Person Category: Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty

Laura Wray-Lake

May 10, 2016/in Social Welfare Adolescents, Children and Families, Civic Engagement, Education, Empowerment, Equity, Political Behavior, Social Responsibility, Youth Development Laura Wray-Lake All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Les Dunseith

Dr. Laura Wray-Lake’s research is primarily focused on youth civic engagement. The starting point for this research is the assumption that adolescents and young adults hold abundant potential and act as positive change agents and address society’s problems on local, national, and global scales. In Dr. Wray-Lake’s work, civic engagement is intentionally broadly defined to include behaviors as well as values, skills, knowledge, and motivations; political and helping-oriented forms of engagement; and informal and formal ways of being civically engaged. Her work also prioritizes young people’s own definitions of civic engagement, as youth are continually reimagining ways of being civically engaged that align with their opportunities and contexts.

Grounded in a developmental perspective, Dr. Wray-Lake uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies to understand how and why young people become civically engaged. Her research has documented developmental change over time in different forms of civic engagement, examined factors that promote and hinder youth civic engagement, and considered the role of culture, context, and historical time in shaping youth civic engagement. Dr. Wray-Lake has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and an SRCD Monograph entitled Pathways to Civic Engagement among Urban Youth of Color. Her forthcoming book, written with a team of colleagues, is called Young Black Changemakers and the Road to Racial Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Dr. Wray-Lake’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Haynes Foundation, and AmeriCorps. She received the Mid-Career Award for Research Excellence from the Society for Research on Adolescence in 2020.

Current Research Projects Include:

A longitudinal study of youth activism in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to understand experiences of youth activists with different social identities.
A mixed-methods study of ageism against adolescents to understand the negative stereotypes adults have of adolescents that can hinder civic engagement and thriving.

Dr. Wray-Lake is a member of the Vote16 Research Network, a collaborative of researchers, advocates, government officials, and educators working to study the impact and implementation of lowering the voting age to 16. She has written several pieces, including for Perspectives on Psychological Science, that review evidence showing that 16 and 17-year-olds are capable and ready for the right to vote.

Dr. Wray-Lake is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence, and recently co-edited a special series on Dismantling Systems of Racism and Oppression during Adolescence focused on Black youth; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) youth; and resistance and activism among youth of color.

A full list of Dr. Wray-Lake’s publications can be found on google scholar or ResearchGate. Please contact Dr. Wray-Lake for a copy of any publication.

Leyla Karimli

May 10, 2016/in Social Welfare Children and Families in a Global Context, Multidimensional Poverty and Child Deprivation Leyla Karimli All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Les Dunseith

Dr. Leyla Karimli’s interdisciplinary applied research critically examines the impact of poverty reduction interventions on the psychosocial wellbeing of vulnerable children and families in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, highlighting the often-neglected significance of local social structures and revealing the multifaceted nature of poverty. Dr. Karimli uses multilevel longitudinal experimental and quasi-experimental studies to examine complex links between the economic dimensions of poverty, social norms, social support mechanisms, and psycho-social outcomes in order to inform programs and policies to address child poverty and deprivation in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia.

Dr. Karimli received her PhD from Columbia University’s School of Social Work with a concentration in social policy and social welfare. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and New York University’s Silver School of Social Work’s McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Karimli actively contributed to community-based empowerment and poverty reduction initiatives by working within development agencies in the former Soviet Union and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Karimli is a faculty affiliate at Luskin’s Global Public Affairs, the Global Lab for Research in Action, the International Center on Child Health and Asset Development (ICHAD), and UCLA’s California Center for Population Research (CCPR).

Connect with her on X (formerly Twitter)

For full list of publications please visit her page at ResearchGate or Google Scholar

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Karimli L., Nabayinda, J., Nartey, P.B., & Ssewamala F.M. (2024) Poverty reduction and family functioning: Results from an experimental study in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 33, 3104-3118

Karimli L., Nabunya, P., Ssewamala, F.M., & Dvalishvili, D. (2024) Combining asset accumulation and multi-family group intervention to improve mental health for adolescent girls: A cluster-randomized trial in Uganda. Journal of Adolescent Health, 74(1), 78-88

Karimli, L., Ssewamala, F. M., & Neilands, T.B. (2023) The impact of poverty-reduction intervention on child mental health mediated by family relations: Findings from a cluster-randomized trial in Uganda. Social Science & Medicine, 332, 116102

Gómez, A., Karimli, L., Holguinc, M., Chung, P., Szilagyi, P., & Schickedanz, A. (2022) Bills, babies, and (language) barriers: Associations between economic strain and parenting outcomes among parents of infants in low-income households. Family Relations, 71, 352-370

Karimli, L., Lecoutere, E., Wells, C. R. & Ismayilova, L. (2021) More assets, more decision-making power? Mediation model in a cluster-randomized controlled trial evaluating the effect of the graduation program on women’s empowerment in Burkina Faso. World Development, 137, 105159

Karimli, L., Bose, B., & Kagotho, N. (2020) Integrated graduation program and its effect on women and household economic well-being: Findings from a randomized controlled trial in Burkina Faso. Journal of Development Studies, 56(7), 1277-1294

Ismayilova, L. & Karimli, L. (2020) Harsh parenting and violence against children: a trial with ultra-poor families in Francophone West Africa. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 49(1), 18-35

Karimli, L., Shephard, D.D., McKay M. M., Batista, T., & Allmang, S. (2020) Effect of non-formal experiential education on personal agency of adolescent girls in Tajikistan: findings from a randomized experimental study. Global Social Welfare. 7(2), 141-154

Salecker, L.M., Ahmadov, A., & Karimli, L. (2020) Contrasting monetary and multidimensional poverty measures in a low-income Sub-Saharan African country. Social Indicators Research, 151(2), 547-574

Karimli, L., Ssewamala, F. M.., Neilands, T.B., Wells, C. R., & Bermudez, L. (2019) Poverty, economic strengthening, and mental health among AIDS orphaned children in Uganda: mediation model in a randomized clinical trial. Social Science & Medicine, 228, 17-24

Karimli L., Rost L., Ismayilova L. (2018). Integrating economic strengthening and family coaching to reduce work-related health hazards among children of poor households: Burkina Faso. Journal of Adolescent Health, Special Issue, Global Perspectives on Economic Strengthening, 62(1):S6–S14.

Ismayilova, L., Karimli, L., Sanson, J., Gaveras, E., Nanema, R., Tô-Camier, A., & Chaffin, J. (2018) Improving child mental health in ultra-poor families: Two-year outcomes of a cluster-randomized trial in Burkina Faso. Social Science & Medicine, 208, 180-189

Ismayilova, L., Karimli, L., Gaveras, E., Tô-Camier, A., Sanson, J., Chaffin, J. & Nanema, R. (2018) An integrated approach to increasing women’s empowerment and reducing domestic violence: Results of a cluster-randomized controlled trial in a West African country. Psychology of Violence, 8(4), 448-459.

Lovato-Hermann, K., Lopez, C., Karimli, L., & Abrams, L. (2018) The impact of deportation-related family separations on the well-being of Latino/a children and youth: a review of the literature. Children and Youth Services Review, 95, 109-116

Ssewamala, F. M., Karimli, L., Neilands, T. B., Wang, J. S. H., Han, C. K., Ilic, V., & Nabunya, P. (2016) Applying a family-level economic strengthening intervention to improve education and health-related outcomes of school-going AIDS-orphaned children: Lessons from a randomized experiment in Southern Uganda. Prevention Science, 17(1), 134-143

Karimli, L., Samman, E., Rost, L., & Kidder, T. (2016) Factors and Norms Influencing Unpaid Care Work: Household survey evidence from five rural communities in Colombia, Ethiopia, The Philippines, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Oxford, UK: Oxfam, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care.

Ananya Roy

May 9, 2016/in Social Welfare, Urban Planning Critical Poverty Studies, Feminist Theory, Global Racial Capitalism, Postcolonial Studies, Social Movements, Urban Inequality Ananya Roy All Faculty, Ladder Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Les Dunseith

Ananya Roy is Professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare, and Geography and The Meyer and Renee Luskin Chair in Inequality and Democracy at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the founding Director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA, which advances research and scholarship concerned with displacement and dispossession in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the world. Working in alliance with social movements and community organizations, the Institute seeks to build power and abolish structures of inequality. Previously she was on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her Master’s in City Planning (1994) and Ph.D. in Urban Planning (1999). There she was the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest teaching recognition that the University of California, Berkeley bestows on its faculty. In 2011, Ananya received the Excellence in Achievement award of the Cal Alumni Association, a lifetime achievement award which recognizes her contributions to the University of California and public sphere.

Ananya is a scholar of global racial capitalism and postcolonial development whose research is concerned with the political economy and politics of dispossession and displacement. With theoretical commitments to postcolonial studies, Black studies, and feminist theory, she seeks to shift conceptual frameworks and methodologies in urban studies to take account of the colonial-racial logics that structure space and place. As a researcher, Ananya strives to advance research justice, by which she means accountability to communities directly impacted by state-organized violence. At the very heart of her work is an insistence on the transformation of the public university – through teaching, public scholarship, and community engagement – so that it can be a force for social justice.

Ananya’s books have focused on urban transformations and land grabs in the global South as well as on global capital and predatory financialization. They include City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty; Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, South, Asia, and Latin America; Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global; Territories of Poverty: Rethinking North and South; and Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World. Ananya is the recipient of several awards including the Paul Davidoff book award, which recognizes scholarship that advances social justice, for Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development. Ananya has also played a key role in leading the call for “new geographies of theory,” critiquing the EuroAmerican parochialism of urban studies and demonstrating the capacious concepts that can be generated by thinking from the intellectual traditions of the global South.

Ananya leads a National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network on Housing Justice in Unequal Cities, which creates a field of inquiry into housing justice shared by university-based and movement-based scholars. Along with colleagues at UCLA, Ananya has recently led a Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar on Sanctuary Spaces: Reworlding Humanism, which is concerned with the place of racial others in liberal democracy. Situating transnational inquiry and solidarity at the present moment of resurgent white nationalism and xenophobia, her work on sanctuary challenges Western humanism and foregrounds alternative frameworks of freedom and justice. Ananya was Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from 2016 to 2020. She is the 2020 Freedom Scholar, an award bestowed by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Group Health Foundation to social justice leaders.

Her current research is concerned with racial banishment, the expulsion of working-class communities of color from cities through racialized policing and other forms of dispossession. Such work is reflected in her scholarship on property, personhood, and police, which studies policing as a race-making project, as well as in her role as convener of the After Echo Park Lake research collective, which studies displacement in Los Angeles. For Ananya, the horizon of abolition is at stake in such scholarship. This is in turn involves “undoing property,” including the transformation of the policed-propertied order that is the elite university.

Website: https://challengeinequality.luskin.ucla.edu/ananya-roy/

David Cohen

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Coercive mental health care, Controlled substances, Data justice, Deprescribing, Harm reduction, History of ideas, Medicalization, Mental health, Psychopharmacology, Psychotropic medications David Cohen All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

David Cohen studies psychoactive drug effects in the light of an irrational medicine-drug divide across which drugs move regularly: from proscribed to prescribed, and back. His qualitative and epidemiological studies in Canada, France, and the United States — on patients’ and professionals’ representations of drug effects, the expansion of drug markets to children, and mutations of drug knowledge within national cultures — question assumptions that psychoactive drugs’ properties determine their socio-legal status. This line of investigation parallels Cohen’s scrutiny of evidential claims regarding the efficacy of biological treatments for, and neuro-essentialist explanations of, psychological distress, misbehavior, and extreme states.

Cohen also studies harms of mental health treatments, and the deliberate spread of ignorance through the capture of scientific activities by corporate interests and reigning ideologies. Charting the rise and fall of schools of thought in mental health over time, he considers what this means for ethical care, informed consent, and trying to do no harm today. His comparative research on involuntary psychiatric detentions leads him to explore governments’ meager efforts to provide basic accountability for coercive care, the oldest mental health policy.

As a mental health practitioner, Cohen focused on withdrawal reactions from psychiatric drugs and person-centered methods to reduce or discontinue drug use. He proposed guidelines for therapists’ role in psychopharmacology as medications shifted from medical tools to consumer products. He designed the CriticalThinkRx Critical Curriculum on Psychotropic Medications for child welfare professionals, shown in a longitudinal controlled study to reduce prescriptions to children in foster care. Cohen has consulted with governments, research agencies, courts, media, religious institutions, professional and community groups, and individual practitioners, on reducing harms of psychotropic drug prescriptions, from institutional care to private practice.

Cohen has authored or co-authored over 120 articles and chapters. He edited Challenging the Therapeutic State (1990), Médicalisation et contrôle social (1996), Critical New Perspectives on ADHD (2006), and co-authored Guide critique des médicaments de l’âme (1995), Your Drug May Be Your Problem (1999/2007), and Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs (2015). He received awards for writing, research, teaching, mentoring, and advocacy.

From 1988 to 2000, Cohen taught at University of Montreal (where he directed the Health and Prevention Social Research Group focusing on the nascent social-determinants-of-health paradigm), and from 2000 to 2013, at Florida International University (where he was PhD Program Director and Interim Director of the School of Social Work). In 2012, he held the Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair to France. At UCLA Luskin, he held the Marjorie Crump Chair in Social Welfare from 2013-2018, served as Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development between 2018-2023 and is currently Associate Dean.

Selected recent publications

Discontinuing Psychiatric Medications from Participants in Randomized Controlled Trials: A systematic Review (2019)

Incidences of Involuntary Psychiatric Detentions in 25 U.S. States (2020)

Withdrawal Effects Confounding: Another Sign of Needed Paradigm Shift in Psychopharmacology Research (2020)

Laura Abrams

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Criminal Justice, Gender Issues, Juvenile Justice, Transition Age Youth Services Laura Abrams All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

Professor Abrams’ scholarship focuses on improving the well-being of youth and adults with histories of incarceration. Her ethnographic studies have examined youths’ experiences of criminality, risk, and institutions seeking to reshape their identities. These themes are considered in her first book Compassionate Confinement: A Year in the Life of Unit C (Rutgers University Press, 2013). Her second book Everyday Desistance: The Transition to Adulthood Among Formerly Incarcerated Youth (Rutgers University Press, 2017), examines how formerly incarcerated young men and women navigate reentry and the transition to adulthood in the context of urban Los Angeles. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and is the editor of two edited volumes: The Voluntary Sector in Prisons (Palgrave, 2016); and The International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment (Palgrave, 2021). She also partnered with Professor Laura Wray-Lake to produce a recent SCRD monograph entitled Pathways to Civic Engagement Among Urban Youth of Color.

Dr. Abrams is currently involved in several studies concerning the youth and adult criminal legal systems and reentry, locally and globally. Her study of youth justice models in four countries examined how issues of age, maturity, and culpability are constructed in law and practice. A mixed methods study of very young offenders, incarceration, health, and public policy led to a state bill in California barring juvenile justice jurisdiction in for youth under age 12; a model that is spreading nationally. Dr. Abrams is currently fielding a study on reentry, health, and social networks among young people aged 18-25 from Los Angeles County jails and along with PI Dr. Elizabeth Barnert, is the co-director of the UCLA Life Course Intervention Research Network – Youth Justice Node. She is also working with a national team to examine life after “juvenile life without parole” in the United States.

In the community, Dr. Abrams has served as an expert witness for death row appeals and in cases involving minors fighting their fitness to be tried as adults. She has provided public and congressional testimony regarding treatment in the juvenile justice system, the reentry needs of youth, and effective practices for the reintegration of reentry youth into the community.

Dr. Abrams’ work and opinions have been cited in a range of news media including the Washington Post, the New York Times and NPR, among others. She has received numerous awards for her scholarship, including the SSWR best scholarly book award (2020) and the Frank R. Bruel prize for the best published article in Social Service Review (2013). In 2020 Dr. Abrams was inducted as a member of the American Academy for Social Work and Social Welfare. In 2022, she received the inaugural UCLA Public Impact award and was inducted into the UCLA Faculty Mentoring Honor Society .

Professor Abrams teaches the following courses: SW 211B: Human Behavior and the Social Environment II; SW 229: The Craft of Social Welfare Scholarship; SW249: Qualitative Methods; and SW 290T: Juvenile Justice Policy.

You can follow Dr. Abrams on Twitter or the Facebook page for the Social Welfare Chair

Recent News Releases and Media Interviews:

Vera Institute of Justice: Everyday Desistance

Growing Pains of Formerly Incarcerated Youth

GPS Rules Send California Juveniles Into a Jail Cycle

Jailed Indiana Teens Reach a Crossroads

MPR News On Abuse in a Private Juvenile Facility

Seeking Justice for Juveniles

More Protections for Juvenile Offenders are Before California Legislators

Take Two: Is Jail for Juveniles Effective in Preventing Future Crime?

Juvenile Arrests Plunged Last Year, why?

Expanding rehabilitation Programs under Federal Decree- NPR

The California Report: NPR

Larthia Dunham

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Practicum Education Larthia Dunham All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

Larthia R. Dunham is a practicum educational consultant and has been a faculty member for over twenty one years, teaching gradu-ate level courses in macro social work. He is also affiliated with the University Consortium for Children and Families (UCCF). As part of Larthia’s community engagements, he offers cross-cultural sensitivity workshops and trainings to agencies working with diverse populations. Larthia is a co-founder of Social Workers Beyond Borders, a non-profit international organization, and is also an active member of the National, State, and Local Chapters of the Association of Black Social Workers and a past President of the Association of Black Social Workers of the greater Los Angeles chapter. Larthia’s passion for international social work has led him to develop Summer Immersion Pro-grams where he has taken students to Ethiopia, South Africa, and Ghana.

Ian W. Holloway

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Adolescents, Evidence-Based Practice Implementation, Global Health, HIV/AIDS, LGBT Populations, Social Network Analysis, Substance Abuse Ian W. Holloway All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

Ian W. Holloway, PhD, LCSW, MPH is a licensed clinical social worker and professor of social welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Professor Holloway’s applied behavioral health research examines the contextual factors that contribute to health disparities among sexual and gender minority populations. He is an expert in social network analysis and is particularly interested in how social media and new technologies can be harnessed for health promotion and disease prevention. Dr. Holloway has been a principal investigator on research studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Department of Defense, and the California HIV/AIDS Research Program. He currently directs the Southern California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Center, which brings 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/AIDS.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Holloway IW, Wu ESC, Gildner J, Fennimore VL, Tan D, Randall D, Frew P. Quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine uptake among men who have sex with men during a meningococcal outbreak in Los Angeles County, California 2016-2017. Public Health Reports. 2018;133(5):559-569. PMCID: PMC6134560

Holloway IW, Bednarczyk R, Fenimore VL, Goldbeck C, Wu ESC, Himmelstein R, Tan D, Randall L, Lutz CS, Frew PM. Factors associated with immunization opinion leadership among men who have sex with men in Los Angeles, California. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2018;15(5):939. PMCID: PMC5981978

Holloway IW, Tan D, Gildner JL, Beougher SC, Pulsipher C, Montoya JA, Plant A, Leibowitz A. Facilitators and barriers to pre-exposure prophylaxis willingness among young men who have sex with men who use geosocial networking applications in California. AIDS Patient Care and STDs. 2017;31(12): 517-527.

Holloway IW, Traube DE, Schrager SM, Tan D, Dunlap S, et al. Psychological distress, health protection, and sexual practices among young men who have sex with men: Using social action theory to guide HIV prevention efforts. PLOS ONE. 2017:12(9): e0184482.

Holloway IW, Winder TJA, Lea CH, Tan D, Boyd D, Novak D. Technology Use and Preferences for Mobile Phone–Based HIV Prevention and Treatment Among Black Young Men Who Have Sex With Men: Exploratory Research. JMIR. 2017;5(4): e46. PMCID: PMC5408136

Holloway IW, Tan D, Dunlap SL, Palmer L, Beougher S, Cederbaum JA. Network support, technology use, depression, and ART adherence among HIV-positive MSM of color. AIDS Care. 2017;10:1-9. PMID: 28488886

Holloway IW, Dougherty R, Gildner J, Beougher S, Pulsipher C, Montoya JA, Plant A, Leibowitz A. PrEP Uptake, Adherence, and Discontinuation among California YMSM Using Geosocial Networking Applications. JAIDS. 2017;74(1):15-20. PMCID: PMC5140696

Holloway IW. Substance Use Homophily Among Geosocial Networking Application Using Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men. Arch Sex Behav. 2015;44(7):1799-1811. PMCID: PMC4574511

Holloway IW, Pulsipher C, Gibbs J, Barman-Adhikari A, Rice E. Network influences on the sexual risk behaviors of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men using geosocial networking applications. AIDS Behav. 2015;19(Suppl 2):112-122. doi: 10.1007/s10461-014-0989-3. PMCID: 25572832.

Holloway IW. Lessons for Community-Based Scale-Up of Monkeypox Vaccination From Previous Disease Outbreaks Among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men in the United States. American Journal of Public Health. 2022:e1-e4.

Michelle Talley

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Child Abuse and Neglect, Child Welfare, Children and Families, Drugs/Controlled Substances, Practicum Education Michelle Talley All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

Michelle Talley is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker whose main area of focus is working with youth and families as it relates to Public Child Welfare. Other areas of interest are issues dealing with domestic violence, substance use, education, and attachment in youth and families.

As a practicum consultant with the Inter-University Consortium, a collaborative effort of Southern California social work programs that trains social workers in the area of child welfare, Ms. Talley works with first and second-year MSW students placed in the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

Ms. Talley has also worked as a mental health clinician dealing with children impacted by abuse and neglect within their family nucleus. Most of the children and families worked with were also dealing with substance use/abuse, criminal issues, education, poverty, and mental health issues in which adversely impacted their family dynamics. Ms. Talley has also worked as an adoption social worker with Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. The focus was to locate families and individuals who were interested in providing a permanent home for children in the Child Welfare system.

Jorja Leap

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Criminal Justice, Death Penalty and Plea Mitigation, Gangs and Youth Violence, Juvenile Justice, Life History, Youth Development Jorja Leap All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

Jorja Leap has been a member of the Social Welfare Department faculty at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs since 1992 and serves as the Executive Director of the UCLA Social Justice Research Partnership. As a social worker/anthropologist and recognized expert in gangs, violence, and systems change, she develops, coordinates and directs real-life scholarly efforts that involve research, evaluation and policy recommendations at the local, state and national level. Dr. Leap has worked nationally as well as globally in post-war environments and settings beset by violence throughout her career, applying a multi-disciplinary, community-based approach to her research and capacity building efforts. Her current work focuses on gangs and community justice in multi-cultural settings, criminal justice and prison reform, and the dilemmas faced by individuals reentering society after incarceration, including women, a group often overlooked.

Dr. Leap has served as policy advisor on Gangs and Youth Violence for Los Angeles County, as an expert reviewer on gangs for the National Institute of Justice, and as the Clinical Director of the Watts Regional Strategy for the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office. In addition, she has worked as the qualitative research director for the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office Gang Reduction Youth Development (GRYD) Program. She has also been appointed to the State of California, Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), Standing Committee on Gang Issues. Through work she has engaged at the national level, she is now the Evaluation and Research Director for the Community Based Public Safety Collective.

Alongside these efforts, she has served as an expert witness in local, state ,and federal judicial proceedings, focusing on gangs, violence, and the relationships between trauma and criminalized behaviors. Additionally, Dr. Leap has authored a series of reports on gang membership, dynamics, and desistance in death penalty sentencing and plea mitigation procedures, appeals, habeas corpus hearings, and clemency proceedings. Dr. Leap works to educate the court in understanding the nuances of gang activity and the trauma that underlies so much of its commission. She continues to provide commentary on numerous television, radio and newspaper stories about gangs.

Currently, Dr. Leap is the lead researcher for the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative. Additionally, she is engaged in a five year, longitudinal evaluation of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang reentry program in the world, integrating UCLA undergraduate and graduate students in this ground-breaking research. She is the co-founder of the UCLA Watts Leadership Institute, working closely with the community-based leaders of Watts as well as its nonprofit network to build capacity and ensure equity in the vibrant community she is honored to be part of. Dr. Leap has authored numerous reports, chapters, and books, including Jumped In: What Gangs taught me about Violence, Drugs, Love and Redemption with all proceeds going to Homeboy Industries and Project Fatherhood: A Story of Courage and Healing in one of America’s Toughest Communities with all the proceeds going to Project Fatherhood. Her latest book Entry Lessons: The Stories of Women Fighting for their Place, their Children and their Futures after Incarceration was published in 2022, with all proceeds going to Susan Burton and the A New Way of Life Reentry Program.

Learn more about Dr. Leap’s work.

Downloads and other links:

Alternative Strategies to Reduce Gang Violence

Gangster Anthropologist
L.A. County Must Reform Outdated, Harmful Youth Probation Camp System

Successful Gang and Violence Prevention Strategies – Minority News

Gang Alternative Movement Gains Momentum – Discovery News

Behind the scenes with the gang strike force

Lené Levy-Storms

April 22, 2015/in Social Welfare Aging/Gerontology Lené Levy- Storms All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by webteam

Professor Lené Levy-Storms studies how social relationships affect health and health behaviors among older adults in both community and institutional settings. She employs both quantitative and qualitative methodology and uses both primary and secondary data sets for intervention and observational inquiries. Previously, Dr. Levy-Storms has studied social support networks among minority older adults using social network analysis. Her core research concerns communication issues between health care providers and older adults, specifically paid and unpaid caregivers. She is particularly interested in how social support occurs through interpersonal communication during care. In 2003, Dr. Levy-Storms received career development award from the National Institute on Aging titled, “Therapeutic Communication during Nursing Home Care,” which laid the foundation for her ongoing research agenda. In 2010, Dr. Levy-Storms became a Health and Aging Policy Fellow and began to examine policy issues related to paid caregivers in long-term care settings, and she recently published a policy brief.

With her NIA Career Development Award and subsequent funding from the Hartford Foundation, the Archstone Foundation, the American Medical Directors’ Association, and the National Alzheimer’s Association, Dr. Levy-Storms collected video- and audio-recordings of paid and unpaid caregivers interacting with older adults in various long-term care settings, which in collaboration with Susan Kohler created “Get Connected,” a communication training program for providing care to older adults living with dementia. Because of “Get Connected,” she received funding from the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute in 2021 to train long-term care facilities how to train their staffs with it as well as a UCLA Innovators Fellowship in 2022 to explore bringing it to market. The goal of using the communication strategies in “Get Connected” is to obtain an emotional connection, which can be difficult as the older adults progress to later stages of dementia. She is currently writing a proposal to use emotion recognition software to measure emotional connections during caregiving after training with “Get Connected.”

Dr. Levy-Storms has B.S. degree in biopsychology from UC Davis, a MPH in biostatistics and PhD in public health. From 1998-2000, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Gerontology and a fellow of the Sealy Center on Aging at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX. In 2000, she joined the UCLA Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics as an assistant professor. At that time, she also became an associate director of the UCLA/Borun Center for Gerontological Research, an appointment which she continues to hold. The Borun Center is based at the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda, CA and focuses on applied research to improve the quality of life of older adults in long-term care settings. She now holds a joint appointment with Medicine/Geriatrics and Social Welfare. She also co-directs the UCLA Gerontology Interdisciplinary Minor since 2012.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Use of mammography screening among older Samoan women in Los Angeles county. Levy-Storms, Lené, Steven P. Wallace. (2003). Social Science and Medicine, 57(6): 987-1000

Predictors of Different Levels of Non-adherence to Mammography Screening.
Levy-Storms L, Bastani R, Reuben DB. (2004). “Predictors of Different Levels of Non-adherence to Mammography Screening: Implications for Interventions.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 52: 768-773

A Comparison of Methods to Assess Nursing Home Residents’ Unmet Needs.
Levy-Storms, Lené, John Schnelle, Sandra F. Simmons. (2002). The Gerontologist, 42, 454-461

Patterns of Family Visiting with Institutionalized Elderly. Yamamoto-Mitani, Noriko, Carol Aneshensel, Lené Levy-Storms (2002). Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 57B, (4), S234-S246

The Transition from Home to Nursing Home: Mortality among People with Dementia. Aneshensel, Carol, Leonard Pearlin, Lené Levy-Storms, Roberleigh Schuler. (2000). Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 55B, (3), S152-S162

Family Caregiver Involvement and Satisfaction with Institutional Care during the First Year after Admission Levy-Storms L, Miller D. (2005). Journal of Applied Gerontology, 24(2), 160-174.

Simmons, S.F., Levy-Storms L . (2006). “The Effect of Staff Care Practices on Nursing Home Residents’ Preferences: Implications for Individualizing Care.” Journal of Nutrition, Health, and Aging, 10(3), 216-221.

Levy-Storms, L., Lubben, J.E. (2006). “Network Composition and Health Behaviors among Older Samoan Women,” Journal of Aging and Health, 18(6), 814-836.

Levy-Storms, L., Schnelle, J.F., Simmons, S.F. (2007). “What Do Families Notice Following an Incontinence and Mobility Care Intervention in Nursing Homes? The Gerontologist, 47(1):14-20.

Carpiac-Claver, M., Levy-Storms, L. (2007). “In a Manner of Speaking: A Qualitative Analysis of Verbal Communication between Nursing Aides and Nursing Home Residents.” Health Communication, 22(1):59-67.

Levy-Storms, L. (2008). “Therapeutic Communication Training in Long-term Care Institutions: Recommendations for Future Research.” Patient Education and Counseling, 73: 8-21.

Levy-Storms, L., Claver, M., Matthias, R., Gutierrez, V., Curry, L. (2011). “Individualized Care in Practice: Communication Strategies between Nursing Aides and Residents in Nursing Homes.” Journal of Applied Communication Research, 39: 271-289.

Levy-Storms, L., Harris, L. M., & Chen, X. (2016). “A Video-Based Intervention on and Evaluation of Nursing Aides’ Therapeutic Communication and Residents’ Agitation During Mealtime in a Dementia Care Unit.” Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics, 35(4), 267-281.

Levy-Storms, L., Cherry, D.L., Lee, L., Wolf, S.M. (2017) “Reducing Safety Risk among Diverse Caregivers with the Alzheimer’s Home Safety Program,” Aging and Mental Health, 21(9):902-909.

Levy-Storms, L., & Chen, L. (2020). Communicating Emotional Support: Family Caregivers’ Visits with Residents Living with Dementia in Nursing Homes. Journal of Women & Aging, 32(4), 389-401.

Levy-Storms L. and Mueller-Williams A. (2022). Certified Nursing Aides’ Training Hours and COVID Case and Mortality Rates Across States in the U.S.: Implications for Infection Prevention and Control and Relationships with Nursing Home Residents. Front. Public Health,10:798779. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.798779

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