of the First 5 LA Commission.
With its first demonstration community located in the Magnolia Place neighborhood of Central Los Angeles near the University of Southern California, Best Start LA is a multi-year, place-based investment created by First 5 LA that aims to shape and strengthen community support for young children. The Best Start approach is to build investment leveraging and sustainability strategies into the implementation and design of the program so that First 5 LA's investment will capitalize on those of other funders and make a lasting difference in youngsters' lives. Under a new strategic plan adopted in June, First 5 LA's Commission charted a course for similar place-based investments where children and families face significant need. The Commission will target 10 to 20 communities for place-based funding over the next five years.
Among Best Start LA's goals are: strengthening a family's ability to understand and actively address their child's health, development, needs and uniqueness; strengthening local community mobilization and advocacy to improve children's lives and the neighborhoods in which they live; and increasing the ability of families to foster the development of their children so that they are ready for school.
"Best Start LA emphasizes the important role a community plays in the lives of children and the need for communities to be supportive and friendly to young children," said Evelyn V. Martinez, executive director of First 5 LA.
The strategy for the Long Beach Best Start demonstration community, which is mostly situated between Wardlow and Seventh streets, also includes plans to work with up to three hospitals to implement Welcome Baby!, a program designed to help improve the number of women who successfully breastfeed their infants and promote healthy child development in the first year of life.
First 5 LA will also align its efforts with those of another funder, The California Endowment, to create sustainable health and safety improvements in the Central Long Beach community.
The California Endowment's Building Healthy Communities initiative, a 10-year statewide commitment to advance policies and forge partnerships to build healthy communities and a healthy California, includes a similar place-based approach to achieve outcomes such as shifting health and family-focused human services resources toward prevention, health-promoting land use, transportation and community development and linking economic development to community health improvements.
For more information on Best Start LA click here. About First 5 LA
First 5 LA, a child advocacy organization, was created by California voters to invest Proposition 10 tobacco tax revenues, it supports programs for improving the lives of children from prenatal through age 5 in Los Angeles County. First 5 LA champions health, education and safety causes concerning young children and families.
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