Sidney Gardner

President, Children and Family Futures

Mr. Gardner serves as President of Children and Family Futures, a national nonprofit which operates the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare with a staff of 65 who are based in eighteen states.  He served as Director of the Center for Collaboration for Children at California State University, Fullerton from 1991-2001. He is the author of Cities, Counties, Kids, and Families: the Essential Role of Local Government, which describes a model for developing strategic policy for children and family policy in local governments, Beyond Collaboration to Results, and he co-authored several other books and reports on children and family policy.

Mr. Gardner has served as a staff member of the White House Domestic Council, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Director of the California Tomorrow Youth at Risk Project, Director of State and Local Affairs at the Children’s Defense Fund, Assistant to the Mayor of New York City, and an elected member of the City Council in Hartford, Connecticut from 1977 to 1981. He has taught courses at seven universities. He graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles and was awarded a Master´s degree in Public Affairs from Princeton University in 1965 and a Master´s degree in Religious Studies from Hartford Seminary in 1986. Mr. Gardner is a Vietnam veteran, and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his wife, Dr. Nancy Young, and two of their four children. He is also the author of eight novels.