UCLA’s motto is a call to action. At the UCLA Pritzker Center, that call serves as the catalyst for research, education, and partnership in service of children and families at the margins of our child welfare system.

2025 was a year unlike any other—fraught and fragile, yet resilient and rising. Our team met these challenges with decisive action. Following the Eaton Fire, our researchers launched a study examining the fire’s impact on children in foster care. As immigration officers patrolled Los Angeles neighborhoods, our policy team, in collaboration with campus and community experts, provided advocacy tools to empower families to know and defend their rights. When equity initiatives came under attack, the UCLA Pritzker Center secured resources to establish a new initiative, the Racial Equity Hub for Child Welfare Reform, set to launch in 2026.

Alongside these efforts, our student team continues to grow—spanning multidisciplinary fields such as psychology, medicine, social work, public affairs, public policy, law and the arts. Our training equips the next generation of child welfare leaders with the skills to shine their own light into the darkest corners of the system. Our alumni have carried this mission forward—across graduate degree programs and careers in advocacy, government, social services, mental health and health care. The future of the field is bright, and there’s much more on the pages that follow about these highlights that fulfill the terms of our strategic plan.

As always, this work is done in community and with each of you. From Altadena to the Antelope Valley, and from DTLA to Westwood, the UCLA Pritzker Center stands united with the organizations stepping forward to meet the moment with courage and unrelenting commitment to belonging and dignity for all Angelenos. Your light inspires us to shine brighter together. As Desmond Tutu reminds us, “... we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreak without being broken.”

As 2025 wraps, we carry the metaphor of light into 2026 as a mandate—to illuminate possibilities through our research, to ignite bold ideas with education, and to spark new and transformative partnerships for the benefit of children, families and the public good.