Grants from The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and an anonymous donor will support a new partnership between UCLA and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem focused on developing school violence prevention strategies that ensure that campuses are safe and welcoming places for children worldwide. The UCLA-HU Collaboration for Safe Schools is a $1.3 million, two-year pilot program connecting university students, scholars and practitioners globally and across disciplines to share research and insights related to the complex underlying causes of school violence. Through exchange programs and conferences held on each campus, the partnership will bring top U.S. and Israeli scholars together with K-12 educators, administrators and social workers; policymakers and experts in law and criminology; and graduate and undergraduate students focused on fields related to social education. The first conference, to be held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, will focus on how to ensure safety at schools in areas that are experiencing extreme strife at the political and social levels. Recruitment of partnering research teams at Hebrew University and UCLA will begin in the fall of 2023. The program will operate under the leadership of two internationally recognized experts in school safety: Ron Avi Astor, UCLA professor of social welfare and education, has worked with thousands of schools to reduce victimization of students in a career spanning three decades. Mona Khoury-Kassabri, chair of Hebrew University’s school of social work and social welfare, is also the university’s vice president of strategy and diversity. 

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Read the January 2023 Luskin Forum story about Astor’s work