Case Study: Systems Mapping for Data-Driven Change in Louisiana

The Challenge:

Aware of barriers to accessing high-quality early care and education, Jefferson Ready Start Network decided to focus its upcoming strategic planning cycle on how to increase access to its affordable early learning programs across the region. JRSN needed new data on its rapidly changing population and ongoing high poverty rates and wanted to understand those statistics in the context of two significant local challenges: economic and cultural barriers to ECE access and the persistent impacts of the pandemic.

The Results:

Start Early Consulting delivered a Landscape Analysis with seven key research-based findings that demonstrated the early care and education supply and access gaps within Jefferson Parish. The consulting team then conducted stakeholder sessions and workforce surveys to process the results of the analysis and identify problems, root causes, barriers, and required supports to move forward.

This data and analysis resulted in two important outcomes for the JRSN team:

1. Funding: JRSN was able to successfully communicate the critical need for additional investment in early childhood education to its stakeholders and community.
2. Program Design: The analysis gave the JRSN team a data-driven understanding of particular service gaps for Latino and Hispanic families within the parish – and provided an essential foundation to guide further research and, ultimately, the launch of JRSN’s all-new program, the “Two-Generation Approach to Workforce Development and Early Education.”