Amy Rossi

2020/2021/2022 Inductee

Amy Rossi was born and raised in North Little Rock and attended parochial schools where one of her most meaningful leadership experiences was being elected to student body president at Mount St. Mary Academy, which set a course for a future in political involvement. Over her career, Rossi has worked closely with legislators and governors to draft laws to improve the lives of Arkansas’ children and families and is most often credited with helping the state adopt a program for uninsured children now called ARKids First.

She earned her undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and her master’s in social work from the University of Tennessee. She began her career in direct services as director of a treatment facility for emotionally disturbed adolescents. During that time, she was also on the faculty of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s School of Social Work as an instructor for youth service workers.

Rossi spent 23 years at Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a statewide nonprofit child advocacy organization, and 15 years as Executive Director, making her one of the state’s best resources on issues affecting children and families. In 2004, she joined the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement as associate director where she worked to prevent childhood obesity, improve child health services in the schools and advance a statewide system of health information exchange. Rossi spent the last five years of her career with AFMC as Vice President continuing to work to improve the quality of health care. She retired from there in 2015.

For more than 40 years, she has taken leadership roles on numerous government and private task forces, committees and commissions charged with improving services for children through public policies and programs. Her notable activities have included serving on the Governor’s Commission on Juvenile Justice, which designed a new juvenile court system for Arkansas; serving as special master in two class-action lawsuits against the state’s Department of Human Services regarding services to children in their custody; serving on the Governor’s Task Force on Youth Violence, a group of prominent leaders appointed to guide the state in the aftermath of the Jonesboro school shooting, and as a member of the Arkansas T.E.A. Program Advisory Council, which provided oversight to the state implementation of welfare reform.

She also served board terms on the Arkansas chapter of the National Conference for Community and Justice, served on the Executive Planning Committee for the Clinton School of Public Service, and was a founding board member and past president of the Arkansas Women’s Foundation. She also had a longtime involvement with the Arkansas Women’s Leadership Forum. She is most often credited with helping the state adopt a program for uninsured children now called ARKids First.

Rossi has received numerous recognitions and awards for her work including the 1999 Josetta Wilkins Courage Award from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission; the 1998 Shuffield Award from the Arkansas Medical Society; the 1997 Distinguished Service Award from the Arkansas Hospital Association; the NCCJ National Humanitarian Award in 2000; and the 21st Century Families Award in 2001 from the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

She was named for four years to the Top 100 Women in Arkansas by the state’s weekly business journal and was a finalist in the Arkansas Business 2003 Non-profit Executive of the Year competition. Arkansas Children's Hospital bestowed the first of an annual "Dr. Betty Lowe" award to Rossi in 2003 for her contributions improving the lives of children. Similarly, in 2008, Arkansas Treatment Homes Inc. bestowed the “Making a Difference” award coinciding with its 25th anniversary to celebrate Rossi’s contributions to improving foster care. The American Academy of Pediatrics in September 2009, presented Rossi with its annual “Child Health Advocate” award. In 2019, the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement awarded its annual Dr. Tom Bruce Arkansas Health Impact award to Rossi for her career achievements to improve public health in Arkansas.

She is a longtime board member of the Arkansas Food Bank and was a proud member of the second class of Leadership Greater Little Rock and served as the first chair of the group’s Alumni Board. She currently volunteers with her church food pantry, AARP Arkansas and recently accepted a term on the Age Friendly Little Rock Commission.

Rossi and her husband of nearly 40 years, Joe Bryan, are the proud parents of two sons, Nathan and Nicholas and grandparents to three lights of their lives: Braxton, Hallie, and Sawyer.