Pasadena Public Library Announces New Office of the Young Child Coordinator

Bringing a decade of diverse domestic and global public health experience to the job, Carla Hegwood has been hired as coordinator of Pasadena’s newly created Office of the Young Child.

Hegwood previously worked in the Virginia Department of Health, where she was the state maternal and child health director and project director for the Title V Block Grant. 

In that position, Hegwood managed a $23 million portfolio of investments in state and local health systems, infrastructure, and community-based organizations to improve the health of women, men, children 21 years and under, and individuals with special health needs. 

Prior to joining the Virginia Department of Health, she served as regional director of multicultural initiatives at the American Heart Association, where she led strategic planning and program delivery to address health inequities in Los Angeles and Riverside counties. 

Hegwood has also held research and public health practice roles at Save the Children, the American Red Cross, the Los Angeles Department of Health, the USC School of Medicine, the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and Virginia Tech. 

She earned a master’s degree in public health at UCLA and a bachelor of science degree with honors in psychology at Virginia Tech. She also served as a Global Health Fellow at the World Health Organization in Micronesia, and she completed additional graduate fieldwork in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

Her primary interests are cross-sector strategic planning for health and fostering community-led social enterprise with a keen equity lens. In her spare time, Hegwood advises on the design of various international projects and horseback riding access programs for children of color. 

According to the city’s website, the Pasadena Office of the Young Child is a foundational investment by the city to bring direction and a comprehensive approach to early childhood policies and services in Pasadena. 

“How well children are prepared for school is directly related to their early experiences within the home and within their community at large, which influence overall success in school and in life,” according to the city’s website. 

This office was born out of an early child development policy that was passed by the city’s Human Services Commission and adopted by the City Council in 2015. 

The five-year Master Plan for the Young Child unites diverse programs and services in the city to meld them into a cohesive coordinated family-centered system that focuses on policy, service, and pursuit of public and private funding options to improve the lives of young children, ages birth to 5.