Trauma-Informed Daycare Center in LA Serves Families Affected by Gangs

Here are the morning’s top stories on Monday, September 14 2026

• A nonprofit that has helped disempowered children around the world is now working in Downtown LA. They’ve opened at Homeboy Industries, the noted gang rehabilitation program. It’s an experimental new daycare for families who have been involved with gangs. The program aims to gain the trust of parents, and help heal any family trauma.
• An Oakland City Council committee is expected to consider a temporary ban on data centers in the city after a proposed data center drew backlash last month. San Francisco and Richmond are also voting on similar moratoriums this week.
• California senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff are sounding the alarm on wildfire preparedness. They’re concerned that federal agencies won’t have enough money for the rest of the 2026 wildfire season.

Five kids are playing happily in a bright, cozy space. There are wooden toys and puzzles. Then they run into a problem that all toddlers have: sharing. One little boy is playing with a toy cake – when another kid grabs it out of his hands.

Lead teacher Jessica Navarro quickly comes over and encourages the boys to figure out a solution. One of the boys brings over a pizza box, to divide up the slices. This is a small interaction, but here it’s a very intentional one.

The daycare, which runs on Fridays, is a collaboration between Homeboy, UCLA and a nonprofit called Nest Global. Nest Global runs other temporary childcares around the world, at refugee camps and migrant shelters – for families experiencing instability.

Dr. Xinshu She, Nest Global’s director of research and a pediatrician who teaches at Stanford, says treating kids as capable, curious learners, and asking them open-ended questions is *effective for children who have been through trauma.

“I saw how this approach in particular really invited them to become participants in the classroom rather than telling them what to do,” said She. “Because that’s the ability that you lose in trauma. You lose the ability to believe in yourself.”

It’s been a game-changer for Andrea Rios, who’s been bringing her kids here since April. She was nervous the first time she dropped them off, but she could see how quickly her five-year-old son and one-year-old daughter settled in.

“They love it here. They’re safe here. It’s a relief off my shoulders.”

Rios’s kids have never been in daycare before.

“I didn’t trust anybody besides my mother with my kid.”

She’s been through a lot. As a child, Rios experienced sexual abuse. Then her second son tragically passed away from sudden infant death syndrome.

“I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t… I didn’t brush my hair. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t. It was for a long period of time,” said Rios.

Leaving her kids with a stranger felt impossible after going through so much.

“I was born and raised in Boyle Heights, and I never got into a gang, but I was always affiliated with it. Before I had kids, I came from a bad drug addiction and abusive relationship.”

In 2023, Rios started the Homeboy training program, which offers counselling, classes and paid work experience.

“It took me losing everything, until I put my foot down and said, you know what? This is not me. We need to get it together.”

She earned her high school diploma, got her own apartment and started working in the Homeboy Cafe.

“It was like an eye opener. I wasn’t the only one going through what I was going through. I wasn’t the only one who lost a kid.”

The daycare offers a parent-and-me class so Andrea doesn’t have to drop off her kids and run. Plus, parents watch the teachers and learn from their approach.

“I’m learning patience, communication with my kids,” said Rios. “It’s a big praise for him, and for me.”

Jessica Navarro – who teaches here at Nest Homeboy alongside UCLA psychology interns – is especially attuned to what the kids need. She was in the foster system as a child.

“I’ve noticed that I share a lot of similarities with these children,” said Navarro. “You know, having parents who’ve experienced incarceration, family separation, poverty, violence, and so I think that helps me connect a little better with the children.”

Nest is hoping to open a full-time childcare center at Homeboy in the future. Meanwhile, they’re on a break until January.

Wildfire season isn’t over yet, but Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, along with senators from Oregon and Colorado, are raising concerns about staffing and funding at the US Forest Service and US Wildland Fire Service.

In a letter to the Department of Interior and Agriculture, the senators said the fire agencies have already spent more than 70% of their roughly $6 billion dollar fire suppression budget.

“California has faced severe wildfires this year, with more than 310,000 acres burned…” they said in the letter. “The West is expected to remain in peak fire season with hot, dry, and windy conditions for at least the next two months, raising concerns that federal wildfire resources and suppression funds could run out entirely.”

The letter warns that the agencies don’t have enough staff to sustain operations.

Jesse Torres is a spokesperson for CAL FIRE. He says the state agency hasn’t noticed any delays in receiving federal support.

“We have a great mutual aid system throughout the state of California, so we have other sources that we use. We don’t rely solely on the federal resources throughout California,” said Torres.

Although, he says, there’s been some lag from federal incident management teams.

The senators are asking the federal government how it plans to address staffing shortages, and avoid running out of money.