In June 2020, Children’s Institute launched its Office of Equity (OOE) to ensure the organization’s mission-driven work serving families in Los Angeles is delivered with an unwavering commitment to anti-racism and social justice. Equity is one of CII’s four core values and the newly formed OOE will support the entire agency by providing planning, ongoing training and accountability.

Amina Jones Fields, Vice President of Research, Evaluation and Reporting, oversees OOE and reports directly to CII’s President & CEO Martine Singer on these matters. Fields was selected in early 2020 to lead CII’s initiatives around Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). As national unrest and protests grew in May and June in response to the murder of George Floyd, Singer requested a more urgent response and the OOE was created to elevate the scope and impact of this work.

The children and family members served through CII’s programs have experienced intergenerational poverty and trauma, perpetuated by long-standing racist systems and policies. To successfully support the needs of marginalized children and families, OOE will facilitate training for staff to confront their own experiences with racism, and will identify racial biases that have persisted in systems that provide care to communities of color.

Fields said OOE will work on parallel tracks to support both individual learning and development around equity and organizationally to establish an EDI culture. OOE will involve administrative and program staff at all levels to capture different perspectives and shape CII’s work.

“Systemic racism and inequity are the root of the health, safety and economic challenges that impact the families we serve at CII,” Fields said. “To achieve CII’s mission, we must have an organizational focus on equity.”

Singer said OOE will make recommendations directly to the executive leadership team, which ensures this work is a high priority.

“I can’t think of a better time in this country’s history to be launching this initiative,” Singer said. “Amina’s vision and the team she is pulling together will be transformative for our organization.”

Joining Fields to lead OOE is Simona Brown, Human Resources Manager, Terry Kim, Director of Government Relations & Advocacy, and Dr. Jacqueline Atkins, Vice President of Strengthening Families. Fields said that when OOE was announced internally, more than two dozen staff members reached out to get involved.

Brown will ensure CII’s talent strategy, which includes hiring and staff retention, aligns with the overall goals of OOE. In the last couple of weeks, OOE brought in renowned diversity trainer Tiana Sanchez to facilitate multiple small group sessions on race and equity. OOE is launching an anti-racism resource portal for staff education and will have more interactive events throughout the fall and winter.

“I want people to know that for us to achieve the goals of this initiative, this work needs to be owned by everybody,” Brown said. “It’s everybody’s job and everybody’s responsibility.”

For Kim, who came to CII with a passion to engage in racial equity through public policy and government advocacy, OOE is about linking individual staff and program goals with overall agency goals on equity and justice.

“Systemic change cannot happen without confronting structural racism and historical inequities that the families served by CII experience every day,” Kim said. “As an organization we have to centralize racial equity and justice in all that we do.

Please email equity@childrensinstitute.org to learn more about partnership opportunities with OOE.

Children’s Institute congratulates CII Trustee and soon-to-be Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides, who will lead LAPD’s newly announced Community Safety Partnership Bureau (CSP). Mayor Eric Garcetti, members of the LA City Council and LAPD Police Chief Michel Moore announced the new bureau earlier this week while emphasizing that Captain Tingirides’ new role will help transform the way LAPD approaches policing.

CSP is the signature community policing program of LAPD that began in 2011 as a relationship-based approach working in LA’s housing developments. Captain Tingirides has been part of CSP since its inception and has worked closely with Civil Rights Attorney and CSP co-founder Connie Rice to expand the program. A UCLA report published earlier this year credited CSP with helping to reduce violent crime and increase trust with residents.

During the press conference, Mayor Garcetti complimented Captain Tingirides’ commitment to CSP and said that the expansion of the program will ensure the community has a greater say in how it is policed. Captain Tingirides will oversee CSP as its own bureau where officers commit to five-year assignments to better understand the neighborhood and build relationships with residents.

“It’s a dramatic step in that … we’re moving squarely towards the core of our policing philosophy — a model that is about co-owning public safety,” said Garcetti. The mayor highlighted CSP as an effective step to police reform, as protests have called for LAPD funding to be cut and reallocated.

Captain Tingirides said examples like the UCLA report show that the relationship building by CSP officers across the community is effective in creating trust which translates to crime reduction. This relationship extends to nonprofits like CII, which helped inspire CSP strategies.

Captain Tingirides said that during the early years of CSP, she met with CII program and care coordinators in Watts to plant community gardens and read stories to children. She said she was inspired to have CSP officers engaged in these types of activities, and it opened her eyes to all of the work aimed at improving the lives of children in the community. Captain Tingirides eventually joined CII’s Board of Trustees in 2014, which has led to a close partnership between CII and CSP.

“The fact that there is an understanding of what CII offers allows our officers to do their job better,” Captain Tingirides said. When CII opens the new Frank Gehry-designed Watts Campus in 2021, CSP will have an office inside the building, which will bring important community initiatives closer together.

CII President & CEO Martine Singer said her insight and perspective have been invaluable as CII has increased its reach and impact in Watts and other parts of South LA.

“Captain Tingirides’ compassion and experience is unmatched, which makes her the perfect person to lead the Community Safety Partnership Bureau,” Singer said. “The residents of Watts truly appreciate the impact she has made in this community.”

Captain Tingirides is a Watts native and becomes the second Black female LAPD Deputy Police Chief. At the State of the Union address in 2015, President Obama honored Captain Tingirides, along with her husband Phil Tingirides, then the captain of LAPD Southeast Division, for their community policing work.

With protests calling for reallocating funding away from LAPD following the death of George Floyd, Captain Tingirides said CSP’s focus on partnership highlights how policing can be one piece of solving the challenges communities face.

The economic effects of COVID-19 are widespread: 30 million people in the U.S. are currently receiving unemployment and millions more are struggling to pay for food and rent. The pandemic – and the widespread protests following the death of George Floyd – underscore long-standing inequities in healthcare, education and opportunity. While the virus does not discriminate, people of color and those living in extreme poverty bear its impact disproportionately. And nothing less than a new federal relief package can move us forward.

At Children’s Institute in Los Angeles, we provide critical services in communities with child poverty rates as high as 70 percent, where trauma is so prevalent that residents might not even mention it when describing their everyday lives. Toxic stress from abuse, racism, community violence or living in chronic poverty has dramatic and lasting consequences to mental and physical health, as well as school and job performance.

Since mid-March, we’ve responded to an overwhelming number requests for food, rent and other basic needs. The most pressing come from families that are undocumented and/or work in hotels, restaurants and other service businesses that have been shuttered. Even those who put their lives on the line every day for low-paying, frontline jobs often lack the basics.

Facing a $54 billion deficit, the California Legislature and Governor Newsom passed a balanced budget in late June that continues to safeguard essential programs like early education and childcare. This was a welcome bit of news, but without additional federal funding, the state can’t continue to support these services – and they’re more vital now than ever before. To prevent further devastation, the U.S. Senate must pass the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES Act, which already passed in the House, and step up for our most vulnerable children and families.

Last week, the Senate introduced the Health, Economic, Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act. The Senate proposal and the House’s HEROEs Act have varying priorities and will need to be reconciled in one bill to pass another COVID-19 federal relief package to support families. As an organization, we support the HEROES act.

How can HEROES help California?

• CHILDCARE: Without it, how will Californians go back to work? We join leaders around the country in calling for a $50 billion investment in early childhood education in the next legislative package.
• STUDENT SUPPORTS: Programs like community schools integrate such critical services as mental health and family supports in schools, mitigating the impact of toxic stress and reengaging students and families with learning after months of suboptimal schooling.
• SUPPORT FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS: One million undocumented immigrants live in Los Angeles. We celebrate the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on DACA, but additional action must be taken to protect undocumented families, who represent a critical sector of our economy. These families don’t qualify for federal assistance and as a result their children suffer from hunger and lack basic resources. California was the first state to offer disaster relief for undocumented adults, upwards of $1,000 per household, but this fund reaches only 150,000 adults statewide. Federal assistance in the HEROES Act is essential to ensure undocumented immigrants can provide for their families.
• FOSTER YOUTH: The needs of foster youth also continue to increase during this crisis. In addition to stable housing and mental health services, they need laptops, cellphones and internet for distance learning for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, the HEROES Act removes institutional barriers for youth to qualify and access extended foster care services.

Now more than ever, we must demand a just system that centers on equity and promotes policies that protect all children. Let’s work together to end the disparities that have been magnified in recent weeks and months. We implore Congress to step up and advance the HEROES act.