September 4, 2024
Long-time Community Leader Chosen to Help Guide L.A. County’s Largest Early Childhood Advocacy Organization, Centering Community Voice, Racial Equity and Social Justice.
LOS ANGELES, CA (September 4, 2024) – First 5 LA, a leading early childhood advocacy organization, is pleased to announce the appointment of Aurea Montes-Rodriguez as its new Vice President of Community Engagement and Policy. Montes-Rodriguez’s deep ties in the South Los Angeles community and legacy of successful advocacy on behalf of Black, Latino and LGBTQAI+ communities underscore First 5 LA’s commitment to equity and racial justice for the county’s youngest citizens and their families. In her new role, Montes-Rodriguez will lead efforts to integrate data, community engagement, and public policy, aiming to center equity and racial justice in our work through system change that serves young children and their families.
Montes-Rodriguez brings extensive experience from her tenure at Community Coalition (CoCo), a South L.A.-based organization focused on addressing systemic issues such as poverty, violence, and educational inequity. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President at CoCo. Over her 27-year career there, she played a key role in the organization’s fiscal growth and elevated its work as a prominent social movement organization both locally and nationally by spearheading efforts such as co-founding the Make LA Whole Coalition, which brings attention to the needs of children, women and over-policed communities; and a multi-year kinship care campaign, focused on improving the lives of African American and Latine foster children.
Her accomplishments have been recognized by leading organizations such as Catalyst California, the ACLU of Southern California, and the Tides Foundation. In 2022, she was awarded the Stanton Fellowship for her inquiry into gender and new community approaches to cultivate women’s leadership.
“I am thrilled to welcome Aurea to First 5 LA to help lead the important work of ensuring community voices of families guide our public policy work,” said First 5 LA President and CEO Karla Pleitéz Howell. “Her proven ability to influence change at the policy and systems level in the service of creating a more equitable and socially just L.A. County is inspiring. I look forward to our entire organization and the communities we serve working closely with her to ensure that every child in L.A. County has what they need to thrive.”
The role of Vice President of Community Engagement and Policy was created to enhance First 5 LA’s ability to effectively execute its 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. This role supports the organization’s core approaches of partnering with communities to collaboratively grow social movements in support of our youngest children and their families, strengthen public systems, and catalyze public policy efforts at the local, state, and federal levels. Montes-Rodriguez will oversee First 5 LA’s Center for Community Engagement & Policy.
“I am honored to take on this vital and important work,” said Montes-Rodriguez. “Our children truly are our future, and for too long, systemic inequities have inhibited their true potential. In collaboration with my new colleagues, I hope to support First 5 LA’s efforts to center community wisdom, focus on the context surrounding disturbing data trends, and find effective solutions to the historic barriers that impede so many young children’s development.”
Montes-Rodriguez will step into her new role on Sept. 30, 2024.
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About First 5 LA
As the state’s largest funder of early childhood development and an independent public agency, First 5 LA works to strengthen systems, parents and communities to support the safe and healthy development of young children guided by our vision of a future where every child is born healthy and thrives in a nurturing, safe and loving community. Learn more at www.first5la.org to read more about our 2024-2029 Strategic Plan, for our latest news and information, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
