Tranishia James

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Tranishia James is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Her interests are in cultural issue, eliminating racial disproportionately and disparity in the child welfare system, trauma informed social work practice and assisting at-risk adolescents with attaining higher education. 

 

As a Practicum Education Consultant with the California Social Work Education (Cal-SWEC) program, Tranishia works with first and second year students training them to become professional public child welfare social workers and is involved in recruiting child welfare candidates. 

 

Prior to coming to UCLA, Tranishia worked with children and families in L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for 10 1/2 years. She was a supervisor in Emergency Response (child abuse investigations); as well as a Coach Developer, teaching skills development trainings for Supervisors and Children’s Social Workers. While at DCFS, Tranishia also worked as a Practicum Instructor training/supervising UCLA and USC social work interns. 

Helmut K. Anheier

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Helmut K. Anheier is Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy, Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany, and the Principal Investigator of the Berggruen Governance Index project at the Luskin School. He served as President of the Hertie School from 2009 to 2018, held a Chair of Sociology at the Max-Weber-Institute of Heidelberg University and served as founding Academic Director of the Centre for Social Investment and Innovation. He was the Academic Co-Director of the Dahrendorf Forum, a joint initiative by the Hertie School and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research centres on social innovation, nonprofits, civil society and philanthropy; governance; cultural policy; organisational studies; and indicator systems. Anheier was the principal academic lead of the Governance Report (Oxford University Press), and is editor-in-chief of Global Perspectives (University of California Press). Anheier is author of numerous publications, many in leading journals and with top university presses. He has received various national and international awards. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1986, was a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Policy Studies, Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare at UCLA , Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University.  Before embarking on an academic career, he served as Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations.

Cindy C. Sangalang

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Cindy C. Sangalang, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor of Social Welfare and Asian American Studies at UCLA. Drawing on theory and knowledge across disciplines, her research examines how race, migration, and culture intersect to shape health outcomes and inequities for migrant and refugee communities, especially for Asian Americans.

A primary concern driving Dr. Sangalang’s research is understanding how Asian migrant communities articulate and are affected by trauma and stress, over time and intergenerationally. Her work also explores how histories of oppression within migrant and other minoritized communities are relevant for identifying and disrupting mechanisms by which structural inequalities influence health. Dr. Sangalang uses quantitative and qualitative methods as well as community-based participatory research approaches to elucidate questions within these core areas of interest.

Currently, she is leading a study in partnership with Filipino American community organizers to study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic-related stress and violence on Filipino American essential workers and their families.

Dr. Sangalang has been a principal investigator on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the State of California. She earned her Ph.D. and Masters in Social Welfare from UCLA and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in health disparities research at Arizona State University. Previously she was on the faculty in Social Work at Arizona State University and at California State University, Los Angeles.

 

Visit Google Scholar for a full list of her publications.

 

Selected Publications:

 

Sangalang, C. C., Vang, C., Kim, B. J., & Harachi, T. W. (2022). Effects of trauma and post-migration stress on refugee women’s health: A life course perspective. Social Work, 67(3).

 

Mitchell, F. M., Sangalang, C. C., Lechuga-Peña, S., Lopez, K. & Becerra, D. (2020). Health   inequities in historical context: A critical race theory analysis of diabetes among African Americans and American Indians. Race & Social Problems, 12(4), 289-299.

 

Sangalang, C. C., Becerra, D., Mitchell, F. M., Lechuga-Pena, S., Lopez, K., & Kim, I. (2019). Trauma, post-migration stress, and mental health: A comparative analysis of Asian and Latino refugees and immigrants in the United States. Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health, 21(5), 909-919.

 

Sangalang, C. C., Jager, J., & Harachi, T. W. (2017). Effects of maternal traumatic stress on family functioning and child mental health: An examination of Southeast Asian refugee families in the U.S. Social Science & Medicine, 184, 178-186.

 

Sangalang, C. C. & Vang, C. (2017) Intergenerational trauma in refugee families: A systematic review. Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health, 19(3), 745-754.

 

Sangalang, C. C. & Gee, G. C. (2015). Racial discrimination and depression among Cambodian American adolescents: The role of gender. Journal of Community Psychology, 43(4), 447-465.

 

Sangalang, C. C., Ngouy, S., & Lau, A. S. (2015). Using community-based participatory research to identify health and service needs of Cambodian American adolescents. Families & Community Health, 38(1), 55-65.

 

Sangalang, C. C. & Gee, G. C. (2012). Depression and anxiety among Asian Americans: The effects of social support and strain. Social Work, 57(1), 49-60.

Ron Avi Astor

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Ron Avi Astor holds the Marjorie Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of bullying and school violence (e.g., sexual harassment, cyber bullying, discrimination hate acts, school fights, emotional abuse, weapon use, teacher/child violence). This work documents the ecological influences of the family, community, school and culture on different forms of bullying and school violence. This work has been used worldwide. Astor’s studies have included tens of thousands of schools and millions of students, teachers, parents and administrators. Over the past 20 years, findings from these studies have been published in more than 200 scholarly manuscripts.

Along with his colleague Rami Benbenishty, Astor developed a school mapping and monitoring procedure that is used “at scale” regionally and with local students and teachers to generate “grassroots” solutions to safety problems. The findings of these studies have been widely cited in the international media, in the United States, and Israel.

Astor’s work has won numerous international research awards from the Society for Social Work Research, the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Military Child Educational Coalition and other research organizations. He has an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College. Astor is a fellow of APA, AERA, and an elected member of the National Academy of Education and American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

His work has been funded by the Department of Defense Educational Activity, National Institutes of Mental Health, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Israeli Ministry of Education, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, University of Michigan, USC and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and other foundations.

Amy Ritterbusch

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Dr. Amy E. Ritterbusch is an Associate Professor of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her work illuminates both the theory and practice of participatory action research (PAR), invoking the Latin American origins of this mode of inquiry, and focuses on multiple forms of state violence perpetrated against what she and activist co-authors refer to as ‘street-connected’ communities, including children and youth who depend on the streets for survival in the absence of other caring structures. Dr. Ritterbusch leads PAR collectives in Colombia and Uganda that work in solidarity with street-connected-communities against police violence and forced displacement.

The urgency of action, from the streets toward policy, is a key focus of Dr. Ritterbusch’s scholarship, and her work offers methodological and theoretical insights on how to do PAR with historically marginalized communities in ways that repel extractive, unilateral, and colonial modes of traditional scientific inquiry.  Throughout her research and teaching career, she has explored different forms of radical accompaniment of social leaders on the frontlines in the global South and continues to imagine new pathways forward toward a Fals Bordian ciencia popular involving the collective work of movements and academics in protective spaces that grow in distance from both the non-profit and academic industrial complex.

Dr. Ritterbusch’s scholarship involves public intellectual work in the global South including human rights shadow reports, street-level organizing and collective writing that seeks to influence policy outcomes for social justice. Her research has been funded by the Open Society Foundations, the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright U.S. Program and other networks promoting global social justice.

 

Selected Collective and Individual Publications:

Correa-Salazar, C., Martínez, L., Maldonado Salamanca, D., Ruiz, Y., Rocío Guarín, L.,  Hernández Guarín, A.,  & Ritterbusch, A. (2022) Reflections on activism, the academy and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex in Colombia: What a revolutionary ethos might look like, Global Public Health

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2022.2042354

Ritterbusch, A., Simbaqueba Gomez, A.L., Restrepo, J., Montes, N., Rentería, C., Velazco, Y., García Jaramillo, S. & Maldonado, D. (2021). Growing Up Guerreándola: On Adolescent Formations of Conscientização in Colombia. The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 48(4): 118-146.

DOI: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol48/iss4/7

Ritterbusch, A., Pinzon, E., Reyes, R., Pardo, J., Jaime, D., Correa-Salazar, C. (2020). ‘I feel safer in the streets than at home’: Rethinking harm reduction for women in the urban margins. Global Public Health. 15(10): 1479-1495.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2020.1751234

Ritterbusch, A. & El Cilencio. (2020). ‘We will always be street’: Remembering the L in Bogotá, Colombia. City. 24(1-2): 210-219.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2020.1739915

Ritterbusch, A., Boothby, N., Mugumya, F., Wanican, J., Bangirana, C.,   Nyende, N., Ampumuza, D., Apota, J.  & Meyer, S. (2020). Pushing the Limits of Child Participation in Research and Policy-Making: Reflections from a Youth-Driven Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Initiative in Uganda. International  Journal of  Qualitative Methods. 19:1-12.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920958962

Ritterbusch, A. (2019). Empathy at Knifepoint: The Dangers of Research and Lite Pedagogies for Social Justice Movements. Antipode 51(4): 1296-1317.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12530

Human Rights Reports

Comisión Ciudadana Nacional e Internacional (National and International Citizen Commission). (2022). “En Colombia Nos Volvimos Cifras”: Informe para el esclarecimiento de los hechos occuridos el 9, 10 y 11 de septiembre de 2020 en Bogotá y Soacha [In Colombia We Became Numbers’: Shadow Report for the Historical Clarification of the [Police Brutalities] Occurring on the 9th, 10th and 11th of September of 2020 in Bogotá and Soacha]. Bogotá: CCEEU (La Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos) Available online:

https://www.cinep.org.co/es/informe-en-colombia-nos-volvimos-cifras/

https://coeuropa.org.co/en-colombia-nos-volvimos-cifras/

Simbaqueba, A., Restrepo, J. & Ritterbusch, A. (2020). Vidas y territorios en disputa: dolor, memoria y lucha de la población LGBTI en las laderas [Lives and territories in dispute: Pain, memory and struggle of the LGBTQ community in the urban margins]. National Truth Commission. Bogotá, Colombia.

Available online: https://issuu.com/vidas_territorios_en_disputa/docs/vidas_y_territorios_en_disputa_–_dolor__memoria_y

Blandón, T., Espinosa, J., González, T., Camacho Iannini, S.I., Juanita, Llano Agudelo, A., Fonseca, C., González Coy, P., Guardiola Navarro, A.C., Leguízamo Parales, M.V., Maldonado Salamanca, D., Pérez, C., Pérez, G., Romero, A., Ruiz, Y., Salamanca Cortés, J., Sarasty, A.S., Uribe Durán, S., Victoria Mena, P., Weinstein, L., Summer, V., Ritterbusch, A. & González, M. (2019). Sueños furiosos: Aportes para la construcción de una agenda política trans [Furious Dreams: Contributions for the Construction of a Trans Political Agenda]. Institute on Inequality and Democracy. Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA.

Available online:

https://challengeinequality.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2019/09/Ritterbusch-Amy-SUE%C3%91OS-FURIOSOS.pdf

Tovar, M., Trejos, C., Giraldo, Y., Delgado, G., Lanz, A., Lanz, S., León, S., Lloreda, A., Pardo, L., Morales, A., Salamanca, J & Ritterbusch, A. (2017). Destapando la olla: Informe sombra sobre la intervención en el Bronx [Uncovering the Pot: Shadow Report on the [Police] Intervention in El Bronx]. Bogotá: Impresol Ediciones.

Available online:

https://issuu.com/cpat_ong/docs/destapando_la_olla_

Cubides Kovacsics, M.I., Lloreda, A., Pardo, L., Picasso, N., Lanz, A., Ritterbusch, A., Montoya, M.J., Guzmán, Y., Cocomá, A., Rubianogroot, M., Vargas, M.A., Chaux, S. (2016). Ley Entre Comillas: Informe de Derechos Humanos del Observatorio de Trabajo Sexual [. Bogotá: Parces – PAIIS.

Available online:

https://issuu.com/adrianamarialloreda/docs/ley_entre_comillas_informe_ddhh_tra

Martin Gilens

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Martin Gilens is a Professor of Public Policy, Political Science, and Social Welfare at UCLA. His research examines representation, public opinion, and mass media, especially in relation to inequality and public policy. Professor Gilens is the author of Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America, and Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy, and coauthor (with Benjamin I. Page) of Democracy in America?: What Has Gone Wrong and What We Can Do about It. He has published widely on political inequality, mass media, race, gender, and welfare politics. He earned a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Russell Sage Foundation. Professor Gilens is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and taught at Yale and Princeton universities before joining the Luskin School at UCLA in 2018. 

Click here for more information about Professor Gilens and his work.

Click here to make an appointment with Professor Gilens.

Ayako Miyashita Ochoa

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Ayako Miyashita Ochoa is an Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Department of Social Welfare.  She serves as Co-Director of Luskin’s new Center, UCLA Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice (UCLA HHIPP).  UCLA HHIPP’s mission is to co-create research that informs policy and practice and addresses intersecting oppressions in order to improve community health. As Co-Director for the Southern California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Center (SCHPRC), Professor Miyashita collaborates on interdisciplinary research with community and academic partners to bring the most relevant and timely evidence to bear on California’s efforts to develop and maintain efficient, cost-effective, and accessible programs and services to people living with or at risk for HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and overdose.  Her research interests focus on HIV and other related health disparities at the intersection of race/ethnicity, sexual and gender identity, and migrant status.

In addition to serving as a faculty representative to the LGBTQ Affairs Committee at UCLA, Professor Miyashita is Co-Director of the Policy Impact Core for UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) as well as a Faculty Affiliate of UCLA California Center for Population Research (CCPR). Her teaching includes courses at UCLA Luskin, including LGBTQ Health, Law and Public Policy, Education and the Law, and Social Welfare Law and Ethics—a newly designed course.

Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA Luskin, Professor Miyashita directed the Los Angeles HIV Law and Policy Project, a legal services collaborative dedicated to addressing the unmet legal needs of primarily low-income people living with HIV (“PLWH”) in Los Angeles County.  As a Director in the Clinical and Experiential Learning Department at UCLA School of Law, Professor Miyashita taught courses on the attorney-client relationship, client interviewing and counseling, and HIV law and policy. As the HIV Law and Policy Fellow at the Williams Institute in 2013-2015, her research included studies on HIV criminalization, unmet legal needs of PLWH in addition to issues related to HIV privacy and confidentiality.

In her legal practice, Professor Miyashita provided direct legal services to low-income clients living with HIV in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles counties. This included assisting clients in obtaining disability benefits and other supports necessary to live independently. Her legal expertise runs a broad spectrum of public benefits including income support, health coverage, and other support services necessary for individuals living with disabilities. Professor Miyashita regularly provides training and education to clients, advocates, health and social service providers, and legislative and policymaking bodies.

Professor Miyashita earned her Juris Doctor from U.C. Berkeley School of Law and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2009.

Latoya Small

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Latoya Small’s scholarship is informed by her work in clinical social work practice and community-based research.

Her research focuses on health disparities, specifically, the intersection of mental health, treatment adherence, and HIV among women and children in the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her global research addresses the urgent need for theory-driven, empirically-informed, and sustainable psychosocial HIV treatment approaches for youth living with perinatally acquired HIV in South Africa.

In the U.S., Dr. Small examines how poverty-related stress, parenting, and mental health interact and relatedly impact adherence in HIV medical services among Black and Latina women in urban communities. An extension of her work includes mental health and discrimination facing transgender women of color.

Dr. Small takes a collaborative approach in her scholarship, recognizing that traditional intra-disciplinary boundaries can impede the development of effective and sustainable research interventions. Her work aims to produce accessible, evidence-informed interventions that bolster youth development and women’s health.

Hector Palencia

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Mr. Palencia graduated with a B.A. in English and a Religious Studies minor from the University of California, Irvine. From there he was granted an M.A. in Systematic Theology (with honors) from Berkley’s Graduate Theological Union, with another Masters degree in Social Welfare from U.C.L.A.

Mr. Palencia put his graduate studies to work in the practicum of gang resistance diversion programs, Mr. Palencia has numerous professional qualifications in addition he has presented on Social Welfare and Gangs, Criminalization of Homelessness, Working with Trauma in Youth, and Gang Round Table Discussions.

Mr. Palencia’s work history demonstrates a compassion borne out of his spiritual endeavors and a capacity for working with marginalized young offenders. He comes to UCLA from El Rancho unified where he served as one of the mental health liaison’s responsible for district wide mental health services which included coordinating services with partnering agencies as well as responding to crisis and working specifically with tier three students. For 4 years, he was with the East Whittier City School District overseeing middle school diversion programs, created partnerships with community agencies to meet needs not being addressed for students, and he became successful in writing numerous grants including the Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant initiative. In his career, he has worked in hospice and as drug and alcohol counselor handling at-risk youth case loads.