2002 NETWORKING® MAGAZINE’S DAVID AWARD HONOREE.

REVEREND MONSIGNOR JOHN T. FAGAN

Executive Vice President & Chief Executive Officer, Little Flower Children's Services

Total dedication to the children of Little Flower Children's Services in Wading River has been Reverend Monsignor John T. Fagan's focus over the past four decades.

The executive vice president and chief executive officer of the facility had his first association with Little Flower in 1945 as a counselor and lifeguard for Camp Claver, a summer camp for inner-city youth located on the campus at Wading River.

In June of 1959, Fagan was asked by Archbishop Bryan McEntegart of Brooklyn to serve at Little Flower House of Providence and to reside at Wading River. On November 2, 1959, he was elected executive vice president by the board of directors, a position he holds to this day. In 1962, Fagan was awarded his MasterÕs Degree in Psychiatric Social Work from Fordham University School of Social Service.

During his years at Little Flower, Father Fagan has lived on the grounds of the facility. He has conducted weekly services for children of all religions and ethnic backgrounds since October of 1959 and believes in the importance of being present to the children and their families even as programs and facilities have grown larger.

This year, Fagan will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination and his 43rd year at Little Flower Children's Services.

"His staff love him because of his compassion," said Adrienne Carr, who has worked by Fagan's side since 1969 helping to initiate many
new programs.

The crisis of the hospital "boarder babies" came upon the child welfare scene in New York in 1986 with infants in New York City born of crack addicted mothers filling the nurseries of the public and voluntary hospitals because they were at risk of abuse and neglect. Fagan placed a special advertisement in the New York Times and the New York Daily News seeking foster parents to serve the babies on a temporary basis. It led to over 1,000 responses in one weekend and a new home finding process was developed at Little Flower.

The project, called "Little Guys" provided loving families for over 2,670 children in hospital nurseries at the time the crisis ended in 1991. When numbers of infants referred to Little Flower tested positive for the AIDS virus, Little Flower recruited and trained specialized foster families and adoptive families to care for them.
"Father Fagan's devotion to the abandoned children who come into Little Flower's care has always been the driving force in his life. Always the children, how to heal the pain they have endured, how to give them a new life through adoption by a loving, caring family," Carr said.

"However, he is also a fun guy. He loves to laugh. He loves to sing. The children adore him, they follow him around like the Pied Piper."

Little Flower was founded in 1929 by the Catholic parish of Saint Peter Claver in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Father Bernard Quinn, the pastor, purchased the Payne Farm at Wading River in 1927 and proceeded to build an "orphanage" and school.

The school became a public school in 1962 under the supervision of the Board of Education of New York City. Through the years, the growing educational needs to troubled children of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds led the school to become a union free school district. From 1972 to the present, Fagan has served as president of the board of education.

Since adoption services were established in 1969, over 2,300 adoptions have been processed and completed. Little Flower is a leader in New York State and in the nation.

Over the years, Fagan has been appointed as a member to a number of state and local commissions relating to child welfare and child abuse. The David Award winner has been honored on numerous occasions. He was named Honorary Big Brother of the Year by the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Suffolk County; outstanding alumnus of the Fordham University School of Social Services by the Alumni Association; he was given the Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award for Community Service by the Long Island Association and he was named Social Worker of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers in Nassau County. Fagan was also cited for outstanding commitment to children by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

NETWORKING® January 2002