The UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families

A UCLA Hub for Research, Prevention, and Resources for Foster Youth and Families

Learn More About the UCLA Pritzker Center

The UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families

A UCLA Hub for Connecting and Strategizing Resources for Foster Youth and Families

Learn More About the UCLA Pritzker Center

THE UCLA PRITZKER CENTER

The UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families is a new UCLA campus-wide initiative focused on the needs of children and youth who are disconnected from traditional pathways to success, in particular foster youth. The new center will serve as a collaborative hub for research, prevention and intervention efforts, working to strengthen families to prevent children from entering the child welfare system, and to support those in it. It will aim to build the capacity of foster parents, relative caregivers, and adoptive families to promote stable and nurturing families, equitable opportunities, and paths to educational success. The center will conduct new research, beginning with an examination of the dynamics of race and poverty in foster care in Los Angeles County. Leaders at the UCLA Pritzker Center will proactively and strategically link UCLA’s work to nonprofit agencies, to K-12 systems, to other education institutions, and to government support services as we develop collaborative and innovative classroom support systems, family support services, and trauma and resiliency informed care.

EXTERNAL COLLABORATIONS

The UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families was launched in January 2018. Center leaders seek to form partnerships with schools, non-profit organizations, and government agencies that work on behalf of foster youth.

RESEARCH SHAPING BEST PRACTICES AND POLICY

The UCLA Pritzker Center will work to build resilience and wellbeing for youth and families in and out of the child welfare system by developing, analyzing, synthesizing, and advancing innovative, transdisciplinary research developed within UCLA and beyond.

PREVENTION SERVICES

A major focus of the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families will be on prevention and on working to keep families together so that fewer children are entering the foster care system.

TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

The UCLA Pritzker Center will boost capacity for serving youth and families in and out of the child welfare system by developing state of the art training and professional development for youth, parents, and the professionals from multiple fields who serve them.

INNOVATIVE SCHOOL-BASED MODELS

The UCLA Pritzker Center will work within a set of PK-12 schools in Los Angeles to develop new demonstration models of how educators can best support children and families by empowering them as advocates for their own success.

CONVENINGS OF STAKEHOLDERS

Look for more information soon on our 2018 convening of leaders, local and national, in the foster youth community.

LEADERSHIP TEAM

Leaders from the UCLA Pritzker Center represent a spectrum of experts from across the UCLA campus. The Core Leadership Team – Tyrone Howard, PhD, Audra Langley, PhD, Todd Franke, PhD, and Patricia Lester, MD – will focus on strengthening families to prevent children from entering the child welfare system as well as strengthening foster, relative caregiver, and adoptive families to promote stable and nurturing families, equitable opportunities, and pathways to educational success.

Tyrone Howard, PhD, Director

Tyrone Howard, PhD, UCLA Professor of Education and Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, will serve as Director of the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families. Howard is also the Founder and Director of the Black Male Institute at UCLA.

Audra Langley, PhD, Co-Director

Audra Langley, PhD, Associate Professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, will serve as Co-Director. She is the Director of UCLA TIES for Families, an interdisciplinary program serving children in foster care or adopted through foster care.

Patricia Lester, MD, Leadership Team

Patricia Lester, MD, from the UCLA Semel Institute is the Jane and Marc Nathanson Family Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the UCLA Division of Population Behavioral Health and the Nathanson Family Resilience Center, Co-Director of the UCLA Child Anxiety Resilience Education and Support Center, and the Medical Director of the Family Stress, Trauma and Resilience Clinic.

Todd Franke, PhD, Leadership Team

Todd Franke, PhD, Chair and Professor in the Department of Social Welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, has 24 years of experience in conducting cross-sectional and longitudinal research in a variety of interconnected fields including child welfare, education, juvenile justice, mental health and adolescent violence.