Strategies + Initiatives
Where we’re focused
Every First 5 agency in California offers a unique set of services to improve early childhood development at the county level. In Alameda County, we’re focused on one major benchmark: children are ready for kindergarten, a marker for academic success. Guided by community data, our investments support the intersections between early childhood development, community and family conditions, and lifelong health.
How we promote the health and well-being of children and families
- Supporting children through a network of agencies and community organizations that provide child care services; enabling children to begin school healthy, ready and able to learn, and emotionally well-developed.
- Strengthening families by providing supports that enhance resilience and well-being, such as connecting families to resources and strengthening parenting knowledge and skills.
- Supporting professionals through access to up-to-date information, opportunities to develop new skills, and network-building so that child care providers can support one another.
- Advocating and communicating to affect policy by promoting, communicating about, and advocating for policies that affect the health and well-being of children during their most critical years of development.
Our current strategies
Program strategies
We provide support for centers, family child care (FCC) providers, and family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) providers. We help improve the quality of their services through coaching, training, professional development, technical assistance, and financial incentives and supports; and by funding community-based programming for children who are not in a licensed early educational setting. Learn more.
With this place-based investment, we focus on asset building and policy response informed by the relationship between neighborhood conditions, family and child well-being, and structural factors that contribute to overall health, development, and kindergarten readiness. Learn more.
We strengthen public system and community resources to engage, assess, and connect children (with a focus on Medi-Cal-enrolled families) to pediatric preventative care, medically necessary services, and community-based programming and support. Learn more.
Using parent leadership to inform programming and investments, we provide direct services to families and children with a focus on the health of birthing people and children 0-3 years.
Through training, strategic messaging, and high-quality father-centered services in collaboration with public systems and community-based organizations, we increase the representation and improve the experiences of men, fathers, and father-figures. Learn more.
Agency strategies
We support shared accountability, ongoing organizational learning, public awareness, and policy advocacy as part of our role in evolving the early childhood system. Learn more.
To build and evolve an equity-centered early childhood system, we put analysis, data, and coalitions to work and advocate for effective programs and public policies grounded in equity and justice. Learn more.
We provide and facilitate trainings to foster a diverse, capable provider workforce and create awareness of—and leadership within—the core components of the early childhood system. Learn more.
Every extra year of exposure to a positive childhood environment makes a significant impact on long-term outcomes.
Dr. Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Economics at Harvard University