News

Ashley Johnson

UCLA Prevention Center of Excellence Recognized with 2022 Cultural North Star Award

The Prevention Center of Excellence (COE) has been recognized by the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine as a Cultural North Star Award Recipient. This is the first program in the Department of Psychiatry to be recognized for this honor. The Cultural North Star Award recognizes the teamwork that serves as the cornerstone of the DGSOM collaborative environment. Programs receiving this award exemplify the values that help build and maintain a positive, team-oriented culture, which is critical to achieving the DGSOM mission.

The COE’s unique approach to community work exemplifies kindness, empathy, and curiosity both internally and with external partners. These values are present in everything the COE does to promote stigma-free environments, enhance employee skill sets, and promote the wellbeing of Los Angeles County’s workforce through trauma and resilience informed practices. The team is committed to understanding and addressing the ways in which racial inequities have impacted communities and services through evidence-based prevention approaches.

During a virtual event, Lauren Marlotte, PsyD, Director of Learning and Development, introduced the COE while Maegan Sinclair, MPH, Director of Research and Evaluation; Clare Gorospe, Clinical Training Manager, Early Childhood Core; and Sophie de Figueiredo, PsyD, Senior Clinical Training Manager accepted the award on behalf of the Center of Excellence Team.

A $5000 award from Cultural North Star will fund additional development opportunities to fulfill the COE’s commitment to racial equity and an on-going effort to be more anti-racist and culturally responsive.

Learn more about the Prevention Center of Excellence by visiting www.wellbeing4la.org.

Paola Tiburcio

DPBH Director Dr. Patricia Lester Appointed Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

UCLA announced Patricia Lester, MD is the new Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. Dr. Lester is the Jane and Marc Nathanson Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and David Geffen School of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Division of Population Behavioral Health, Director of the Nathanson Family Resilience Center, Co-Director of the Center for Child Anxiety Resilience Education and Support, and as part of the leadership team for the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families. She also leads the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health + UCLA Public Partnership for Wellbeing a multidisciplinary partnership developed to strengthen communities, reengineer systems, and revitalize policy. Dr. Lester’s research, administrative and clinical work have been dedicated to the development, evaluation, and implementation of family-centered prevention and treatment for families and children facing trauma and adversity within community ecosystems. She co-developed the preventive intervention FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress) which enhances resilience and wellbeing in youth and families facing adversity, trauma and loss. Over the last 15 years, she has led a large-scale FOCUS implementation reaching over 1 million people as a public health continuum of preventive services for the Department of Defense, a model that has been adapted through a community-participatory approach for schools and other community settings.  She is an author of over 100 articles and chapters, and her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health; the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, state and county governments; and numerous private philanthropies. She has served on federal advisory committees for the National Academies of Science and the Department of Defense and has testified for Congress regarding military and veteran families. In 2018, Dr. Lester received the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Irving Phillips Lifetime Achievement Award in Prevention.