Barbara Nelson, former dean of the School of Public Affairs at UCLA and professor emerita of public policy, social welfare, urban planning and political science, received recognition at the 2020 International Women’s Day Conference held at Dhaka University in Bangladesh in March for her award-winning 1994 study, “Women and Politics Worldwide.” Nelson co-edited the book with Najma Chowdhury, a professor in Women and Gender Studies at Dhaka whose lifetime achievements were also honored at the conference. They studied 43 countries and territories focusing on women’s political engagement in state organizations and civil society. In 1995, the book won the American Political Science Association’s Victoria Schuck Award for the best book on women and politics. Nelson’s 12-year tenure as dean ended in 2008. She was invited to speak in Bangladesh about the book and her collaboration with Chowdhury but was unable to attend because of travel restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Her address was delivered on her behalf at the conference.
Professor Ron Avi Astor and Ph.D. student Kate Watson of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare teamed up with Professor Rami Benbenishty of Hebrew University to create a set of questionnaires to assess how well teachers, students, parents and others are coping during the COVID-19 pandemic. The questionnaires have been widely distributed to social workers, educators and psychologists at no cost. “Schools can respond better to the most pressing needs of their students, teachers and families amid the COVID-19 pandemic by hearing the entire community,” Astor told Ampersand, a publication of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Sample questionnaires, available at these links for teachers, students and parents, may be used in conjunction with abridged versions of two books co-authored by Astor and Benbenishty: “Mapping and Monitoring Bullying and Violence: Building a Safe School Climate” and “Welcoming Practices: Creating Schools That Support Students and Families in Transition.” Astor and Benbenishty will also appear at a free UCLA Luskin Summit webinar on “A New Normal for Schools During the Pandemic” on Monday, May 4, at 9:30 a.m. To register and attend the webinar, visit this link.
Associate Professor of Public Policy Sarah Reber was featured in a Los Angeles Times report about the controversy over a faculty recommendation to keep the SAT and ACT tests as admission requirements for the University of California system. In a letter to the Board of Regents, Reber and two other education and economics experts, Michal Kurlaender of UC Davis and Jesse Rothstein of UC Berkeley, criticized the recommendation, which was made by faculty representing all 10 UC campuses. Reber and her co-authors instead recommended the use of a state assessment called Smarter Balanced, which research shows is as predictive of college performance as the SAT with less bias against disadvantaged students. Reber called for all campuses to admit more students who graduate with high GPAs but low test scores, then to hold them accountable for their academic success once enrolled. UC Regents are scheduled to meet in May to vote on the issue.
Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor was featured in a War Horse article about the high suicide risk of children of military service members. Despite increases in the number of veteran suicides in the last 20 years, very little research has focused on the mental health and well-being of children of service members. Exposure to trauma from a parent’s combat experience, resistance to mental health care and high rates of gun ownership are factors that put military children at higher risk for suicide. Frequent school changes and parental absences can erode their support structures. “The military and the country have an obligation here,” Astor said. “If we’re going to stick with 1% of the population as our fighting force, the least we can do is provide them and their families with support if they’re suicidal.” In 2010, Astor helped launch an initiative to train California teachers to better understand the risk factors unique to military-connected students.
They still walk Skid Row despite the COVID-19 pandemic. They still go to homes where children are in need. They still report to work at hospitals where patients die alone and families need to be located and told. It’s their job — their essential job — and they’re still doing it despite extraordinary circumstances that are making already difficult roles even more challenging.
“On a personal level, these social workers are making sacrifices of their own health, and potentially the health of their families, in order to continue to serve,” said Laura Abrams, professor of social welfare. “They know that they’re taking that risk, but they feel like it’s important to them. It’s their responsibility.”
Founded in 1947, the UCLA program is widely known and highly respected, particularly in California, where most of the 90 to 100 graduates each year go to work for city, county or state social services agencies.
Abrams, who is chair of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, knows this because she’s been talking to some of them, connecting with alumni of her program for Zoom calls to find out how they are doing.
What is it like for social workers right now?
Lavit Maas in her personal protective gear.
Lavit Maas, who graduated in 2010 with her master’s in social welfare, works for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health’s Homeless Outreach and Mobility Engagement team, which provides care on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles for homeless people with severe mental illness. Maas works with people who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
“There’s a lot of elderly on Skid Row,” she told Abrams. “There’s a lot of people with medical conditions. It’s terrifying because we don’t know what to do [for them]. It makes me sad.”
Gabby Peraza, a 2019 master’s in social welfare graduate, works with foster youth as part of her job with the county department of children and family services. Soon after the safer at home order was issued, she encountered a young girl who needed to be transferred to a new placement but was frightened by Peraza’s protective gear. The child cowered in fear, hiding behind a foster parent.
“I had to make the decision. I’m either going to have a kid crying with me — and forcing that kid into a car with me,” Peraza recalled. “I said, ‘All right, I’m going to take this mask off, take these gloves off, and just engage with this kid.’ ”
Abrams has been recording her video interviews, and they are being edited for privacy and clarity before being posted for educational purposes on a showcase page maintained by the Luskin School. [Or scroll to the bottom to view.] So far, eight interviews have been completed and three have been posted publicly. In all, Abrams expects to do at least eight, with interviewees who reflect the broad swath of roles in which social workers are employed.
The idea came to Abrams soon after she and her family moved inside to comply with the social distancing order that was issued March 19 in Los Angeles County.
“I felt very disconnected from what was happening out in the real world,” Abrams said.
A conversation about the impact that the coronavirus pandemic was having on a close friend in a medical career led Abrams to realize that few people were thinking about her former and current students in UCLA’s social welfare program. She knew they were being affected too, but how? So she reached out on Facebook to see if anyone wanted to talk.
“Social workers, they’re playing a vital role in this pandemic,” said Abrams, noting that they interact with people at the margins of society who are often overlooked by the general public and in media reports. “What’s happening out in the community, especially with really vulnerable populations like homeless folks or people in the jails or children in foster care?”
Abrams said she has learned a lot from the Zoom calls. For one thing, the feeling of personal safety varies from person to person and job to job. A social worker in a hospital, for example, said she had access to personal protective equipment and felt safe. But those who work for government agencies, however, said they were fearful about their level of protection from the novel coronavirus.
Many social workers said they are facing unexpected dilemmas, and “working in spaces in which their clients are not getting what they need,” Abrams said. For example, an alumna who works in a correctional facility observed that people being imprisoned there were not given proper access to soap and water so they could comply with orders to frequently wash their hands.
A surprise from her interviews was discovering that some facilities and social services are actually being underutilized at the moment. The number of cases being handled is less than usual for Peraza and for Madison Hayes, another 2019 master’s in social welfare graduate, who works in Sacramento at a shelter for foster youth. For both, the decline in cases mirrors a steep drop-off in calls to crisis hotlines and a lack of referrals from the mandatory reporters at public schools.
“We know that things like abuse and other family problems are probably increasing, but calls … are decreasing so dramatically,” Abrams said. “Child protection is basically falling apart because there’s no window to the outside world.”
Gabby Peraza was a student commencement speaker in 2019.
Talking to social workers in the field has also reminded Abrams of the inequities that always exist in society.
“Access to health care: What does that mean?” Abrams asked. “Access to even having a home, to being sheltered? I am seeing the racial disparities and seeing the ways that the haves and the have-nots have different levels of access at this time.”
The interviews have also reminded Abrams of one other important — and more hopeful — aspect of society. People keep doing their jobs despite the risks involved.
“We all knew coming into this career that there’s always going to be a risk,” Peraza told Abrams about what it’s like to be a social worker during this crisis. “We just didn’t think it was going to be this type of risk.”
Peraza said it’s not about herself, it’s about the children and the families she serves.
Maas acknowledged the risks to her own health and the fear of getting infected and passing the virus along to a colleague or loved one. But there is work to be done.
“I love being a social worker and, to me, service is the only thing that matters,” Maas said. “Of course, you can’t be of service if you can’t protect yourself. I know that. But, especially in a time like this, I have to be of service.
Public Policy Professor John Villasenor wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education recommending that colleges and universities prepare for the possibility of remote learning in the fall term. The rapid spread of COVID-19 forced many universities to make a sudden switch to remote classes this spring. Planning for fall is overshadowed by continued uncertainty about the duration of the coronavirus emergency and whether it will be advisable for students to return to campus. Villasenor pondered whether “many [students] will elect to sit out the fall term rather than spend many thousands of dollars” on video-based remote learning if it extends into the next academic year. He urged institutions to survey students and their families to collect “critical data regarding enrollment, impacting everything from tuition revenue to class offerings to assignment of teaching assistants.” Villasenor also called on colleges to consider financial assistance to families hit hard by the pandemic.
Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor spoke to Education Dive about the importance of recognizing military culture in schools and supporting military children. If former Vice President Joe Biden is elected president in November, his wife, Jill Biden, would have a national platform to pursue her work on behalf of children from military families. Astor’s research has found that children of active-duty service members were more likely than non-military-connected peers to carry weapons to school, to drink alcohol or use other substances, and to be the victims of bullying. After working with Jill Biden on a federally funded program to improve school climate and mental health services in military-connected schools, Astor said she understood “the experiences of military kids going from place to place and worrying about their parents.” He said schools should recognize military culture to make children feel more connected and to educate their civilian peers on the contributions of the military.
Recent articles by KCET and CalMatters noted Public Policy Associate Professor Meredith Phillips’ research contributions regarding the persistent achievement gap in education. In its discussion of the disparities in California education, the CalMatters article cited the 1998 book “The Black-White Test Score Gap,” co-edited by Phillips, which analyzed the causes and significant consequences of the achievement gap, as well as options for closing it. The KCET article highlighted the findings of a 2017 UCLA study co-directed by Phillips that investigated the college enrollment rates of Los Angeles Unified School District high school graduates. The study found that high school counselors’ large caseloads got in the way of helping students with college and financial aid applications. Counselors at 75% of the schools reported that some students were not getting the help they required.
Professor Ron Avi Astor, who holds a joint appointment with UCLA Luskin Social Welfare and the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to Israel, where he will study the country’s successful, systemic approach to addressing school safety issues. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar, Astor will conduct research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his project, “Addressing School Safety at the National Scale, for Each School, and Sustained Over Time: A Two-Decade Historical and Empirical Case Study on the Israeli System of School Safety.” His four-month study tour will begin in March. Astor’s research examines the role of the physical, social-organizational and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of bullying and violence. Israel, he said, has adopted policies and practices that have reduced victimization levels and become an example for many other countries and states. The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The program’s U.S. Scholar awards are made on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as a record of leadership and service. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program is funded by the U.S. State Department and supported by governments and host institutions in more than 160 countries.
