Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr. announced recently that the New York State law creating the Amber Plan, designed to assist communities across the state in creating their own abduction alert plan, is now in effect throughout the state. The Amber Plan is a simple but highly effective means to help find a missing child and relies on rapid communication throughout a community to alert the public to an abduction.

"The Amber Plan is about saving the life of a child," said Fuschillo. "Not just do the authorities play a part, but it puts entire communities on alert to keep their eyes open and help with that child's safe return."

According to Senator Fuschillo, the law provides that the commissioner of the division of criminal justice services will develop a model response plan for missing children that will be available for use by local communities and law enforcement agencies at their discretion. It applies to children under the age of 18, and makes broadcast information of the abduction over police and public media outlets optional as determined by local authorities. The state will provide assistance to any locality wanting to establish their own plan.

The Amber Plan is named in honor of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was kidnapped and murdered in 1997 in Texas, where a similar and successful plan now exists. In the early existence of Amber Plans elsewhere, at least seven abductions were foiled in part because an alert went out to the community. By increasing the flow of information between law enforcement officials and the media to make the public aware of an abducted or missing child, the Amber Plan has proven to help rescue a number of children's safely.

Senator Fuschillo was recently successful in securing $10,000 in New York State funding for the Long Island Chapter of the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR), the first organization in the US dedicated to funding and accelerating biomedical research focusing on autism disorders. Accepting the grant were Maureen and Richard Donoghue and their children.

Established in 1994 by parents of children with autism concerned about the limited amount of funding available for autism research, NAAR was created in a spirit of optimism and excitement over the opportunities for accelerating the pace of autism research. This spirit continues to guide the organization today, enabled by recent advances in the neurosciences and other scientific fields.

The research initially funded by NAAR has made a dramatic impact on the autism research landscape in the United States, Canada and Europe and has been leveraged to attract more than $21 million in autism research awards by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other funding sources. In fact, every $1 raised by NAAR has resulted in approximately $7 invested by the federal government and other funding sources in large autism research projects.

"I am pleased to have been successful in securing this grant for NAAR which is working tirelessly to raise funding for autism research," Fuschillo said. "Further understanding the causes and effects of autism will enable children and their families to live to their fullest potential. To learn more about how you can become an active volunteer of the National Alliance for Research, please call (888) 777-NAAR."