On April 25, UNITE-LA hosted “Tech Talk,” the last session of Part 1 of our fifth Step into Tech cohort, with 17 graduates.

In mid-May, UNITE-LA’s Programs Team hosted its Summer Open House for 40 partners, including LAUSD, DCFS, Goodwill SoCal, Antioch University, the L.A. County Probation Department and others.

At the end of May, UNITE-LA was present for California Workforce Association’s Spring Workforce Practitioners conference, WORKCON. The event benefits those interested in helping people obtain sustainable employment.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (HCC) extended an invitation to UNITE-LA to join them and a handful of board members for a high-level fly-in to Sacramento to lobby on HCC’s legislative agenda.

Last month, 80 advocates for community broadband gathered at the City of L.A.’s Bureau of Street Lighting to delve into broadband as a public good.

One of UNITE-LA’s top legislative priorities, early care and education (ECE), is one of the many issues due to lose substantial funding in the next budget year.

After three years of historical surpluses in our state budget that helped uplift and strengthen youth and families from historically marginalized communities, California is again facing historical deficits that will negatively affect progress made. The state is now facing a projected $27.6 billion shortfall. This is after the legislature’s attempt to stop the bleeding by taking action and reducing the shortfall by approximately $17.3 billion.

UNITE-LA’s Workforce-Programs team was recently awarded an unprecedented $1.75 million grant from the state’s Employment Development Department to support our three academy programs focused on prioritized populations, including the LA Regional Cleantech Career Academy, Step into Tech and My Pathway to Health. The investment acknowledges UNITE-LA is successfully providing education and workforce training programs to meet the needs of opportunity youth and young adults, ages 18-28, who are not active in education, employment or training in the Los Angeles region. Read more.

At the L.A. Valley College Family Resource Center on May 7, Dr. Lisa Catanzarite, UNITE-LA’s Vice President of Research and Evaluation, presented findings from the Empowering L.A. Students for College Success research report, and Sonia Campos-Rivera, UNITE-LA’s Senior Vice President of Policy and Public Affairs, discussed policy opportunities to support parenting students. The research report illuminates parenting student demographics, their representation at L.A. County’s Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs), existing IHE supports, and the challenges faced both by parenting students and the institutions that serve them. Recommendations call for improved data collection and institutional supports that will foster equitable outcomes and improve college attainment for parenting students.

UNITE-LA is thrilled to announce that our partner and friend Luis Sandoval, executive director of Building Skills Partnership (BSP), has been awarded the prestigious Dr. Alma Salazar Bridge Builder Award by the National Skills Coalition (NSC). The Dr. Alma Salazar Bridge Builder Award was established by the NSC’s board of directors in 2021 in memory of their beloved, fellow board member and one of the most important leaders in the organization’s history. Alma served as the executive vice president of UNITE-LA before her passing in 2020. Alma was a spectacular colleague and human who spent her career fighting for high-quality education and training for students and workers.