Alison L. Bailey and Margaret Heritage,
Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Testing/CRESST Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Para Los Niños

CRESST Researchers Bailey and Heritage joined forces with the Para Los Niños program to improve English language and literacy learning for pre-school and elementary children living in some of Los Angeles most impoverished neighborhoods (skid-row; Pico Union). The collaboration has centered on improving language and literacy learning to ensure school success and has involved UCLA graduate students, a network of practitioners and policy-makers.

Yasmin B. Kafai,
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and the Computer Clubhouse of South Los Angeles

This partnership provides both children and youth Clubhouse members living in South LA and UCLA undergraduate student mentors with access to high-end computers and creative software and with opportunities to design, create, and invent with new technologies in order to become more capable, creative, and confident learners. Their research collaboration has resulted in several conference presentations and research papers and received in 2006 a community-mentoring award by the City of Los Angeles.

Marguerita Lightfoot, SEMEL Institute for Neuroscience and My Friend’s Place (MFP)

Each year, MFP welcomes over 1,000 homeless youths ages 12 and over, and their children, who are escaping abusive homes, emancipated from foster care with insufficient skills and resources, or were raised on the street as victims of the cycle of homelessness. My Friend’s Place has served these youth with a comprehensive continuum of care that includes free emergency resources such as food and clothing in combination with health, educational, and therapeutic services. The partnership between MFP and Dr. Lightfoot strengthened the skills, abilities and power of both the researcher and the community-based agency. Since 1999, the partnership has resulted in increased knowledge regarding the trajectories in and out of homeless adolescents, as well as the design and testing of interventions to address and reduce the sexual and substance use risk behaviors of these youth.

David Sefton, UCLA Live
and Lulu Washington Dance Theater

Each season, Design for Sharing invites Lulu Washington Dance Theatre to collaborate up to four times a year on programming for its Demonstration Performances and My Special World workshops. Design for Sharing provides the structure to reach up to 3,500 LAUSD students for the performances and workshops, and Lulu Washington Dance Theatre provides the artistic, cultural and historical content. Lulu’s program gives children an awareness of different dance styles and information about classroom, and incorporates information that meets state and national educational standards. (In the photo, Barbara Dobkin, center, is shown accepting on behalf of David Sefton.)