"Our Youth Are Our Future.

We are responsible for protecting them and ensuring they receive educational, health, and supportive services necessary to stop the cycle of incarceration."

ROB BONTA, Attorney General of State of California

The California Bench to School Initiative (SB 132), enacted on July 27, 2021, established the California Institute on Law, Neuroscience, and Education (CA Institute). This innovative and collaborative effort among UCSF, UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and UCLA, integrates neuroscience, law, and education to improve literacy and learning outcomes for California’s youth, with a specific focus on disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline.

The CA Institute exists to catalyze improvements in literacy and life outcomes for all the children and youth of California. We apply an interdisciplinary approach to these goals:

  • Eradicate the California School to Prison Pipeline by focusing on outcomes for California’s most underserved and undersupported children and youth, including those in the juvenile justice pipeline
  • Drive awareness at the state and local level of the impact of literacy and the importance of building interdisciplinary whole child approaches
  • Inform and influence state and local policy to expand research and practice
  • Develop, evaluate and elevate effective school-based and school-linked implementation models
  • Support a community of learning and practice to drive effective intervention and support
  • Conduct professional development to build capacity across the child-serving sector

Partnerships

The CA Institute works with outstanding partners and organizations across the intersections of education, law, and neuroscience to disrupt the school to prison pipeline and to ensure that system-involved youth receive holistic services addressing their needs while in the system and as they transition out and back into their communities.

Research

The CA Institute conducts interdisciplinary research to better understand the current state of the educational, judicial and health/behavioral health systems serving our youth. so we can recommend reforms for the state of CA and beyond to better support them in becoming balanced and productive adults.