About seven years ago, UWLA forged a partnership with the South Central Los Angeles Regional Center (SCLARC) to encourage its employees to pursue their education at UWLA. This spring, the partnership is graduating its third class of alumni, including 12 SCLARC employees, six of whom are members of the first SCLARC Ambassadors program, specially created by UWLA admissions team member Verdel Baskin to help grow the partnership.

For those of you who aren’t aware of SCLARC (don’t worry, it’s an undiscovered gem, much like UWLA), the organization is a private, non-profit organization that is a comprehensive resource for evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, advocacy and support for people diagnosed with developmental disabilities.

SCLARC helps connect vulnerable community members in need of special services with the providers who can help them. It’s a wonderful organization of hundreds of specialists, including many of the UWLA/SCLARC students, who are helping others in tremendously meaningful and productive ways. Its noble mission states: “SCLARC believes special needs deserve special attention!”

“We are extremely proud of all of our SCLARC students and graduates,” said President Robert Brown, head of UWLA and creator of the program. “The partnership with SCLARC simply makes UWLA much richer in many ways because of the extraordinary quality of people these students are. And we are so grateful for the SCLARC Ambassadors who not only give back to the local community so heavily through their work, they are continually inspiring other potential students in their wonderful organization to continue in their legacy at UWLA.”

The first six graduating SCLARC Ambassadors include: Albert Armenta, Evelyn Galindo, Ashton Green, Odulia Juarez, Tami Summerville, and Julius Tad-y.

“It’s truly been an honor to work with these Ambassadors who are not only succeeding in school, they’re succeeding and growing in their work, too,” said Baskin.

“Each of these six graduating Ambassadors are without doubt leaders among their graduating class, and we’re so excited to learn that they’ve each been promoted in their respective roles at SCLARC. Now we can’t take credit for their work accomplishments, but we’re proud to see their success outside of the UWLA classrooms,” Baskins added.

The success of the partnership and the Ambassador program clearly continues to grow, with seven new SCLARC employees starting their studies at UWLA this semester. We will check in with these new students in the coming weeks and months to see how they are finding their experience at UWLA.

UWLA also plans to replicate the success of the SCLARC Ambassador program with other employer partners as they come online.