We had a busy year in 2021! Like you, we continued our work to support the health, education, and wellbeing of young people amid the ongoing uncertainties of the pandemic.
As the year comes to an end, we’re reflecting on where we’ve been and how we can expand our work of communicating the science of adolescent development in ways that further support all of our youth to thrive.
We wanted to share some of the highlights of our work with all of you, in the hopes that we can be helpful in the essential work you do to support adolescents and their positive development. Take a look!
We are now the UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent! CDA was originally founded at UC Berkeley, and after some time as an independent group, this move returns us to our roots as a university-based organization, amplifying our efforts to build bridges between research, programs and policy to better support all adolescents.
We released the first council report from the National Scientific Council on Adolescence (NSCA), exploring how racism and related inequities impact adolescence, and offering recommendations to support Black youth within key social contexts of the middle and high school years.
Jayden Foytlin along with NSCA member and Cornell professor Anthony Burrow joined host Dr. Ron Dahl to talk about mattering, contribution, and how adults can support youth to develop a sense of purpose.
Ron Dahl spoke with STEM students Jara Wilensky and Noor Harwell along with NSCA Co-Director and Rutgers professor Joanna Lee Williams about being Black women in science and forming a positive sense of identity in adolescence.
UCLA CDA Co-Executive Director Adriana Galván spoke with panelists Ahna Suleiman, Crystal Tyler, Pamela Anderson, and NSCA member Stephen Russell about what adults can do to support sexual and romantic development in youth.
UCLA CDA Co-Executive Director Andrew Fuligni spoke with researchers Lauren Mims and Joanna Lee Williams about their recent paper, “‘They Told Me What I Was Before I Could Tell Them What I Was’: Black Girls’ Ethnic-Racial Identity Development Within Multiple Worlds,” examining factors that influence Black girls’ sense of racial-ethnic identity during middle school.
We partnered with Young Invincibles to host a panel discussion on the importance of mental health resources for young adults, featuring NSCA member Stacy Sterling, as well as Cameron Vigil, and Isabella Fernandes de Oliveira.
We co-hosted a four-part webinar series with The Readiness Projects and Youth-Nex, discussing how we can reimagine schools to most effectively support adolescent learning and development in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
Report lead Joanna Lee Williams, co-author Andrew Fuligni, and youth reviewer Kofi Mason talked with moderator and NSCA Co-Director Jennifer Pfeifer about how we can work to mitigate and eliminate the effects of anti-Black racism in order to support the healthy development of Black youth.
Vanderbilt University professor Dr. Velma McBride Murry joined us to discuss her extensive research on African-American parents and youth and her Pathways for African American Success Program.
NSCA Co-Director Joanna Lee Williams joined The Hunt Institute, Teach Plus, and The Education Trust to discuss the council report and how districts can recruit teachers of color into the classroom and how schools can provide the support and resources necessary for retention.
Our advisory board member Karen Pittman moderated this conversation with Joanna Lee Williams for the Readiness Projects, discussing the role that youth-serving organizations can play in optimizing learning and development in adolescence.
In 2022, we will be continuing our work on the Core Science of Adolescence, developed with FrameWorks Institute, to better communicate the current scientific understanding of adolescent development as a period of remarkable opportunity.
As we look to the new year with renewed excitement about our work, we want to say a huge thank you to our trusted partners who helped us create these events and resources, particularly FrameWorks Institute, The Readiness Projects, and Youth-Nex. And we are continually grateful to the funders who support our work.
Please let us know how we can share the developmental science in ways that support your own efforts on behalf of adolescence in 2022!
In the last discussion of our 2024 Adolescent Brain Development Symposium, Joanna Williams, Senior Director of Research at Search Institute, took the stage with Le’Yondo Dunn, CEO of YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School, and Haafizah Carter, an alumnus of the school, to talk about the impact of civic engagement on purpose.
In the third discussion of our 2024 symposium, science journalist Lydia Denworth talked with Natasha Duell, assistant professor of Psychology and Child Development at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, LaJuan Allen, director of Vote16USA, and Audrey Rothenberg, a senior at Culver City High School and volunteer at Vote16 Culver City about how civic engagement can support the need to explore and take positive risks during adolescence.
