Dispensing Knowledge in Real Time UCLA Luskin Social Welfare students present the results of their rapid response research projects

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By Stan Paul

Research, by design, is focused, systematic, methodical. It takes time.

But when information moves at the speed of social media, and false, distracting and potentially harmful information can be spread worldwide via tapping a screen in the middle of the night, there is a pressing need for responsible research that can be produced in real time.

A dozen social welfare graduate students at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs reacted to this challenge by taking on projects — above and beyond their required studies — to match their data-gathering and synthesizing skills with the ability to make useful information available quickly to communities that may need it.

The social welfare master’s and doctoral students researched topics such as hate speech and immigration.

“You are going to enter your profession, a profession built around the question of human caring, at a time where human caring is not held in particularly high esteem,” UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura said in introducing “Rapid Response Research in the Trump Era,” a June 1, 2017, gathering at the Luskin School to review student projects.

Segura, whose research has centered on representation and empowerment, said: “You know the challenges that all of us face … across all racial and ethnic, socioeconomic subpopulations in the United States: access to affordable health care, dealing realistically and honestly with challenges that individuals and families face, providing quality education and job opportunities for people. The list is unbelievably long.

Social Welfare student researchers, from left, Evelyn Larios, Zee Graef, Skye Allmang, Sandra Delgado, Jackie Diaz with Laura Wray-Lake, assistant professor of social welfare, at the rapid research presentation. Photo by Stan Paul

“The first piece of advice I’m going to give you for resistance is to call things by their name,” Segura said. “We must begin our resistance by calling things what they are: Racism is racism, sexism is sexism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are what they are.” He urged students not to pass these things off as merely rants not worthy of comment or notice.

Laura Abrams, the incoming chair of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare, said that a list of potential research ideas was presented to social welfare students early in the academic year, and a number of groups responded. The criteria for the projects included working with real-time data from social media platforms such as Twitter.

Abrams said the research topics “were going to be more immediately applicable to what communities might need in order to resist and they had to be social justice oriented.” Social welfare faculty such as assistant professors Ian Holloway and Laura Wray-Lake served as advisers for the students.

One project examined Twitter data based on the motivations of those who participated in the Women’s March, and how that motivation connects — or doesn’t — with broader issues of racial justice.

One immigration issue tackled by the students was part of a nationwide project asking how young people have been affected by the policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration. That project relied on responses from Latino high school students. The information gathered is intended to inform educators and others working with adolescents.

First-year MSW student Alexandra Rhodes said she studied anti-LGBT hate speech and the incidence of particular words used on Twitter.

“I was interested in seeing if anti-LGBT hate speech on Twitter increased after Donald Trump’s election,” said Rhodes, who gathered information from more than 40,000 users who had tweeted anti-LGBT search terms. From that group, just over 10,000 users were randomly selected for comparison of the number of such tweets before and after the election.

“I was most interested in how Donald Trump’s election was affecting the LGBT population given his seemingly anti-LGBT rhetoric and policies,” said Rhodes, who is primarily interested in working with the LGBT population and is considering pursing a Ph.D. in social welfare.

“It is very important to me to do ethical and essential research in my community and build evidence to support how we have been affected by various social changes and policies,” Rhodes said. “For now, I’m focusing on getting involved with research in whatever way I can as an MSW student. It is important to do research and look at the data and respond to what is happening right now.”

Abrams said she hopes that this becomes a tradition that can continue to be built into the curriculum in a meaningful way.

“As a Social Welfare Department, the rapid response research projects are a prime example of what we can accomplish when we have an idea, put our heads together, and work hard as team,” Abrams said. “I am proud of the students for carrying out their projects in such a timely and rigorous manner.”

More Than 45,000 Californians Living With HIV Would Be Impacted by Medicaid Cuts in Senate Health Plan According to a fact sheet from the California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Centers, the cuts would be felt by patients covered by Medi-Cal

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Tens of thousands of Californians living with HIV would be impacted by Medicaid cuts under the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), according to a fact sheet released by the California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Centers in collaboration with the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The fact sheet highlights new data from the California Department of Public Health, Office of AIDS, which indicates that 45,033 people living with HIV received health coverage through Medi-Cal in 2014. These data also indicate that approximately 11,500 people living with HIV enrolled in Medi-Cal because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, covers the cost of medications that help low-income people living with HIV achieve viral suppression, which both improves their health and prevents new infections.

Last week, the U.S. Senate released the BCRA, which would make dramatic cuts to Medicaid. A similar bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), would have cut Medicaid nationwide by $834 billion over 10 years.

View resources and an FAQ from testing.com about at-home STD testing

The BCRA would radically restructure the Medicaid program by converting it to a per capita cap or block grant and effectively end the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. Together, these changes would result in a massive fiscal shift from the federal government to the states and add billions in additional costs to the state of California.

“People living with HIV have complex health-care needs that require high-quality, consistent and affordable health care,” said Ian Holloway, director of the Southern California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Center and an assistant professor in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The CHPRC fact sheet emphasizes that limits on Medicaid financing and coverage would have a detrimental impact on California’s efforts to provide care and treatment for people living with HIV and to reduce new HIV infections.

“It is important for policymakers to understand the threats the BCRA poses to people living with HIV and other vulnerable communities in California,” Holloway said.

 

Putting Activism Into Context UCLA’s first two Activists in Residence use the past to help frame the future of activism

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By George Foulsham

Soon after the November 2016 presidential election, UCLA welcomed two Activist Fellows for the winter quarter. Funmilola Fagbamila and Lisa Hasegawa were the first of what the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin hopes will be a continuing series of fellows.

Fagbamila, a founding member of Black Lives Matter L.A. and an adjunct professor at Cal State Los Angeles, served as the fellow for the Institute. Hasegawa, who worked in the Bill Clinton administration before serving as executive director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Development, was the UCLA Asian American Studies Center’s fellow. Hasegawa is also a Luskin Senior Fellow.

How did the November election and the reaction to it influence your approach to the activist-in-residence fellowships?

Fagbamila: I came into the fellowship with a desire to have conversations about how to contextualize the current political moment. When we think about the election and how people were attempting to understand how Trump could have won, it’s important for us to look at the numbers, to look at the history and the patterns of how electoral politics functions at a federal level in the country.

A lot of talk is about how the country is just inherently racist, and that’s why somebody who has this kind of sentiment around race, policing and immigration could win. But when we look at the numbers closely, we understand that around 40 percent of the population did not vote at all — because they are so disillusioned with the system as it exists, feeling as though they didn’t have any option in terms of a candidate who could truly represent where they are ideologically.

Then you have about 20-25 percent of the people who did vote for Donald Trump, not actually liking him, but feeling that they didn’t have another option. So what does that say about the current political moment and what has been the history and trajectory of federal electoral politics in this country?

The reason it was so important for me to be here at this moment, and Lisa as well, is to have conversations and contextualize what’s happening, why it’s happening, how we can resist it, what our resistance has looked like in the past, and figuring out what it is that actually sparks urgency with folks.

Hasegawa: With all the talk during and after the presidential election about executive orders, and the Muslim ban, I just felt that I needed to think critically about where I positioned myself after having been in Washington, D.C., for the past 20 years.

I was encouraged to apply by some colleagues because I was very vocal about my frustration, even thinking about a new Democratic administration. Returning to the Asian American Studies Center seemed to be the ideal place for me to reflect upon the strategies we employed to move the policy agenda for underserved, low-income Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

I feel like core democratic institutions are being questioned and strategies to influence policy are being considered in completely new ways that have not been examined in the public dialogue, in the public mind.

You have managed to connect a lot of dots when it comes to dissent, arts and scholarship. What has been your inspiration?

Fagbamila: It’s a desire to make it known that we can absolutely engage in activism and advocate for those who are most vulnerable within a society while also maintaining health and stable lives for ourselves. There’s a sentiment that exists in the popular imagination, about being a person who advocates for justice meaning that you live an unhappy life, void of joy and fun. Always serious. The idea being that in order to do this type of advocacy work, that one must sacrifice their well-being. This is a false narrative; one that scares many people away from engaging in resistance work that could be potentially transformative.

I am inspired to have conversations, through my art and through my scholarship, about the various forms that activism takes, about what it means to both advocate for and work toward a more just society while also taking care of yourself and making your mental, emotional, physical wellness a priority. Specifically within activist communities, we need to emphasize that self-care is not selfish. Self-care done collectively and strategically is what will be the force that enables us to make our resistance efforts sustainable, as opposed to fleeting. Creating movements, as opposed to moments.

Hasegawa: There is this desire to reconnect with the languages of politics and policy and with theory and academia. We’re just trying to figure out what this means for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in this moment. There has been this fight to gain basic visibility in a lot of spaces, places, reports — just to kind of penetrate into the mainstream psyche and understanding that Asians and Pacific Islanders are American, belong in this country and have helped build this country.

I’m so tired of inaccurate stereotypes and data about our communities being used to criticize and punish other communities of color. AAPI artists, cultural workers and organizers are disrupting the narrative and this framing that the Right uses, claiming, ‘Look at Asian Americans, they have overcome barriers despite their race and despite all of these very difficult histories as refugees and immigrants.’ We need to fight against the anti-blackness in our communities, lift up our shared histories of struggle and resistance.

What have you been hearing from students?

Fagbamila: What I’ve been hearing are questions about how to be a scholar activist, questions about how one can actually consistently engage in what is perceived as time-consuming resistance work while also remaining serious about their scholarship and doing their research. The question has been how to do both and have both of the endeavors allocated the proper amount of time and energy, and I think that’s a conversation around balancing time and also knowing that, for many scholars and academics, their research is part of their resistance.

Hasegawa: I have really felt some of the disconnects between the students and the institutions that had been laboring to represent Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and policy issues. For the most part many students have not even heard of community-based and national advocacy organizations, or they have heard of them but don’t really know the histories of them or don’t really feel connected to the work or the people who are in them. They are hungry for these stories and connections. Also, I have heard their interest in my perspective on what it was like to be at UCLA when the Rodney King verdict came down, and what was it like to be a young person at that time. Figuring out how to encapsulate that experience and share these stories with this generation of students has been a joy — actually, a gift — to me, because it has helped me to realize how influential those times were for me and my understanding of race, advocacy and coalition building.

What advice do you have for students in a very uncertain time for Americans?

Fagbamila: There are number of ways that people can be of service, but I think oftentimes activism gets conflated into this one thing, this one specific process of choosing an organization, becoming a member, and helping in that particular capacity. But if we think historically about the various ways that people have advocated for societal change, we consider the scholar activists — people who, as I mentioned earlier, engage in transformative work within their scholarship — writing about necessary issues within your area of study, specifically issues that have not been written about or have been silenced within the academy. We need those tools; we need this research in order to push forward. You have many students who also might engage in some amount of activism with their art. Part of my work as a member of Black Lives Matter, an original member, has been to develop the arts and culture component of the organization. Along the same train of thought, my work as an artist and playwright is something that has been absolutely fundamental to what I believe has been my mission. Through the lens of art, through the stage, through theater, through this type of writing to cast light on stories, about blackness, about the black experience, about the complexity of the black political identity — these narratives are most often not captured in mainstream dialogues and images of black people. So my work, in this moment, is to tell stories, as honestly as possible, about black people — about our glory and our pain, our thoughts and our experiences.

Social Workers and Medical Students: ‘The Ideal Team’ UCLA Luskin’s Department of Social Welfare provides lessons in social work to first-year students from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

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By George Foulsham

Matthew Hing is a first-year medical student at UCLA, but on this April morning he’s a visitor in a nondescript building on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice — the St. Joseph Center, home of the Chronically Homeless Intervention Program.

Hing enters through a back door, weaving through a crowd of homeless people who gather each morning to take advantage of St. Joseph’s services. This isn’t your typical med school classroom, but Hing believes the experience will be a vital part of his training — adding more educational insight to his medical school curriculum.

Thanks to a partnership between the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs’ Department of Social Welfare and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Hing and 19 other medical students are receiving a lesson in social work.

A month earlier, the students gathered in a classroom in the Public Affairs building for an orientation session arranged by Todd Franke, the chair of the Department of Social Welfare; Gerry Laviña MSW ’88, director of field education at UCLA Luskin; and Michelle Talley MSW ’98, a member of UCLA Luskin’s field education faculty and a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW).

“I think this is a fantastic opportunity,” Franke said as he greeted the students. “We hope this is a marvelous success.”

Laviña talked about how much he learned from similar experiences earlier in his career. “I learned so much from the doctors and nurses and social workers,” he said. “Literally, I would not be here today if I hadn’t had that experience.”

Talley told the students about having worked in child welfare, and how she spent time working with public health nurses on adoption cases. “It was very helpful and useful in my role as a social worker, understanding some of the medical issues that a child could be faced with,” she said.

Michelle Talley, left, a member of UCLA Luskin’s field education faculty and a licensed clinical social worker, speaks to medical students during the orientation session held at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Photo by George Foulsham

Hing’s day at the homeless center was the “shadowing” piece of the social work lesson. He spent a day observing and debriefing social workers and a psychiatrist, all of whom specialize in tending to the needs of the homeless.

“The psychiatrist, he saw three clients — all very different cases,” Hing said. “One was an intake case, the second time he had seen the client, so he was really getting a sense of what was going on — what had led to this individual becoming homeless, and how they were doing now.

“The second was much more stable — he’s been seen for several months — but there were new stresses in his life,” Hing said. “It was just a lot of things that a psychiatrist knew to ask that I never knew about.”

The third case involved a patient who was struggling with the anti-psychotic medication that she was taking, and how it was making her fall asleep. “So she was worried about her safety on the street,” he said. “This was something for me in a patient interaction that I would never think about, but you can learn from a social worker. Seeing those unique insights at work in this population — that’s what I got from shadowing.”

Hing shadowed those working with the homeless, and his fellow students had a variety of other experiences. One participated in a forensic interview on a child-abuse case — “an intense experience,” Hing said he heard later.

Hing’s trip to St. Joseph Center was arranged by Laviña, and the two have been the driving forces behind making the partnership a reality. After attending a conference about social medicine in October, Hing emailed a proposal for the program to members of the curriculum committee at the Geffen School. He and his colleagues, fellow medical students Amrita Ayer, Brian Dang, Lyolya Hovhannisyan and Samantha Mohammad, produced a potential syllabus, which led to a formal presentation to UCLA Luskin.

After emailing Laviña and Franke, Hing received an overwhelmingly positive response.

“Todd thought it was an excellent idea,” Hing said. “He wondered why it hadn’t already happened, and was excited about the possibilities.”

The concept resonated with Laviña, who sees it as a logical extension of what social welfare experts provide to Luskin’s master’s students.

“Social workers have always worked in multidisciplinary settings, so we strive for collaboration with physicians and all other disciplines,” Laviña said. “We were happy to work with Matt and his peers, along with our faculty and panelists, to bring very direct feedback as to how they can become doctors who work with their patients and families using cultural humility and truly seeking a holistic approach.”

The orientation session was the first part of the program. In addition to the introductions by Laviña, Franke and Talley, the session included a panel of seven social welfare experts: Rosella Youse, a manager with the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS); Kim Tran MSW ’11, a forensic interviewer with DCFS who is stationed at Harbor UCLA Medical Center; Deborah Tuckman MSW ’99, a social worker in the emergency department at Cedars-Sinai; Thomas Pier, LCSW at Simms/Mann UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology; Brian C. Wren, LCSW at Providence Health & Services; James Coomes MSW ’96, LCSW at the county department of mental health; and Kim Griffin-Esperon MSW ’98, LCSW with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The experts shared stories about dealing with child abuse, testifying in court for child welfare and neglect cases, helping assist children with spina bifida and cancer, providing guidance on home health care and about coping with many other social issues doctors might encounter during their careers.

“You won’t know child welfare social work like we do,” Youse told the medical students. “But I don’t know the medical field like you do. So together we are really the ideal team.”

The program is also supported by those who work with the students in the Geffen School.

“Caring for patients takes a diverse team of experts,” said Sheila Naghshineh, chair of the doctoring program for first-year medical students. “Having a social worker on the team is often vital to providing high-quality, customized care for patients in both the outpatient and inpatient setting.”

It is important for health care providers to understand the role of social workers so that they can learn to work together as a team, Naghshineh said. “The social worker shadowing pilot program helps medical students experience first-hand how to effectively work with social workers, and understand how and when to utilize their services, resources and expertise to benefit patients,” she said.

Asked if he thinks social work should be a part of the medical students’ curriculum, Hing’s response was definitive: “Yes, yes, yes.”

“Ideally, this should be part of our curriculum,” said Hing, who was raised in a medical family — his mother is a social worker and his father is a physician. “I think it is important for us to witness the empathy that social workers bring forth for their patients, who are often from the most vulnerable, marginalized parts of our society. I’d love to make sure that all of my classmates have this opportunity to see the incredible work that is going on around this.”

Laviña said he was inspired to witness and experience the students’ openness to the feedback. “I am heartened to think about the type of doctors they will become — and how they will better serve our communities,” he said.

Black Caucus Gathering Focuses on Empowerment Sanctuary Event continues a 10-year tradition of recognizing black culture and celebrating its importance at UCLA

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By Aaron Julian

“Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand, True to our God, true to our native land.”

This closing couplet of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black American National Anthem,” rang out at the Luskin School of Public Affairs on May 16, 2017, marking the start of the 10th annual Sanctuary Event hosted by the Department of Social Welfare’s Black Caucus.

Inspired by the writing of Assata Shakur and themed “Nothing to Lose but Our Chains,” the Sanctuary Event is held each year at the time of Malcolm X’s birthday on May 17. It focuses on issues of importance to people of color, particularly the black community. Topics of discussion this year included the role of intersectional identities and communication among and between different communities, as well as empowering and informing UCLA Luskin students about how to proceed in the current social and political climate.

Larthia Dunham of the social welfare field education faculty described how the event’s inauguration was driven by a need to recognize black culture and its place at UCLA and in the greater Westwood area.

The Department of Social Welfare’s Black Caucus hosted the 10th annual Sanctuary Event. Photo by Aaron Julian

“We have to understand that being black is very important in identifying who we are, why we’re this way, and what our culture is all about,” Dunham said.

A traditional libation was then poured out as a way of honoring and remembering important past and present figures, as well as friends and family. Harambee, meaning, “let’s pull together,” was said in response following each of Dunham’s processions.

Continuing with the themes of traditions and culture, the Black Caucus members provided and served food described as fundamental for classic celebrations.

Dunham then detailed the historic role that food and sharing meals has had going back generations in the black community and in building relationships. “We bring food because food brings peace. If there is someone you don’t like, go have coffee, break bread and enjoy each other because you never really know what you have in common.”

Funmilola Fagbamila, activist-in-residence for the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin and the arts and culture director for Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, later joined the conversation as part of a panel to provide insights about her work as an author, activist and intellectual. Fagbamila encouraged a proactive engagement in social movements, but she cautioned that striking a balance between that work and other passions is crucial in maintaining effective long-term activism.

“People think if they engage thoroughly and if they try to become what they perceive as an activist or organizer or protestor that they would have to sacrifice their joy. You don’t need to sacrifice your joy, your wellness and your happiness to be effective,” Fagbamila said.
Fagbamila further explored the topic of identity by imparting her own experiences as a woman of Nigerian descent. “My family life is very much informed by being a Nigerian person, but when I walk around in the world you can’t tell I’m a Nigerian … you can just tell that I’m a black woman.”

A Grassroots Mission in Watts UCLA Luskin’s Watts Leadership Institute launches a 10-year program to build a legacy of leaders and empowerment

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By George Foulsham

WATTS — If you’re searching for the heartbeat of the UCLA Watts Leadership Institute, look no further than 10360 Wilmington Ave. in Los Angeles. What was once a liquor store is now the home of the multi-faceted Watts Century Latino Organization.

On a recent Saturday, more than 70 volunteers gathered here to help with a grassroots task: assemble and plant a community garden. The event was part of the citywide Sharefest Community Workday, but it represented much more for Jorja Leap, an adjunct professor of social welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and for the Watts Leadership Institute’s first cohort — community members who hold the key to deepening the indigenous leadership of Watts.

“This is the beginning,” Leap said as the volunteers spread mulch around four large planter boxes. “We’re going to be bringing in youth from the various middle and high schools throughout the area. They’re going to be learning about gardening, they’re going to be learning about healthy eating, and they’re going to be developing strategies for contributing to their community.”

It’s just one example of what the Watts Leadership Institute hopes to bring to a part of L.A. that Leap has been engaged in since she was a social welfare graduate student at UCLA in the 1970s. Leap and project partner Karrah Lompa MSW ’13 have launched an institute that’s making a 10-year commitment to Watts.

The Watts Leadership Institute received its key initial funding through a two-year, $200,000 grant from the California Wellness Foundation. In turn, the WLI GRoW Community Garden is supported by a two-year, $100,000 grant from GRoW @ Annenberg, a philanthropic initiative led by Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, dedicated to supporting humanitarian efforts across the globe as well as innovative projects in health, education, the arts and civic & cultural life. The Sharefest Community Workday provided additional support for the community garden from Sharefest, the Mars Corporation and Our Foods.

“This kind of a public-private partnership, along with the research attached to it — and the building of the Watts community — really represent the best of how all of these different factors can come together,” Leap said. “It represents part of UCLA’s continuing and growing commitment to communities like Watts that need our involvement, our engagement, our organizing, our research. We’re also learning from them and being taught by them.”

Jorja Leap, right, director of the Watts Leadership Institute, with Betty Day, president of the Watts Gang Task Force. Photo by George Foulsham

The garden project marked the first time that the institute’s cohort was able to engage Watts residents — and many other volunteers — in the community garden, according to Lompa. “The community was able to get their hands dirty, to help make the garden a reality and to take ownership,” she said. “The volunteers included cohort members, institute fellows, UCLA students and alumni, community members, corporate volunteers and representatives from the Annenberg Foundation. It was everybody coming together to launch the community garden.”

Among the community members in the institute’s first cohort are Pahola Ybarra and her father, Arturo Ybarra. Pahola is program manager and Arturo is the founder and executive director of the Watts Century Latino Organization, which has galvanized the growing Latino population in Watts. The center’s programs are credited with helping to build significant bridges between Latinos and African-Americans. To accomplish this, Pahola and Arturo are among the community leaders recruited by Leap as part of the initial leadership cohort in the institute.

When she approached the Ybarras about becoming part of the institute, Leap asked for guidance about the best way to bring Latinos in the community aboard. Pahola suggested teaching Latino leaders how to start a 501(c)3 nonprofit as a way to “teach them how to do bigger things in the community,” Ybarra said.

It’s only 2.1 square miles, but Watts has more than 190 nonprofits. The problem, according to Ybarra, is that there has always been overlap in the services offered by the various nonprofits.

“What Watts Leadership did was to help us come together, to put our resources together, and be an example for the rest of the nonprofit and leadership community in Watts,” Ybarra said. “It’s been an amazing effort to help us grow, and to help us get out of our own way. It encourages us to reach for as much as we can and do as much as we can in the community.”

Leap often draws upon social welfare professor Zeke Hasenfeld’s Luskin research, which initially characterized Watts as a “nonprofit desert,” but she’s hoping the institute can change that perception by training the first cohort of leaders who will then share their knowledge with a second and a third generation. One of the institute’s goals is to build a comprehensive infrastructure of nonprofits in Watts and use it as a model to build indigenous leadership. That was part of the strategy of the WLI GRoW Community Garden and it was kicked off on this volunteer day.

“This probably doesn’t look like an economic development project now,” said John Jones III, field deputy for Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents Watts. “But in the future, when things are growing from here, different businesses might come and buy the fruits and vegetables from here that will help this nonprofit thrive.”

Jones credits Leap and Lompa with teaching community members how to build a better community. “When the Watts Institute grows, this organization will be stronger, it will be better, and the Watts community will be better because of the lessons they learned,” Jones said.

That legacy approach is key to the success of the institute, Leap said.

“We will serve those within the community who will lead and will teach,” she said. “This way, we not only build capacity, we build a continuum of leadership that is cross-generational. Luskin is not going to leave, but we ultimately want Watts in the lead.”

Cohort member Kathryn Wooten, the founder and executive director of Loving Hands Community Care, is a lifelong resident of Watts whose organization was struggling until she was recruited by Leap to be a part of the institute. As part of the cohort training, Wooten and others were provided with computers and trained in how to use them.

“It’s almost too good to be true,” Wooten said. “Since I’ve been a part of it, my organization is more professional. I have all the things I need to run a business because of the cohort and their guidance. I now know how to use a computer.”

Leap’s approach to this project is motivated by a powerful sense of duty.

“This is my way of paying back,” she said. “I did come here in 1978 as a very callow MSW student, and the Watts community took me under its wing and taught me. UCLA afforded me the opportunity to learn here. This community has given a great deal to me, and it is my responsibility and my honor to pay that back, to listen and to really serve in the most meaningful way that I can.”

‘Unsung Hero,’ Leader in South L.A. Named 2017 Social Welfare Alumna of the Year Aurea Montes-Rodriguez MSW ’99 was inspired to develop a healthier generation by award namesake Joseph Nunn

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By Stan Paul

Aurea Montes-Rodriguez, this year’s Social Welfare Alumna of the Year, has a lifelong personal and professional connection to South Los Angeles.

The 1999 Master of Social Welfare graduate of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs came to California from Mexico at the age of 3, grew up in South Los Angeles, witnessed firsthand the 1992 riots, and has gone on to be a leader and change agent in the community.

In recognition of her work and commitment to the community, Montes-Rodriguez was presented the Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year Award on May 20, 2017. The award is bestowed annually in honor of Joseph A. Nunn, UCLA alumnus, former vice chair and longtime director of field education for the UCLA Department of Social Welfare.

“I am surprised and very humbled to be nominated and selected, especially for an award named after Dr. Nunn,” said Montes-Rodriguez. “When I was a student I looked up to him and admired the work he had done around juvenile criminal justice — thinking about ways we could do a better job eliminating the cradle-to-prison pipeline so we can develop a healthier generation.”

Toby Hur, who nominated her, joins Aurea Montes-Rodriguez and Joe Nunn at the alumni reception. Photo by Les Dunseith

Montes-Rodriguez, who now serves as executive vice president of organizational growth at Community Coalition, a social justice nonprofit based in South Los Angeles, was honored at a social welfare alumni gathering in Los Angeles.

Toby Hur MSW ’93, a longtime member of the social welfare field faculty, nominated Montes-Rodriguez and shares some history with her.

“My history with Community Coalition goes back to 1992,” Hur said. “In the aftermath of the rioting that rocked a city marred by racial division and economic disparity, a small group of community leaders emerged, such as Karen Bass, a current congresswoman, of Community Coalition, and B.H. Kim of Koreatown Youth and Community Center and a Luskin Senior Fellow, in order to bring forth a constructive agenda for healing and rebuilding of L.A.”

Hur said that, as a graduate student during that time, he became very involved in those efforts. The experience has deeply impacted his professional career and teaching in the ensuing years.

“Community Coalition has stayed true to its roots and continues to develop community capacities and future leaders,” Hur said, adding that Luskin students continue to be trained at Community Coalition in grassroots organizing, advocacy and political action. “Aurea is one of the unsung heroes, the all-important and crucial glue, holding the organization and its causes together. I think she is well overdue for recognition as one of the best Bruin MSWs.”

Since joining Community Coalition, Montes-Rodriguez has made significant strides in helping the organization grow and she has led efforts to raise funds to purchase and renovate its current headquarters in South L.A. “To be nominated by someone who understands the importance of building multiracial coalitions is really special,” she said of Hur.

Social Welfare’s Jorja Leap introduced two student fellowship recipients during the reception. Photo by Les Dunseith

She credits her success and inspiration to lessons learned at UCLA Luskin. Among those were leadership seminars led by Nunn, who focused on social welfare beyond the individual treatment model to build organizations and change the systems that prevent people from reaching their potential, taking on leadership roles to change those situations. She cited courses on leadership by social welfare professor Zeke Hasenfeld, as well as courses on grant writing and fundraising — skills that she said “were critical in helping us build community coalitions, long-term fundraising strategy and growing the organization.”

“The late Mary Brent Wehrli really brought us out to communities and organizations who were doing great work, went out of her way to help us understand the theory with the practice in communities,” Montes-Rodriguez said. Wehrli, a former member of the field faculty, was “one person who really pushed us to see leadership opportunities and a contribution we could make to the social welfare field, providing us with concrete training.”

“Since I graduated, that’s exactly the work I have been doing … organizing everyday people about having a voice in addressing the most-pressing issues so they can be the drivers of change,” Montes-Rodriguez said.

Another of Montes-Rodriguez’s mentors is Gerry Laviña, director of field education at the Department of Social Welfare.

“Community Coalition has hosted MSW interns for decades, provided summer jobs for our MSW students through their youth programs, and has hired many of our graduates — some like Aurea who remain and create and build capacity,” Laviña said. “Whenever someone asks about an example of a successful grassroots organization or doubts the possibility of African-American and Latino communities effectively working together, I hold up Community Coalition as a shining example.”

Montes-Rodriguez is a big reason why Community Coalition has been successful, Laviña said. “Aurea has had a part in all of this, and has been steadfast and resolved in her commitment to giving back to the community where she was both personally and professionally raised,” he said. “I have always appreciated Aurea’s blend of strength and humility, her commitment to her family and community. Los Angeles needs leaders like Aurea, and we need to highlight her as someone to aspire to.”

Social Workers Come Together for ‘This Incredible Conference’ At student-organized event, professionals and scholars gather at UCLA Luskin to hear experts discuss issues of vital importance to the Latina/o community

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By Les Dunseith

It’s 8:30 a.m. on a sunny Saturday, and the second floor hallway of the Public Affairs Building at UCLA is abuzz with activity as professional social workers join UCLA Luskin students and faculty for a daylong series of lectures and workshops designed to help them do the best work possible for Latina/o populations in Southern California.

“People come from all over for this conference,” said Gerry Laviña, director of field education for the Department of Social Welfare, as attendees began to file into a large classroom to begin the 15th annual Social Services in the Latina/o Community Conference on May 13, 2017. “They look forward to it.”

One group, from Ventura County, even arrived two hours early. By the time Dean Gary Segura delivered his keynote address shortly after 9 a.m., a total of about 100 people were on hand. Other participants would continue to arrive as workshops proceeded throughout the day. The student-organized conference has become so successful, in fact, that advance registration had to be capped at 220 this year.

A 1988 graduate of UCLA Luskin’s MSW program, Laviña noted during his opening remarks that such popularity wasn’t always the case. When it began a decade-and-a-half ago, the conference “was struggling, struggling, struggling,” he said. “But now it’s this incredible conference — all for free — because of the hard work that the students have done.”

During his keynote address, Dean Gary Segura talks about the issues of importance to Latino voters, especially in light of recent developments in Washington. Photo by Les Dunseith

Christina Hernandez, a second-year Master of Social Welfare student and one of the three co-chairs of the Latina/o Caucus, said the conference is the culmination of a yearlong process that starts with the writing of grant applications soon after the academic year begins. This year, a total of about $7,000 in grant funding was obtained.

The six-member board of the Latino Caucus includes two first-year MSW students whose participation is designed to help them be better prepared to lead the caucus and its annual conference next year. It’s a tradition that Hernandez said benefited her personally, as it did her co-chairs and fellow MSW students, Sandra Cervantes and Corina López.

“In my first year, I saw the time commitment that was required for the conference,” Hernandez explained. “So going into this year, I knew that I had to give it my all in order to make it a successful conference.”

As the date drew nearer, the students worked with Laviña and their other faculty advisers, Sergio Serna and Hector Palencia MSW ’08, to issue a call for proposals from potential speakers on various topics. The number of applicants exceeded the time and space available, which led to a culling process.

“We select proposals that seem most appropriate,” said Hernandez, who also noted that the organizers seek a balanced program of workshops, in part because many professionals earn continuing education credit for licensing purposes by attending. For instance, “two really good candidates” proposed workshops on law-related topics, but only one of them made this year’s agenda.

That session, “Trauma-Informed Immigration Law for Social Workers,” was one of nine workshops that took place during the day, which included a lunch break that featured a performance by Aztec dancers. A sample of other workshop topics included “Critical Race Theory in Social Work Practice: Going Beyond Competency” and “Queer Latinx: Policy & Critical Discourse.”

Although workshop topics were highly varied, one theme that got a lot of attention was the symbolic and practical impact of Trump administration policies on the vital work being done by the social workers who interact on a daily basis with members of the Latino community.

The rhetoric from Washington has left many social welfare students and professionals — not to mention their clients in disadvantaged and immigrant communities — feeling fearful and angry.

In his keynote talk, Segura detailed examples of anti-immigrant rhetoric throughout history, noting that Latinos have often felt like unwelcome outsiders because of America’s prevailing Euro-centric culture and view of history.

“It is a reflection of our lives as being principally valued for our labor rather than our personhood,” Segura said, “persistently marginalized for our phenotype rather than any actual transgressions, and conceived of in the eyes of those who hold power as a community that is less than equal.

“At the Luskin School of Public Affairs, we like to say we create change agents,” Segura said during his talk. “I sure hope so. Because we so badly need change. Fight like our lives depend on it. They just might.”

Serna and Laviña offered similar thoughts during their own remarks.

“This act of being of service is an act of resistance to injustice and oppression,” Serna told the crowd. “We are sending a message of hope and solidarity to the communities we serve, while raising a fist to those that desire to restrict us and remove funding to deter us from our purpose.”

Laviña, his voice sometimes breaking with emotion, talked about the importance of taking the high road, especially amid political and policy uncertainty.

“In this time of anger and standing up, I think we need to rely not just on ‘othering’ people. Because we have all been the ‘other,’” he said. “So I hope that today you leave with tools and knowledge and, most importantly, an increased sense of community. Because we cannot do this work alone.”

Examining the Unspoken Truth of Sexually Exploited Youth Author and researcher Alexandra Lutnick keynotes UCLA Luskin School conference on the hidden problem of youth caught up in the sex trade in the U.S

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“The stories I tell no way describe the torture I felt
Years of destruction I knew nothing else
Trusted my mind, body, and soul
In the hands of another human being to control”

from the poem “Mind, Body and Soul,” by Ummra Hang, a second-year master of social welfare student at UCLA Luskin

By Stan Paul

Ummra Hang’s reading of her powerful poem was one of many highlights of a UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs conference examining sexually exploited children. The event, held May 6, 2017, brought together students, faculty, policy experts, law enforcement and service agency personnel — as well as survivors of abuse and commercial sexual exploitation — to focus on a complicated and emotionally charged problem.

The conference, which included appearances by several alumni from the Luskin School, highlighted how commercial sexual exploitation is not just happening in other countries. It is believed to involve more than 100,000 young people throughout the United States — especially in densely populated California cities such as San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. The conference also served as the final project for — and was conducted by — Luskin master of social welfare research students in the University Consortium for Child and Families (UCCF) program, the culmination of their year-long research projects and part of a three-quarter course led by professor of social welfare Rosina Becerra. UCCF is a federally funded program and partnership between the County of Los Angeles Department of Children and Families and six masters of social work programs in Los Angeles, including UCLA.

Assisting the students in putting on the conference were Consuelo Bingham Mira, a lecturer in social welfare and coordinator of evaluation and research for the Public Child Welfare (PCW) California Social Welfare Education Counsel (CalSWEC) program and social welfare field faculty Michelle Talley.

Although the problem is difficult to measure, research shows that sexual abuse and exploitation is not limited to young girls. It affects males, females and across the spectrum of genders and sexualities for a variety of reasons, said keynote speaker Alexandra Lutnick, a researcher and expert on human trafficking, the sex industry, substance abuse and criminalization.

“Our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex — all face high rates of incarceration, family rejection, homelessness and child welfare involvement,” said Lutnick, author of the book “Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: Beyond Victims and Villains.” “Any one of those on their own puts someone at an increased risk of trading sex. And, when we look at the intersectionality of those, we realize the ways in which gender discrimination, discrimination based on sexual orientation, housing insecurity, institutionalized homophobia and transphobia all conspire to make this group of young people more vulnerable to being involved in selling sex.”

Lutnick explained that a complicated issue such as this refutes prevailing narratives.

“We don’t know how many are involved — it’s a hidden population,” she said. “There’s no registry,” and therefore no ability to gather data about the ages of youth entering the sex trade.

Lutnick discussed the role that physical or emotional neglect plays in bringing youth into the sex trade. With emotional neglect, a young person may not find support from the adults in the immediate family, so he or she may seek that support elsewhere.

“That could be coupling with somebody in an intimate partnership,” Lutnick said. “And then that person is asking, coercing or forcing them to sell sex. It could be looking for validation from people who are paying them for sex.”

Adding to this complex story is the role of child abuse, said Lutnick. “Inevitably that’s going to come up in any conversation about young people being involved in the sex trade. For some this means they’re being abused at home and to get away from the abuse they run away and then we’re back into the narrative of the role of homelessness.”

For others, she said, “their involvement in the sex trade is a continuation of the way in which their parents and guardians have been abusing them for many, many years. And it’s just one of the ways that’s now happening,” she said.

Panelist Gabriella Lewis, a supervising case manager with CAST, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit anti-trafficking organization, said that the problem is more common than most people realize. “Anyone can be a victim and anyone can be a trafficker,” Calderon said. “Safety is constantly an issue with this population.”

Solutions are challenging, Lutnick said, and they remain obstructed by nebulous dichotomies such as victim and villain.

The idea of, “Oh, we just need to rescue the good kids and punish the bad people,” flies in the face of the reality on the streets, Lutnick said. “We can’t arrest our way out of this. We can’t legislate our way out of it and we need to direct attention to the root factors that contribute to young people either deciding to that the sex trade is their best or their worst option or finding themselves in situations where someone is specifically taking advantage of the vulnerabilities that they have.”

There is some positive news in California, Lutnick said. The state Senate passed a bill in the past year that decriminalizes youth involvement in the sex trade — progress that was many years in the making.

“Even though you’ve got a federal definition, they’re regulated at the state level,” Lutnick said. “So unless states change their penal codes, young people are still being arrested.”

Lutnick also had some advice for lawmakers and policymakers.

“When we have these proposed outcomes — lawsuits or legislation — what are the questions we need to ask ourselves?” she asked. “Is it going to result in the hoped-for outcome? What are the potential negative impacts? Does it address key vulnerabilities such as poverty, racism homophobia, transphobia? And, if not, maybe we need to work a little harder to do that deeper level work — that macro level work — to come up with solutions that aren’t going to create harm for anybody.”

Two Luskin graduates — Emily Williams MPP ’98, assistant senior deputy for Human Services, Child Welfare, and Education for Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas; and Sarah Godoy MSW ’15, a policy associate for the National Center for the Youth Law’s Child Trafficking Team — were among the expert panelists. Both were part of the juvenile justice/law enforcement panel that included LAPD detective Dana Harris, who specializes in the investigation of human trafficking, and Maria Griglio, a deputy county counsel representing the Department of Children and Family Services.

Recognizing that young people over the age of 18 involved in prostitution may have been a victim of exploitation long before that, Williams talked about the L.A. County Supervisors’ ongoing efforts to end commercial exploitation of children as well as the expansion and implementation of support services to those who are 18-24 years of age.

“We understand they need to be served just as much as children do,” said Williams, who serves as a policy liaison to a number of service agencies including the Department of Children and Family Services, the Department of Public Social Services, Child Support Services and the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Panelist Monique Calderon, who was part of the “healing to action” panel, shared her own story of getting into “the life” in the sex industry after graduating from college, and how difficult it was to get out.

Conference organizers were pleased with the results of the daylong discussions.

“The conference exceeded my expectations,” UCLA Luskin social welfare field faculty member Michelle Talley MSW ’98 said after the event. “Every panelist enhanced the conference as each one imparted their knowledge and expertise about human trafficking and engaged the audience.”

Every student who participated went above and beyond to ensure the success of the conference, she said. “The conference was a start of an invigorating discussion of sex trafficking of youth in hopes to end trafficking as we know it today,” Talley said.

“This successful conference is just one of the examples of the many activities that the students are able to do in our MSW program,” added Becerra, who also acknowledged generous support for the conference by members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas, Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis, as well as by private donors.

Making a Local Impact Luskin Senior Fellow Mitchell Katz talks about boosting health care at the local level — even when the feds won’t pitch in

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By Zev Hurwitz

Mitchell Katz, a UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow, knows of several projects that would demonstrate the potential for effectiveness of local government.

“When people talk about public policy, typically people think about Washington [D.C.] or they think about state government,” said Katz, MD, director of the Los Angeles County Health Agency during a talk May 9, 2017, at the UCLA Faculty Center. “I have to say I’ve never been interested in working in either because I like seeing problems directly and figuring out how to solve them. What I want you to think about is, ‘What are the opportunities to do interesting things at a local level that perhaps you could never do at a federal level?’”

More than 50 attendees also heard from Director of the Los Angeles Initiative and former L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who moderated a Q&A that followed Katz’s discussion of experiences that employ creativity to improve public health.

Mitchell Katz is a physician and director of the Los Angeles County Health Agency. Photo by Aaron Julian

For example, when HIV/AIDS was spreading in San Francisco more than two decades ago, Katz helped create a needle exchange program that drastically lowered the number of new infections. In order to bypass state laws prohibiting taxpayer-funded needle exchanges, Katz and his colleagues needed to be creative in finding a legal loophole.

“We came up with the idea that we would declare an emergency,” he said. “The idea was that this was the leading cause of death among men … and here was something that was a transmissible agent. It seemed to me that this cause of death was a public health emergency.”

Katz likened the response to AIDS during the epidemic to an earthquake, during which normal county bureaucratic channels would be bypassed in providing emergency services.

“You were on the County Board of Supervisors for many years,” he said to Yaroslavsky. “If there’s a huge earthquake, you don’t want Zev and his colleagues to follow the process of getting request for proposals and figuring out who’s going to clean up your street — you want everybody to waive all the rules.”

Because rules for emergencies are time-sensitive, keeping the needle exchange program alive meant renewing the emergency order every two weeks for the next nine years.

“This gives you some sense about how absurd it was,” he said of navigating the bureaucracy.

Needle exchanges finally became legal in 2011, yet today no federal funding can be used to pay for such programs.

Katz also spoke about his work banning tobacco sales in pharmacies, improving public housing for homeless and chronically ill patients, advancing teleretinal screenings and remote doctor’s appointments to reduce waiting time for specialist appointments.

During the Q&A, he and Yaroslavsky engaged in a conversation about the future of health in Los Angeles and the country.

Yaroslavsky had high praise for Katz. “One of the best decisions the Board [of Supervisors] made in my day was getting Mitch Katz to come to Los Angeles even though he was from San Francisco,” he said.

Associate Dean and Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris opened the event, which was co-sponsored by the Fielding School of Public Health, and she introduced Katz. She also discussed the Luskin Senior Fellows program, which pairs leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors with graduate students at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs for mentorship and engagement on field-specific issues.

VC Powe, director of career services and leadership development at Luskin, oversees the program, which is now in its 20th year. She noted that the fellowship program’s speaker series allows the Luskin community to hear directly from community leaders.

“The Senior Fellows Speaker Series was created to provide a public square in which these prominent community and policy leaders can discuss their roles in public service and provide insights to their efforts to solve pressing public and social policy challenges,” she said.