As we embrace the significance of Black History Month, we are proud to spotlight the incredible contributions of our students and faculty, and acknowledge their profound impact on shaping the future. 

In addition to a number of community based events, the UCLA Pritzker Center is pleased to share past research involving the experiences of Black children in foster care. Looking to March, we also can't wait to share our forthcoming report on Blind Removal. Stay tuned! 

As we look to the future, we can't help but think of the past. Consider learning more about the historical practice of Last Seen ads. Formerly enslaved people placed these ads hoping to reconnect with family and loved ones for decades following emancipation. These ads give us much to consider as we make ongoing efforts toward safely reducing child welfare system involvement, especially among Black families. 

As always, we appreciate the opportunity to connect and reflect with you. 

In community,

The UCLA Pritzker Center Team

In 2022, we proudly partnered with the Foster Together Network to issue a report documenting the experiences of Black youth when cared for by non-Black caregivers. Study participants shared advice and experiences with the aim of improving foster care for Black youth. Check out the full report here.

Our blind removal study, in partnership with LA County DCFS, explores racial disproportionality and aims to safely reduce the overrepresentation of Black children in care.

For a refresher on this work, take a look back at the LA Times article reviewing this effort in Los Angeles County, or check out Dr. Jessica Pryce's TED Talk.

Blind removal is one strategy among many within a multi-pronged effort to reduce racial disproportionality. Stay tuned for our Blind Removal report in March 2024!

In new Center for Scholars and Storytellers (CSS) report funded by the Funders for the Translation of Adolescent Science (FAST), researchers compared the perception of portrayals of foster care between young people with lived experience in the system and those without. UCLA Pritzker Center doctoral researcher, Tae Thompson, was one member of the research group.

Surveying youth ages 18-26, CSS examined the portrayal of foster care in Sean Anders' 2018 film Instant Family and found that those with firsthand experience in foster care were 3 times more likely to find the film's portrayal of foster youth to be authentic. By contrast, those who had not experienced the foster care system felt the portrayals were overly idealized. 

UCLA Pritzker Center team members attended the groundbreaking ceremony hosted by Together California in the Antelope Valley. Numerous partners joined hands to bring this vision to life, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, Dr. Eric Esrailian, Chief of the Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and actor Christian Bale.

Given our work in the Antelope Valley, we are excited about this effort and look forward to providing support as needed. Congratulations to all for reaching this milestone!

UCLA Pritzker Center team members attended the UCLA/UCSF ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN) symposium on February 6. In 2021, UCLA was awarded more than $150 million (over 3 years) by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to advance the ACEs Aware initiative, a first-in-the nation effort to screen patients for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). UCAAN provides an academic anchor to the initiative by developing, promoting, and sustaining the evidence base to prevent and help all patients heal from the impacts of ACEs and toxic stress.

This informative briefing included Steven Dubinett, MD, Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH, former California Surgeon General; and Diana Ramos, MD, MPH, MBA, FACOG, California Surgeon General.

As always, we are thankful to Dr. Shannon Thyne, Vice-Chair in the Department of Pediatrics, Chief of Pediatrics at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, and Director of Pediatrics for the LA County Department of Health Services, for the opportunity to participate. Through UCAAN, we hope to expand our work concerning ACES in the Antelope Valley. 

In honor of Black History Month, we are proud to highlight our student team members for their passion for child welfare and racial equity. Hear from our undergraduate student researcher, Kahlila Williams, about her experience as a panelist at the Trauma-Informed Care Conference hosted by Children's Institute, our medical student researcher, Taylor Thaxton, about her experience as the moderator at the Birthing Justice film screening and panel discussion, and our doctoral student researcher, Tae Thompson, and his experience forming TwInspire and applying his research.

"Having the opportunity to be a panelist and speak at the Children's Institute Trauma-Informed Care Conference was monumental to me. As a former foster youth, it allowed me to bring representation to the true foster youth experience and influence how people with work foster youth. Being a foster youth is not represented by one story, many people have different experiences, but the way we work with our foster youth needs to change, and I am glad I could be a voice toward this change."

— Kahlila Williams, Undergraduate Student Researcher

"It was wonderful to connect with the robust child welfare community in Los Angeles County during our screening of Birthing Justice. I was excited to use this opportunity to highlight the long-standing relationship between medicine and the child welfare system. It was particularly moving to hear how the lived experiences of patients are being centered to create more inclusive narratives about Black birthing people in medicine."

— Taylor Thaxton, Medical Student Researcher

"My twin brother and I created TwInspire out of need.  After aging out of foster care, and realizing that we were not prepared for college, nor to live on our own, we decided to learn as much as we could so that we can ensure that other young people from our community would be equipped to maximize the opportunities that came their way my twin brother and I created TwInspire in late 2019 to provide life skills and supportive programs to foster youth and other young people from marginalized communities. Since then we’ve been able to facilitate more than 100 financial literacy, social justice and community service workshops to youth and families across the LA county. As the Executive Director of TwInspire and PhD student at UCLA, I am fortunate to conduct research with the UCLA Pritzker Center and apply research to practice to continue to meet the needs of communities that are invisible due to the lack of support services."

— Tae Thompson, Doctoral Student Researcher

Congratulations to our co-director, Dr. Tyrone Howard, on his magazine feature! We proudly celebrate Dr. Howard's research concerning issues tied to race, culture, access and educational opportunity for minoritized student populations.