| |
Allan Luks, Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City (BBBS), America’s largest mentoring program for children, is being honored for devoting his lifetime to advocating for children, youth, and their families. BBBS is based on the premise that giving a child one-on-one attention will enable the child to grow into a useful citizen. Early in his career there, he formed a partnership between BBBS and Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service to create the country’s first graduate-level training program for organizations wanting to mentor. Mr. Luks insures that BBBS changes with the times. There are programs to help first-time youth offenders, young mothers, immigrant youth, children with physical disabilities, and children of incarcerated parents. After September 11, 2001, programs were initiated to help children who lost a parent or relative or suffered post-traumatic stress due to the horror of the attacks. Under Mr. Luks’ leadership, a 140-agency coalition convinced state lawmakers in 2006 to pass the Safe Mentoring Act, giving mentoring programs the right to get state background fingerprint checks on their mentors, and requiring them to inform parents or guardians of the kind of background checks done on mentors. He has worked as a lawyer in East Harlem for the Children’s Aid Society. As Executive Director of the Alcoholism Council of Greater New York, he led the fight for the nation's first law requiring posters warning about the dangers to the unborn child of drinking during pregnancy. He also led the successful fight for passage of a law preventing employment discrimination based on past alcohol and drug abuse because he found that the parent’s job difficulties and unemployment hurt their children. In one of his four books, he coined the term "helper's high," about the benefits volunteers experience helping others, and which is used in recruiting volunteers for children's services.
|
|
