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:: Founder of Joan A. Male Family Support Center passes away
 Joan A. Male, founder of Parents Anonymous of Buffalo & Erie County, later renamed to Joan A. Male Family Support Center - which, since 1973, has helped thousands of parents and children who had nowhere else to turn - died Wednesday, May 21, 2008, in a Florida hospital after a lengthy illness. She was 76.
Born Joan Miller in Buffalo, she was a graduate of both Amherst High School and Bryant & Stratton Business Institute. She married Gerald E. Male in 1952.
Motivated her love of children and the conviction that every child deserves to be raised in a loving, safe and caring environment, Mrs. Male and her husband became foster parents for the Erie County Department of Social Services in 1965. Over the years, the couple cared for more than 60 foster children.
Mrs. Male became concerned about the quality of foster care and the lack of available support services for foster parents, prompting her to found United Foster Parents Association with her husband in 1967, and organize the National Foster Parents Association in 1971.
As she learned more about the overwhelming number of children living in abusive and neglectful environments, she concluded that, with a bit of additional support for the parents, children might not even need to be placed into foster care.
Building on the role she had undertaken as a child advocate, Mrs. Male founded Parents Anonymous, a support group for parents in need of assistance with parenting.
"I just thought there had to be something you could do to help those kids," Mrs. Male said in a 2006 Buffalo News feature on women who helped to change the social landscape of the region.
"The parents needed somebody who would help when they needed the help," she added.
Mrs. Male took on the job and installed a dedicated phone line in her Cheektowaga basement, which was the beginning of the agency's 24-hour Parent Help Line. She and another volunteer answered up to 100 calls per week from overwhelmed parents, listening, offering advice and, on occasion, dropping by a house to scoop up a child and give a frustrated parent a respite.
In 1978, Mrs. Male received the prestigious Citizen of the Year Award from the National Association of Social Workers, followed by many other honors. She received the Father Baker Service to Youth Award in 1982, was inducted into the Western New York Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002, and received the Women in Public Leadership Award in 2003 in recognition of her community service.
During that time, Mrs. Male's agency grew from a grass-roots, all-voluntary entity to one with a staff of more than 90 with a fully operating, comprehensive day care center (Raggedy Ann & Andy Comprehensive Child Care Center), which is now known as the Joan A. Male Family Support Center, 60 Dingens Street, Buffalo, NY.
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