Dr. Deborah A. Frank, of Brookline, to receive Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps’ Embracing the Legacy Award June 3

BROOKLINE, Mass. - Dr. Deborah A. Frank, of Brookline, is a committed advocate for America’s children. Her life’s work strives to end hunger and hardship for the increasing number of impoverished children and families in Massachusetts and around the nation. She will be recognized with the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps’ Embracing the Legacy Award on June 3 at the JFK Library. 
As a clinician in 1984 at what was then Boston City Hospital, now Boston Medical Center, after seeing a growing number of malnourished young children, Dr. Frank founded the Grow Clinic for Children at Boston Medical Center: an outpatient subspecialty clinic that provides comprehensive medical, nutritional, developmental and social services, and dietary assistance to children from the Greater Boston area with Failure to Thrive (FTT). It was the first in Massachusetts and one of the first in the US. The Grow Clinic is a national model for treating children with FTT as a result of malnutrition associated with poverty, illness and family stress, which can lead to learning and emotional disorders, serious illness, and long-lasting growth failure. Children who are not growing according to national standards are referred to the Grow Clinic by other clinics and physicians throughout the Greater Boston area for special care and follow-up. At Boston Medical Center each week. Dr. Frank and her colleagues treat 20 to 30 underweight Massachusetts children, ages 5 and under. An increasing proportion (now up to 14 percent) of these children are homeless. More than 250 children are treated each year. Dr. Frank and her staff provide medical treatment as well as non-medical services, including nutritional assessment and counseling, home health education and family advocacy, which are not covered by insurance or government programs, and depend solely on philanthropy.
In the 1980s, Dr. Frank and her staff started a small food and clothing pantry in their offices to serve Grow Clinic patients, after finding that the families did not have financial resources to provide the high quality diet necessary for growth recovery and health. It was the first hospital-based food pantry in the country, and thanks to Boston Medical Center donors, is now open to all Boston Medical Center patients. The food pantry provides 7,000 patients and family members with nutritious, healthy food each month. Pantry staff members also teach low-income families how to cook healthy meals, empowering parents to help their children grow into healthy adults.
In 1998, she founded Children’s Health Watch. With colleagues across the country she is one of the principal investigators of this ongoing effort to produce non-partisan, original and policy-relevant research on health of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, whose needs are often not promptly identified in government research programs. Children’s HealthWatch works to improve young children’s nutrition, health, and development by informing policies that could address and alleviate their families’ economic hardships.
A recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute indicates that more children in the United States, including Massachusetts, are living in poverty than were before the Great Recession, and that poverty is one of the key indicators of lifelong health problems. The Children’s HealthWatch team witnesses this firsthand and tracks the number of children treated in Boston Medical Center’s emergency room who are hungry and dangerously thin. Even as reports show the economy is improving, the recovery has not reached many of our neighbors; recent cuts to federal and state programs exacerbate the problem and are forcing families to choose between rent, food, and heat.
“As a pediatrician I can never forget that the policies enacted in the capitals of our nation and our states will be written ultimately on the bodies and brains of our young children,” says Dr. Frank.
During the past year, Dr. Frank and the Children’s HealthWatch team has uncovered alarming evidence about the increasing risk of  hunger among young children nationally, ever since budget cuts have been made to SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps). In Boston, particularly they have found more and more families of infants and toddlers who are homeless or having difficulty maintaining secure housing. Recent work of Children’s HealthWatch also uncovered that within groups of poor families, those whose children have chronic health problems are even more likely than their peers to struggle with hunger. 
“Robert F. Kennedy inspired me because he was one of the early pioneers on the war against hunger,” says Dr. Frank. “He traveled to Mississippi and Kentucky and bore witness to hungry children. No one was paying attention to them except for the Kennedys. They were intensely aware of the hunger in our country and worked to rectify it. They recognized that effective public policies can alleviate hunger. In following their example, I will strive to be worthy of this award.”
Dr. Frank is professor of Child Health and Well-being in the Department of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and a developmental behavioral pediatrician. A highly respected national authority, she has written more than 100 articles and has testified before national and state legislatures on food insecurity and children’s health in the United States. She has served on numerous committees and advisory boards including the Mayor’s Hunger Commission, the Massachusetts Child Hunger Initiative, and the Physicians Task Force on Childhood Hunger in Massachusetts. 
The Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps’ annual Embracing the Legacy Award celebrates the legacy of Robert F. Kennedy and the work of the organization founded to carry out his principles of social justice for the poor and disadvantaged. Through its Embracing the Legacy event, the agency raises money to support some of Massachusetts’ most vulnerable youth and families, giving them a second chance for a better life. The agency, which is celebrating 45 years of service, is a national leader in developing and implementing model, successful child welfare and juvenile justice programs. 
“By advocating for low-income families who have experienced   chronic deprivation, hunger, and despair, and believing in programs that improve the lives of children, Deborah helps children grow into healthy adults,” says Edward P. Kelley, president and CEO of the RFK Children’s Action Corps. “Children depend on people like Deborah. She is very deserving of this recognition and more.” 
The event will include a cocktail reception, seated dinner and program, including the award presentation to Dr. Frank and her fellow honorees: William Achtmeyer, chairman and managing partner of The Parthenon Group; Laurie Garduque, director of justice reform at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and Jonathan Kozol, author, educator, and civil rights activist. During the event, Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III, RFK Children’s Action Corps’ board member and an event chair, will reflect on his late grandfather’s legacy and the lasting contributions he made toward protecting society’s most vulnerable children and families.
The event will be held on June 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Boston. Individual tickets are $300 and corporate sponsorship opportunities are available. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. is the event’s presenting sponsor. For tickets, or more information on sponsorships, contact Ellen Solomita at (617) 227-4183, esolomita@rfkchildren.org, or visit www.rfkchildren.org.