Child Welfare(net)worker

Women Of Impact

October 23, 2007

She desires to work individually with young people in need of guidance and inspiration. However, Lovette Russell is afraid she probably has to take care of the big picture first.

"I love working with the kids," she admits. "But over the last couple of years, I've recognized that for the most urgent things that are needed by kids, a lot of stuff is so bureaucratic, it's frightening."

Russell has realized that the best way to help a child is to use her influence and talents as a crusader for children, in particular Fulton County's most at-risk youth. Russell became concerned about inner city young people "almost by accident." In 1988 at a picnic for Atlanta juveniles who had run into trouble with the law, she met 11-year-old Sean. "He was supposedly the toughest child there," she recalls. "Nobody really wanted him."

It was the start of a relationship that continues today. "He's a great adult now, she says. "Getting involved with him just made me realize how many kids were out there like him that needed a guide in their lives."

Russell can rattle off a list of boards and fund-raising causes to which she has devoted time and energy: Zoo Atlanta, Sheltering Arms, the Anti-Prejudice Consortium and the Atlanta Symphony.

And buried in the middle of that résumé is a role she seeks to make much bigger this year, adviser to Children's Advocacy of Fulton County.

Russell has signed on to help Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard's initiative to create a centralized omnibus child advocacy center for the county, coordinating the work, and computer systems, of police and child welfare organizations - in short, all the groups trying to protect potential victims.

Another part of the dream is an attached $15 million facility especially for young women lured, or forced, into prostitution. That's where Russell comes in.

When he asked her to serve, Russell says Howard was frank. "He said, ‘Lovette, we need you to reach out to the people with the deep pockets.'"

Russell can't wait to volunteer and work with the children.

"I have to do what I've got to do to get the process going," she declares. "After that job is done, then I can do what really I like to do, which is sitting there with the kids. But we have got to get this process rolling so we can save the kids' lives, so we can then help them just to grow up."