Loren Warboys Unsung Heroes 2006

Each year, the Youth Law Center presents the Loren Warboys Unsung Hero award to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to improve the lives of at-risk youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. This year’s awardees are

EIDE ALAWAN
Eide Alawan has spent his life doing interfaith activities and explaining Islam to the American public.  Since September 11, 2001, he has been on a nonstop presentation of the faith of Islam to schools, places of worship, institutions and organizations.   He is a member of the Islamic Center of America, located in Dearborn, Michigan, the largest mosque on the North American continent and serves as the liaison to the religious leader Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini.  His position is voluntary and is responsible for the interfaith and outreach ministry.  He is a founding member of Faith Communities for Families and Children in Wayne County, Michigan.  Presently he is employed by a home health care company helping to develop a program that is sensitive to patients’ ethnic and religious needs, the Transcultural Health Program.

CAROL BROWN
Carol Brown, Deputy Director of the Child Health and Disability Prevention (CHDP) Program in Berkeley, California, is tireless and persistent in her efforts to improve health care for children in foster care.  She was a moving force behind Code Blue, a 1998 analysis of health services for children in foster care, and was instrumental in the creation of the Health Care Program for Children in Foster Care, which places public health nurses in all county child welfare agencies and many probation departments.

JACK DANIEL
Jack Daniel has spent his entire legal career as a public interest advocate.  Over the past 30 years, he has worked as a public defender and as a paralegal and lawyer in legal aid programs, including East Texas Legal Services, Central California Legal Services and California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.  Jack is a dedicated and highly skilled advocate on behalf of the rural poor.  He has used his considerable expertise to defend the educational and civil rights of language minority, immigrant and incarcerated youth, who are too often unrepresented in the legal system.

NORMA SUZUKI
Norma Suzuki is newly retired from her position as Executive Director of the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC).  In that position, she worked tirelessly to assure adequate funding for probation services, designed state of the art training for probation officers, and built bridges between probation and non-traditional partners in juvenile justice.  Ms. Suzuki began her career as a field probation officer in Fresno County, and worked just about every position in that department before leaving in 1996 to become the Chief Probation Officer in Placer County.

Loren Warboys was the Managing Director and had been with the Youth Law Center since 1978 before he succumbed to leukemia in 1999. He was a nationally recognized expert on education and mental health services for children in the juvenile justice system. To honor his memory, the Youth Law Center established the Loren Warboys Memorial Fund and the Unsung Hero Awards