Special Recognition for Tsunami Relief
Robert S. Pynoos and Alan M. Steinberg
with Operation USA

One of the hallmarks of UCLA in LA is the melding of campus expertise with community expertise. Indeed, the primary impetus behind the UCLA in LA initiative recognizes that both the university and the region are stronger when we collaborate to address the significant issues of our time.

We are all painfully aware of the great tragedy caused by the tsunami in South Asia. Lives have been lost, families destroyed and entire towns and villages decimated. The resulting trauma to the survivors, as well as to the dedicated volunteers and professionals working in the relief effort, is barely imaginable.

UCLA has two of the country’s leading experts in post-traumatic stress disorder, who in collaboration with Los Angeles based Operation USA, are assisting in the acute and long-term disaster relief efforts in Sri Lanka and the rest of the Indian Rim. With support from the Ann C. Rosenfield Fund under the direction of David A. Leveton, UCLA is delighted to be a part of this critical effort and the Center for Community Partnerships takes particular pride in playing a leadership role – not only in our local community but in the global community as well.

Robert S. Pynoos
Professor in Residence, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
Director, Trauma Psychiatry Service
Co-Director, National Center for Child Traumatic Stress

Dr. Robert Pynoos co-directs the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, a nationwide network of 54 academic- and community-based centers dedicated to raising standards of care and improving access to services for traumatized children, families, and communities throughout the United States.

For over two decades, Dr. Pynoos has made significant contributions to understanding the impact of children’s exposure to violence and disaster and to elevating the standards of mental health care for child victims and witnesses. He has written extensively about child development and the impact of disaster, violence, and loss. He has edited several widely respected books on posttraumatic stress in children and adolescents, and is a leader in research into the neurobiology of childhood trauma and its impact on moral development.

Dr. Pynoos has Chaired the William T. Grant Consortium on Adolescent Bereavement and the MacArthur Foundation Network Study Group on Children’s Responses to Traumatic Stress. He has served as a consultant to UNICEF after the Gulf War and has conducted a long-term post-war recovery program for adolescents in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He also provided consultation to the U.S. Department of Education after the Oklahoma City bombing and to public school districts after the Thurston and Columbine High School school tragedies. After September 11, Dr. Pynoos served as a consultant to First Lady Laura Bush regarding the needs of children and family; to the New York City Board of Education, the New York State Office of Mental Health, and the New York City Department of Health in planning post 9/11 mental health responses.

Alan M. Steinberg
Associate Director
National Center for Child Traumatic Stress
UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital

Dr. Steinberg is a recognized authority in public mental health approaches to post-disaster recovery programs for children and families. He has extensive experience in assisting community and school-based programs to institute rigorous assessment, treatment, and outcome protocols after natural disasters, and has worked extensively with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to enhance community leadership to promote our national preparedness and response to terrorism and disaster. He currently directs the development of a disaster research training curriculum under a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Steinberg has served as a long-term consultant to UNICEF, and has worked in Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece, Nicaragua and Taiwan to assist in the development and implementation of post-war and post-disaster mental health recovery programs. He also devotes time to teaching bioethics in the UCLA Medical Center and the UCLA Department of Philosophy.

Operation USA
Richard M. Walden, President & CEO
Jonathan Estrin, Board Chairman

Operation USA is a wholly privately-funded, Los Angeles-based nonprofit providing supplies and services to refugees and victims of natural disasters in the United States and abroad. For more information about their activities, please visit www.OperationUSA.org.