UCLA

This essay was submitted as part of our 2019 Youth Voice Writing Contest, which asked current and former foster youth the question “What does home mean to you?”  Any normal child would define home simply as a house where you grow up with Mom and Dad to live happily together.

“Getting to Zero,” a product of years of work by author Neelum Arya and law students at the UCLA Jail Removal Project, pieces together everything there is to know about one of the biggest blind spots in youth services: how many kids end up in adult jails, where are they, and why are they there?

“Maya Angelou’s book, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ was definitely that pivotal moment for me,” Sharrica said. “I think about how she responded to the tragedy in her life by turning in.

When she was 5, J.R. was already dreaming of going to college. Her father was in jail, her mother was addicted to drugs, and she and her two older brothers were living in separate foster homes.

Thanks to a $10 million philanthropic donation, the University of California, Los Angeles will establish a new research center dedicated to addressing the complex needs of children in foster care, particularly related to the educational system.

A study completed in November by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health suggests the racial make-up of a neighborhood may have a greater influence on the racial disparities in youth arrests than poverty, unemployment, vacant housing or school quality.

In 1995, when Frankie Guzman was 15, living in the impoverished community of La Colonia in the city of Oxnard, California, his older friend came to his house to ask for a favor.

The floors are freshly polished, classroom doors opened and schedules printed. The beginning of each school year brings promises of what lies ahead. For many high school students this means moving onto college after graduation.

As a child, Moisés López wanted to be an astronaut. “I used to look at the stars and say, ‘I want to go there,’” Lopez said. He grew up in El Salvador, with a father who drank too much, and would hit López and his siblings.