UCLA Nathanson Family Resilience Center

Dr. Byron Young is a psychiatrist, a lover of the arts, and a proud Black man; the work he does sits squarely at the intersections of mental health, education, creativity, and social and racial justice. He has learned — in clinic, in community, in years of watching young people navigate systems that were never designed with them in mind — that engagement is not a technique. It is a relationship. And relationships, real ones, require something most training programs never ask of us: the willingness to see another person as fully human, and to examine honestly the ways our own conditioning makes that harder than it should be. This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar is about transitional age youth — young people between the ages of 16 and 25 navigating child welfare, mental health systems, and schools in a world that has already formed opinions about them before they walk through the door — and specifically about Black and brown youth, who are overrepresented in every one of these systems.

The seminar will be grounded in what Dr. Young calls the humanizing love tradition: a lineage running through Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Christopher Emdin, and many other thinkers rooted in social good — centered on a love ethos that is not sentiment but discipline, not charity but solidarity, and above all, a daily, active protection from the dehumanization that systems can quietly inflict. This presentation will look honestly at what gets in the way — systemic barriers, yes, but also our own biases, our burnout, the savior orientation that masquerades as care — and at what actually works: art, creativity, hip-hop, critical dialogue, and the radical act of seeing a young person wholly. Attendees will leave with practical tools, but more than that, Dr. Young hopes participants leave having asked themselves some harder questions — because that is where this work actually begins.

Register: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=401936&k=1778869507

This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar will introduce the audience to the behavioral health continuum at UCLA Health. It will review the development of behavioral health services within integrated primary care settings, including the establishment of community partnerships to expand access to care. The strategic expansion of outpatient behavioral health services within the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences will also be discussed.

Register: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=401919&k=1775692504

Go to:https://dpbh.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/FINAL-PCI-for-Veterans-Flyer.pdf to learn more.

Simple Strategies to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse

During this Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar, Marisa Faynsod and Claire Amabile will have a discourse on how families can talk to their children about body safety without the feeling of fear or discomfort. Participants will leave the seminar with the ability to start this conversation with the people they work with, children, and families. Participants will learn how to talk to a child about their body and safety, share concrete ways to reduce the risk of child sexual abuse, and what to say and do if a child discloses abuse. Participants will gain practical tools and language to start using immediately to speak with the children they work with and in their lives. This session will aim to create a sense of confidence when speaking to children about body safety, and create lines of communication to reduce risk.

Register: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=401911&k=1773943760

Reimagining Youth Sport as a Brain-Based Environment for Mental Health

Youth mental health challenges are rising globally, yet one of the most accessible youth-serving systems — sport— remains underutilized as a public health strategy. This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar explores how insights from developmental neuroscience, trauma research, and sport-based youth development can transform everyday sport experiences into environments that promote regulation, connection, and resilience. Drawing on the Neurosequential Model and the Nothing Heals Like Sport playbook, the presentation examines how relationships, movement, and manageable stress interact to support healthy brain development and emotional regulation in young people. Participants will explore how sport environments can shift stress from overwhelming to tolerable, enabling learning, skill development, and social connection. The seminar highlights practical coaching strategies that translate brain science into accessible practices such as predictable routines, relational safety, and developmentally appropriate challenges. Together, these approaches position youth sport as a powerful upstream intervention for mental health and community wellbeing.

Register today:

Wellbeing for LA Learning Center Youth mental health challenges are rising globally, yet one of the most accessible youth-serving systems — sport— remains underutilized as a public health strategy. This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar explores how insights from developmental neuroscience, trauma research, and spor...

Beyond the role of physiological changes that coincide with puberty, multiple social and environmental factors perpetuate poor sleep health in adolescents. However, there is limited research examining their relative importance. This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar will explore the investigation that used two popular machine learning approaches to identify the relative significance of key factor indicators of multiple dimensions of sleep, including bedtime, sleep duration, and social jetlag in a diverse sample of adolescents. Participants included 3,381 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Variables spanning sociodemographics and neighborhood context, sleep behaviors, activities, psychopathology, family, school, and physical factors were entered into Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) and random forest machine learning models for variable selection and establishing order of importance. Results and implications for adolescent sleep management will also be discussed.

Register today: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=401898&k=1770239979

This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar will address the rising public health crisis of male depression and su***de by examining the cultural, structural, and developmental barriers that prevent boys from learning healthy emotional expression. With su***de now being the second leading cause of death for men under 45, this session will explore how societal norms around masculinity and stoicism leave boys less equipped to cope with stress, rejection, and mental health challenges. Drawing on research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the Journal of Men’s Health, this presentation will highlight how emotional suppression is both socially reinforced and internally damaging for many boys and men.

Register today: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=401891&k=1767833828

Join Rachel Gonzales-Castaneda, PhD, MPH and Madison Akles on Wednesday (1/21/26) for a Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar on Digital Pathways to Prevention: Integrating Mobile Tools to Support Youth and Family. This seminar will explore the design and evaluation of mobile-based applications aimed at increasing accessibility to behavioral health prevention services for youth between the ages of 12 and 25 and their families.
Link: https://learn.wellbeing4la.org/detail?id=401878

Today we honor those who have served and the families and loved ones who support them! Thank you for your dedicated service to our country! Happy Veterans Day!

The Rare Impact Fund has been a steadfast supporter of our work and on July 22nd they launched something truly special: The Rare Impact Fund Giving Circle – where people can come together, pool their resources, and support organizations doing life-changing work. The Giving Circle is a new way to build community and raise long-term awareness and support for youth mental health. Visit: https://rareimpactfund.givingcircles.io/