Heart Award Established by Family Assistance Foundation

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Family Assistance Foundation announced today its plans to present an annual award to honor an organization that exemplifies outstanding leadership in human service response–leaders who are making a difference within their industries and within corporate society.

“While many organizations have plans to respond to major disasters and mass casualty accidents,” said Dr. Carolyn Coarsey, co-founder of the Family Assistance Foundation, “the ‘heart and soul’ of an organization is revealed in its ability to mobilize and offer support to affected families, employees and the public during both small and large scale tragic events.”

Acknowledging this, and consistent with its mission to support and improve business and industry response to emergencies and disasters, the Family Assistance Foundation Board of Directors will present its FAF “Heart Award” at its 2008 International Symposium to be held in Atlanta April 7th through 9th.

“We want to continue our efforts to highlight those who are doing an excellent job of handling the human dimension of any tragedy,” said Coarsey. “This new award will allow us to continue to illustrate how empowered employees can instill the humanity behind their corporate logo.

“Many organizations have response plans in place that fail to consider the human dimension of a crisis,” Coarsey added. “We intend to raise the awareness of this ‘gap’ in by recognizing a leader that is advocating significant change.”

An organization does not have to be a member of the Foundation to receive recognition, but it must display the tenants of corporate social responsibility in placing people at the forefront of both emergency response situations, as well as the ongoing support of employees, customers, the public and others during times of tragedy.

Applications and more information on nomination eligibility and the symposium are available on the Family Assistance Foundation Web site at http://www.fafonline.org.

The Family Assistance Foundation, Inc., is an independent non-profit corporation founded in 2000 for the purpose of empowering people following tragedy. The Foundation takes a unique approach to helping organizations successfully meet survivor needs and enables organizations worldwide to traverse corporate borders when disaster strikes, working together to assist those in need.

The Foundation’s annual symposium provides member organizations, as well as survivors, the opportunity to share lessons learned and information about how to continually improve response efforts and business practices.