April 25, 2019
Southern California
Michael Wilkening, Ex Officio Member
Health and Human Services Agency
First 5 California advocates directly to state and federal policy makers for the strong start all children deserve, with an emphasis on children prenatal through age 5 and their families, to optimize early childhood development and reduce childhood poverty. F5CA’s Strategic Plan and authority granted under Proposition 10 require First 5 California to be a policy leader and partner in order to bring innovation in children’s policy to scale throughout California.
First 5 California’s state and federal policy work is guided by its Children’s Policy Agenda and the latest in research and innovations by its First 5 partners.
In this section you will find First 5 California’s Children’s Policy Agenda, Legislation of Interest, State Legislation & Advocacy materials, Federal Legislation & Advocacy materials, Policy Recommendations including the Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth through Age 8 report, and Developing a Single-Rate System Reimbursement Structure for California white paper, and Advocacy Tools including the First 5 Town Hall Toolkit and sample letters of support.
First 5 California annually adopts a Children’s Policy Agenda to guide and prioritize all Commission state and federal legislative and regulatory advocacy, aligned to our three Strategic Plan areas.
2019 Children’s Policy Agenda |
California needs a single, regionalized reimbursement rate system for child care, preschool, and early learning services that achieves the following vision:
First 5 California supports the development of short and long term state policy recommendations, in partnership with other organizations, in order to achieve the goals of our Children’s Policy Agenda. First 5 California is a partner in a statewide systems change effort based on recommendations from the Institutes of Medicine and National Research Council’s report: Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation.
For more information, visit http://twb8-ca.net/.
First 5 Town Hall Toolkit: Sharing the First 5 Story
First 5 California, building on the goals of our Strategic Plan, created a Town Hall Toolkit that enables First 5 county commissions to plan, create, and execute a town hall-type event designed to build public will and investment within with local and state partners within their communities.
Find sample and template letters of support for Children’s Policy Agenda bills here: