University of California

The California Wellness Foundation has named Alex M. Johnson as the program director for their grantmaking efforts around violence prevention. “For the past 18 years, Alex has been working one way or another to advance equity for underrepresented groups,” Fatima Angeles, vice president of programs at Cal Wellness, said in a press release.

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.

In 2014, Holly Cooper received a phone call from an unnamed source warning her about the conditions of the Yolo County Juvenile Detention Center. The Sacramento-area facility was originally built to house youth convicted of crimes, but was now also receiving federal dollars to serve as an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelter for undocumented, unaccompanied minors.

In 2001, a nonprofit drug treatment provider called Bridges joined a bold new venture with the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). It was aimed at better serving the children of parents who had come into contact with the child welfare system because of drug use or addiction.

In this latest installment of our “Dollars and Priorities” series, we examine how research on child abuse and neglect could shape reform of the way the nation’s child welfare system is paid for.

As a sociology major at the University of California, Berkeley, I studied multiple concepts of society. Although I was studying a softer science, I learned that the well-known physics law “every action has a reaction” is true in relation to societal cause and effect.

By Stefano Montanari As she gets ready for her daily visits as a community health worker, Nomfusi Nquru makes sure that she has not forgotten her new tablet. A trained mentor mother with the Philani Maternal, Child Health and Nutrition Trust, Nquru is among the 12 workers who are testing tablets pre-loaded with educational videos provided by Stanford University to help expand access to health knowledge in the Khayelitsha Township, the poorest and fastest growing slum near Cape Town, South Africa, home to some 500,000 people.

Today is the first day of classes for students at the University of California, Los Angeles. For those who experienced foster care, the new semester comes with an enduring promise: a $3 million endowment to support their academic success.