Neighbor to Family, Inc.

Gordon Johnson, M.Ed., LLD is Founder and President of Neighbor To Family, Inc.

Mr. Johnson began his career in 1959 as a cottage officer at the Jamesburg (PA) State Home for Boys and rose through the ranks in child welfare agencies in Pennsylvania, New York and Florida.

In 1983, he was appointed Director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, where he was responsible for 600,000 children in state custody. During his 7-year tenure as Director, he developed many cutting edge programs and services, including:

• One Church One Child, selected in 1986 by Ford Foundation and John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University as one of the 10 Best Government Partnership Programs in the country
• A statewide Adoption Central Clearinghouse
• The nation's first regulations giving foster parents preference in adopting their foster children
• The Child Welfare Training Institute, providing training in child welfare, adoptions, licensing, train the trainer, etc. for more than 7,000 employees
• Appearances on hundreds of TV and radio programs, seminars, and conferences to promote special needs adoptions at national, state, and local levels

Mr. Johnson left DCFS in 1990 to become President/CEO of Jane Addams Hull House Association in Chicago. In 1994, he created a new approach to foster care, the Neighbor To Neighbor program, that enabled sibling groups to be placed together, and remain together, in a single foster home. In 1998, Mr. Johnson was asked to bring the program to the Daytona Beach area, where it was incorporated as a private, not-for-profit organization, Neighbor To Family, Inc.

CORPORATE LEADERSHIP (Click on the photo to view the biography)