Leadership Plan for Equity at Children’s Council for San Francisco

Equity is an important organizational and legal requirement recognized as one of most critical drivers of organizational performance and economic development in a nation. In many jurisdictions, legal statutes dictate minimal policy requirements that place equity in place. Intergovernmental and national agencies acknowledge that equity is an element for social and economic development, making it a basic human right. An important area that supports equity is education. Early childhood education and childcare supports positive outcomes in school performance. Consequently, equitable access to quality early childhood education is a major concern for many public and private agencies. In the US, the state governments and local authorities fund early childhood education. This paper examines the state of early childhood education in San Francisco, California through the lens of a non-profit organization, The Children’s Council of San Francisco. It develops a strategic change at the leadership of the organization to change the organization goals and practices towards achievement of equity in access to early childhood education for the children of San Francisco. An application of theories of leadership and strategy development is employed in demonstrating the shift of an organization towards equity.
Inequity in Child Care and Early Childhood Education in California
Early childcare and education is a vital element of child development that improves the opportunities of the child in adulthood because of its impact on school outcomes. Lack of access to quality childcare therefore produces stark inequality and inequity in life opportunities for the poor. In California, the number of children without access to the state’s childcare programs is high with several organizations giving different numbers. The California Budget & Policy Center (CBPC) (2016) placed the number of children not covered by the early childcare education programs at 1,000,000 while the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) (2019), placed the figure at 84%. The CBPC equally recognized the problem citing that the state had one of the lowest access rates for state-sponsored early childhood acre and education programs at 16%. In addition, the CBPC report showed that 77% of the children in fourth grade in California were unable to read proficiently, 20% had difficulty accessing quality nutrition and the poverty rate of single-mother families with two children under eight years was 99%. The reports of the three major organizations paint a grim picture of inequity with all experts laying the blame on the state government.
The major systemic problem with access to quality childcare program was inadequate funding for the program from the state. According to CBPC (2016), the California State government provided little resources to providers of childcare. Consequently, the childcare providers were unable to expand their services to cover the many unserved children in the state. Notably, the organization pointed out the rising costs of recruiting, training and retaining qualified childcare personnel was prohibitive and the government was not providing sufficient funds. In addition, the reimbursement rates from the state to the providers had stagnated since 2012.
In addition, CBPC (2016) pointed out that the measure for the deficiency in access to childcare was inaccurate. The organization reported that the government used its county capacity (existing and planned) to arrive at the figures of children awaiting enrolment into the state’s Pre-school Program. The import of the use of that measure was that the actual number of children eligible and applying for the program is much higher than the state government figure. The failure to report the figures accurately leaves many children exposed to further inequity in access to early childcare and education. Furthermore, the state government had no policy or requirement for counties to maintain waiting lists, making accurate estimations difficult.
Last, the cost of quality childcare from private providers was prohibitive to many parents and families in California. According to EPI (2019), the annual cost for the care of an infant was US$ 11,200 in 2018. The figure constituted up to 70.7% of the average annual income of parents in the state, placing the families in dire circumstances. Many families therefore opted for inadequate care or gave up enrolling their children altogether. The annual cost of infant care was actually higher than the annual cost of tuition in school years. Family members were also forced to stop working to care for their children, further exacerbating their poverty levels and increasing inequity for the children.
In view of the dire situation of the children and childcare education in California, non-governmental organizations have emerged to assist ameliorate the deficiency. One such organization that helps parents and families access affordable childcare is Children’s Council of San Francisco. The organization links families with providers of childcare upon assessment of the families’ needs. The following section profiles a profile for the ideal leader for the organization to enable it achieve its objectives.
Leader Profile for Children’s Council of San Francisco
“If you are in a leadership position, make sure you have a circle of people who can tell you the truth, and to whom you can speak the truth. Bring others into shared leadership with you, and/or collaborate with other formations so you don’t get too enamored of your singular vision.
Brown, adrienne maree. Emergent Strategy (p. 100).

The The Children’s Council of San Francisco (2019) is a non-profit organization whose objective is to connect families in San Francisco (California) with childcare providers that meet their unique needs in accordance with their capacity to afford it. The organization has professionals in childcare, family needs and child needs hence its special capacity to match families with appropriate childcare providers. Children’s Council also provides professional training and coaching for existing and new childcare providers to enable them provide quality childcare for San Francisco families. This section describes the ideal profile of a leader for Children’s Council of San Francisco that will enable such a leader to provide effective leadership for the organization to meet its vision, mission and objectives.

PersonaQualifications ;l Qualities/
The personal traits that define the ideal candidate for the leadership for the Children’s Council of San Francisco fall under the trait approach of leadership and situational approach ( Northouse 2010).
The ideal leader , CEO for The Children’s Council of San Francisco is an individual with a passion for children, families and their welfare. Looking at the ‘Trait Approach”, Goleman ( 1995, 1998) refers to “emotional The intelligence”, which plays major role to demonstrate d traits for the passion include empathy for children suffering in particular and human suffering in general. The individual’s social skills will be capable in of expressing himself or herself eloquently while also possessing the capacity to listen and solve conflicts for to the problems of the families. It is crucial that the In addition, the ideal leader CEO willdeveloped its be an emotional intelligent individual with the capacity to identifyface uniquedifficult issues, and cases and to provide solutions for themoutcomes for the well beingwellbeing of families.
The personal traits that define the ideal candidate for the of Children’s Council of San Francisco fall under the trait approach of leadership and the personal power element of the process approach. According to Northouse (20180), the trait approach to leadership presumes that leadership is an innate talent that only some people are born with. Leaders are "special kind of people, that do can extraordinary things”. Another aspect of the CEO qualifications will be under the “situational approach,” A leader for the Children’s Council will need to adapt his or her leader styles accordingly to the demands, and assess the situations differently. For example; some parents may need non traditionalnontraditional hours for childcare and other may need immersion programs. Working with families and their children it requires an understanding for flexibility in the organization. Teamworks become a priority for a leader who needs to create a close relationships to promote high degree participation or the non-profit. His or her style approach will affect the environment on how to stimulate participation .” Interdependence requires being seen, as much as possible, as your true self. Meaning that your capacity and need are transparent.” (Brown p. 93).
The importance of women leadership in this role will be beneficial to represent the mission of the non profitnonprofit.. As Northouse explains that women more like to use democratic leadership. For example “ they are more likely to take on informal, as opposed to official, Leadership roles and use terms such facilitator , or organizer instead leader" ( Andrews , 1992: Fletcher , 2001) To have women CEO will create a save spaces for other working mothers to lean on someone that live through the same struggle. Adrienne Brow “Having these spaces and others is helping movements develop a new definition of a great leader—not just one who is inspirational in speech or grand actions, but one who is inspirational in collaborative action, accountability, and vulnerability.
brown, adrienne maree. Emergent Strategy (p. 101). .

According to Northouse (2010) trait and skills theories are different and that is why the author have dedicated two separate chapter for each. However, the author has noted that the weaknesses of trait and skill theories are similar. The fact that Northouse (2010) identify several similarities between trait and skills approaches, there is a high chance that future version of the book may combine both theories. Traits skills and behavior are included in situation theory. The main difference between trait/skill theory and situation leadership theory is that, in situation leadership, ability of a leader to accomplish goal is dependent on the relationship between leader and followers. Contrarily, skill/trait approach suggest that leaders are the main focus for accomplishment of goals.

. The theory assumes that some people have no capacity to lead while some are born with that capacity. Consequently, the underlying assumption is that it is impossible to learn leadership. The important traits for leadership according to this trait approach include eloquence, intellect and extroversion. Such persons possess referent and expert power that give them personal power.


Professional QualitiesExperience
According to Northouse (2019), professional qualification is an important element of the skill approach to leadership. The professional qualitiesexperiences of the ideal leaderCEO for the Children’s Council of San Francisco include a minimum of a Mmaster’s degree in psychology. Looking at skill approach ( Northouse 2010) , tThe discipline of psychology enables the individual to understand other individuals and their interactions. The understanding of human behavior is usefulcrucial in managing organizations and the needs of children and families. The leader for the Children’s Council will be working with employees and other stakeholders of the organization andas well as the children and families of San Francisco. In addition, the ideal candidate will have at least fifteen years’ experience working with non-profit organizations out of which at least five will be in senior management positions. Key competencies for skill approach include community engagement, partnership development especially with government agencies, women leadership and single motherhood issues.

The need for professional training and experience is necessary for the technical leadership of Children’s Council. According to Northouse (2019), professional qualification is an important element of the process approach to leadership. The skill process approach accepts that leadership is a learned skill. Nevertheless, it acknowledges the importance of technical, human and management skills. Consequently, As CEO , top management technical knowledge of managemen/t the human skills is emphasized to allow the leader the ability to work toward a common goals for of non-profits, people, children and families. is critical. The process skill theory of leadership emphasizes the need for human technical knowledge and experience conceptual skills in equipping a CEO the leader with referent and expert power that their emergent leadership (Northouse). The position of the Children’s Council leader requires both emergent and assigned leadership. Such a leader will be able to entrench equity in the Children’s Council and the children of San Francisco. , California and America. Employees interpret their leader behavior based on their needs. For example, there is a level of structure that employees need, structure in excess may demotivate employees. Path-goal theory is special since it tell the leader how to behave to improve working environment. For instance in path theory, a leader need to step in and help overcome obstacles. Therefore, a leader may adjust to different leadership depending on the nature of the task so that he or she can continuously motivate employees (Northouse, 2016). Based on path-goal theory, a leader need to determine the employees and environment characteristics, select appropriate leadership style and focus on motivation factors that will help the employees succeed (Northouse, 2016). At Children Council of San Francisco, the leader need to understand the kind of employees at the organization and the environment characteristics at the organization. Understanding these factors is crucial in selecting leadership style that is most appropriate for organization. With key information about the organization’s environment characteristics, the leader will be able to identify key motivators for employees that can work for Children Council of San Francisco.

Priorities for the New Leader at Children’s Council
Redefinition of Organization Strategy
The most critical strategic priority for the new leader of Children’s Council of San Francisco will be to redefine the organization’s strategy. Specifically, the new vision of the organization will be “to achieve equity for the children of San Francisco”. According to Adrienne Maree Brown (2017), the vision of an organization is the guiding long-term goal that directs the organization to the ideal scenario it would like to achieve. It guides the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and multi-year activities of the organization to infinity. The current vision of the organization is narrow and it limits its activities. “In a non-linear process, everything is part of the learning, every step. That includes constructive criticism, it is part of the feedback loop—experiment, gather feedback, experiment again. This is how we learn.” Emergent Strategy (p. 106).

In addition, the mission of the organization will change in line with the vision to reflect the expanded goals of Children’s Council. Brown (2017) asserts that the mission of an organization defines the specific approach that the organization will use to achieve its mission. Currently, the mission of the organization is limited to connecting parents and families to childcare providers that meet their needs. The new mission will include other approaches for achieving equity for the children of San Francisco including sourcing for appropriate employment opportunities for needy parents and advocacy for legislation to increase funding for early childcare and education.
The redefinition of the organization strategy changes many goals and scope of the organization. A narrow vision and mission limit the extent of activities and approaches that the organization can use to achieve its core business (Kantabutra & Avery 2010). On the other hand, a wide strategy definition exposes the organization to failures because of limited resources and lack of focus. In the case of Children’s Council of San Francisco, the new strategy that focuses on equity for the children of San Francisco will enable the organization to collaborate with other organizations to improve childcare and early childhood education. Potential partners include education agencies (public and private), childcare providers and trainers, donors and the public. In addition, it expands the activities of the organization to encompass a comprehensive multifaceted approach that will achieve equity for the children of San Francisco .and the State of California. In the current Since the goal of definition, the organization is limited to linking parents and families to appropriate childcare providers, a. nd pParents who can notcannot are incapable of afford ing any childcare therefore are incapablenot of receiving any help from the organization. The expansion will assist such parents through sourcing for funding and finding employment opportunities for needylower income parents. As Adrienne Brown refers Farhad Ebrahimi ’s quote “ In terms of organizing, this means that a given social movement isn’t a list of organizations, or campaigns, or even individuals; it’s the set of relationships *between* organizations, campaigns, individuals, etc. Credit where credit is due to the folks at Movement Generation for being the ones who drew my attention to all of this.”

Multifaceted Approach to Access to Early Childhood Education
The expanded strategic vision and mission of the organization includes a multifaceted approach to access to early childhood education. The inclusion in the strategic statements paves the way for embarking on providing needy families with income to enable them to pay for quality childcare. According to Stipek (2018), one major challenge to access to quality early childhood education and care is prohibitive costs. In addition, the State of California has one of the highest poverty rates in the country with rates of up to one hundred and seventy per cent below the rest of the country. Extensive research shows a relationship between poverty and lack access to quality education opportunities and poor education outcomes (Herbst 2015). Eventually, the poor education outcomes affect the life opportunities of the children. In the case of African American children, the opportunities are few even with education. Lack of education therefore significantly exacerbates the limitations on the life opportunities of Black children compared to their White counterparts.
In line with the expanded organizational strategic statements, the plan for the new leader in the multifaceted approach will enable the organization to link parents with appropriate employment opportunities to increase their incomes. Employment opportunities will include provision of seed capital for the enterprising parents for self-employment if donors can be found. Employment and the attendant income that comes with it improve equitable access to early childhood education and opportunities for adults (Malik et al. 2018). Furthermore, the ability to earn a decent income for the families will provide them equity with other parents. In the end, social equity will be achieved through improved living standards for the families. The provision of employment opportunities and other approaches to increasing access to early childhood education will also offer parents the possibility of making choices regarding the early childhood education for their children (Akee et al. 2010). Instead of relying on providers they can currently afford, they will have the opportunity to take them to better providers. In essence, a multifaceted approach that includes finding employment opportunities for parents opens up the world of equity for the children, their families and the whole community of San Francisco

and California.
Improved Access to Public Resources
Public resources are available for the benefit of the public. According to Brown (2017), the government has a social contract with the citizens to provide services in return for their obedience and payment of taxes. In many cases however, the planners of public spending are not aware of the most pressing needs of the citizens; therefore, they allocate resources inequitably while ignoring the priorities of the citizens. Some non-priority areas receive excess funds while some priority areas receive inadequate funding. On the other hand, the citizens can improve their access to the public for priority needs using existing legal mechanisms. The strategy for Children’s Council of San Francisco will be to increase access to the public funds from the state government of California’s human services and the division responsible for early childhood education and development welfare. The access to additional public funds and resources will enable the people of San Francisco increase access to early childhood education and childcare. Similarly, the government can build childcare centers to offer the services currently available only from private providers. In any case, the strategy is to increase public spending and programs for childcare and early childhood education using different approaches.
The plan for the new leader at Children’s Council of San Francisco will be to advocate for legislation for an increase in the percentage of annual spend on early childhood education. Advocacy for legislation involves both the presenting manifestos to the same effect to the elected leaders and creating awareness among the citizens of San Francisco on the need for the increment. Elected leaders determine the annual state allocations for various public services through inputs to the annual budgets and approvals for the same (Teater 2008). On their part, the citizens form an integral part of the lobbying and advocacy process for fast action. In essence, elected leaders take up citizen ideas for legislative discussion when the number of citizens pushing for the actions is high. Consequently, the new leader will consult with citizen and citizen groups, education managers and educationists to assess the true state and level of financing for early childhood education in California and San Francisco to explore the practical increase in funding. Once an assessment has been conducted, Children’s Council of San Francisco will work with the relevant partners and stakeholders to push for the legislation of sufficient funding for early childhood education in the state and city.
Advocacy for legislation for funding has many benefits that improve equity in San Francisco. First, the legislative acts are durable edicts that cannot be overturned at the whims of individual future elected leaders with different priorities (Rasmussen, Mader & Reher 2017). The solution therefore will last for posterity. In addition, the legislative approach will increase the accountability of the elected leaders to their constituents (Teater 2008), thereby improving governance and leadership in whole. Furthermore, the advocacy and awareness will inform the citizens of their role in governance. The improved awareness will create a citizenry that can demand for the services it deserves from its leaders in future. “A transformer, a dandelion is a community of healers waiting to spread…” ( Brown p. 9). The result will be a community that elects good and effective leaders that can steer them out of the poverty trap of California.


Conclusion
Access to early childhood education is an invaluable element of equitable chances in life opportunities. The state of California has one of the lowest state-funded programs for early education. In its quest to reduce inequitable access to early childhood education, the Children’s Council of San Francisco requires a CEO leader that has innate characteristics that support child welfare. Such a leader therefore needs passion for children issues, poverty elimination and excellent communication. In addition, the leader needs exemplary technical qualifications humans skills and experience to manage the organization. However The leader need to remember that she or he deals with human being. Adrienne brown emphasize the notion of “Adaptive” “ like migrating birds who know how to get where they’re going even when a storm pushes them a hundred miles off course. Humans? Some of us are surviving, following, flocking—but some of us are trying to imagine where we are going as we fly. That is radical imagination.( Brown p.21)

In view of the state of early childhood education and the organization, the priority strategy areas for the leader include a redefinition of strategy, a multifaceted approach to early childhood education and increased access to public funding. The success of the strategies however requires the participation of all stakeholders. How do we prepare the children in our lives to be visionary ? ( Brown p. 59)







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