The Center’s mission is to support cross-sector collaborations that transform Los Angeles County systems, policies, and practices to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families, using an equity lens to guide our work.

Within Our Mission

We are committed to seeking systems change in four shared priority areas, following the lead of advocates, community members, people with lived experience, and philanthropic partners, in alignment with County aspirations and goals:

  • Child & Family Well-Being: Strengthen families and communities by building a 21st century child well-being system that integrates a public health approach, including a focus on the social determinants of health.
  • Youth Development and Empowerment: Support systems changes that create a holistic continuum of community-based services to prioritize positive youth development and reduce or eliminate our current juvenile justice system.
  • Health Equity: Decrease health disparities in historically under-resourced regions of the County by increasing supports and connections to physical, behavioral, and wellness health services.
  • Economic Security: Advance financial opportunity, growth, and security for families and youth by identifying, leveraging, and expanding coordination and reach of economic supports.

Anti-Racist Organization

We feel the pain and acknowledge the suffering that racism causes and commit ourselves to listening and learning, and to taking action to do better and to be better. To quote Ibram Kendi, we are committed to “securing anti-racist policies that will lead to life, health, equity and justice for all, to act from anti-racist ideas that value black lives, that equalize all the racial groups in all their aesthetic and cultural differences.”

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Why Public-Private Partnership?

Los Angeles County and the philanthropic community share a common goal of improving the lives of vulnerable children and families living in this region. They each aspire to dismantle the systemic racism that has created deep inequities in the Center’s priority areas of child well-being, juvenile justice, health, and economic security.

Leaders from both sectors want bold changes that will impact children and families for generations: To reform the juvenile justice system and end the school-to-prison pipeline. To eliminate health disparities. To expand economic opportunity and build an anti-racist 21st century child well-being system that strengthens all families. In short, they want Angelenos to thrive.

These leaders also understand that eliminating the root causes of inequality will require creating solutions in partnership with each other and with the community. Each sector brings something the other needs.

The County’s funding, scope, and ability to take new solutions to scale make it a must-have partner for philanthropists who want to magnify their impact. Government also has an unparalleled view of the problems that need to be addressed, including access to vast amounts of data and staff who are intimately familiar with the daily challenges families face.

Philanthropic partners bring flexibility and speed to pilot projects, research and evaluations. Free from the pressures of direct service delivery, foundations can offer fresh ideas to illuminate long standing challenges.

The Center’s task is to bring the two sectors together, nurture their relationships, facilitate partnerships, and help them accomplish their shared goals.

People

History

People

History