The State of Early Care and Education in Los Angeles County: The 2017 Needs Assessment

Situation: Every 5 years, the Child Care Planning Committee in Los Angeles County is required to complete a needs assessment to determine what gaps there are in the quality and access to childcare.

Task: I was charged with completing a secondary data analysis from data collected between 2012-2017 from First 5 California and Mathematica Policy Research as part of a team of four at First 5 LA.

Action: As with any data, it is important to be able to provide context to and tell a story with the data. While I provided descriptive and correlative statistics from the data, I also worked closely with a researcher at First 5 California and Mathematica Policy Research to tell a clear story with the data. I then drafted visuals using the principles put forth by Stephanie Evergreen, so that our communications team had a draft to polish and adjust accordingly.

Result: Upon completion of the data analysis, I presented the data and suggested solutions to the members of the Child Care Planning Committee to solicit feedback on solutions. Then, I also presented the final presentation, including solutions to those attending the RAND Annual Community Conference on Early Care and Education. The final data analysis, subsequent report and solutions/recommendations were elevated to the state level for policy considerations.