Vivian Weinstein; Children’s Advocate

Vivian Weinstein, a gutsy champion of disadvantaged and disabled children whose more than three decades of activism spawned child care centers in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods and improved training for pediatricians and others who work with the young, has died.

Weinstein was 83 and died Dec. 6 of cancer at her home in Los Angeles.

She was a member of virtually every major state and local committee dealing with children’s issues, including the local commission to implement Proposition 10, the 1998 voter-approved initiative that raised tobacco taxes to support early childhood development programs.

Among other organizations Weinstein either led or aided were the city Commission for Children, Youth and Their Families; the Los Angeles Round Table for Children; and the mayor’s advisory committee on child care.

She established child care programs in South-Central and a training program at King-Drew Medical Center that gives pediatricians a broader view of issues affecting the welfare of children and families.

She also taught for several years in the child advocacy program named in her honor at UCLA.

“There are so many people who feel Vivian was their honorary mother, the mother of child advocacy in Los Angeles County and throughout the state,” said Jacquelyn McCroskey, a professor at the USC School of Social Work who was mentored by Weinstein. “She was the guru of children’s advocates.”

Started Work With Children at 13

Weinstein, the daughter of politically conscious Russian immigrants, was born in Colorado in 1910 and grew up in Boyle Heights.

She was born with a serious disability: Her left arm was underdeveloped and ended just below the elbow. But her mother taught her to disregard the handicap, raising her to believe that she could do anything other children could do.

By 13, she was a volunteer working with children at a Jewish community center in Boyle Heights. Later, after she married and became a mother, she helped organize a neighborhood child care cooperative, many of whose members became, like Weinstein, leaders in child care services in Southern California.

She earned a degree from Goddard College and went to work as a master teacher and parent counselor at the Marianne Frostig Center for Educational Therapy, a school for the learning disabled in Pasadena.

In 1970, she was hired by the pediatrics department of the King-Drew Medical Center to create a training program in child development. As an associate professor of pediatrics, she developed one of the first local programs to broaden pediatricians’ training beyond sick-child care to include advising child care centers, providing guidance on behavioral difficulties, identifying child abuse, and counseling the families of disabled infants.

At King-Drew, she also established a child care center where disabled infants and preschoolers were mixed, or mainstreamed, with other children.

“It was one of the first programs that showed the mainstreaming of kids in a way that was effective,” said Dr. Kerry English, the director of child development in the pediatrics department at King-Drew.

In the early 1990s, Weinstein was recruited to help teach UCLA graduate students in public health how to be advocates for children.

Dr. Neal Halfon, who directs UCLA’s Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, said Weinstein’s course became the most popular in the program. One of the most important things she taught her students, he said, was to always remember that children’s needs come first and that the students should stand tough with policymakers and bureaucrats who disagreed.

He recalled how she tongue-lashed a room full of the county’s leaders in children’s services about three years ago during a meeting called to discuss an impending crisis in the county’s managed-care system. “She said, ‘If you guys screw up, I’m going to hold you personally responsible.’ The hot air just left the room at that point, and they got down to talking in a way that made more sense. It was like having your grandmother call you on the carpet. She had that ability.”

Weinstein is survived by a son, David; a sister, Evelyn Wakefield; a grandson; and a niece.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Jan. 13 at the Japan America Theater, 244 S. San Pedro St., Los Angeles. Donations may be made to the Vivian Weinstein Child Advocacy Program, c/o Dr. Neal Halfon, UCLA School of Public Health, Box 951772, Room 61-254CHS, Los Angeles CA 90095-1772; or the Robert Weinstein Maritime Research Institute, c/o David Weinstein, 1851 S. Stearns Drive, Los Angeles CA 90035.