COEUR d’ALENE — Bob Driscoll is a human bridge.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Navigation Services director puts people in need with the services designed to provide for them.

The problem often is, people who need help don’t know where to turn — and that’s where Driscoll comes in.

A job, he said, he loves.

“At my age, if I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it,” the 64-year-old former university professor and hospital psychological department director said.

Whenever “someone’s life has been transformed because of my involvement, that’s the only thing that means anything to me,” he added.

Using federal, state, county or city resources, Driscoll helps families pay their rent, receive child-support, make ends meet and otherwise stabilize their lives.

The biggest satisfaction he gets, though, is helping those families develop goals to solve their problems.

“Someone’s life is now better,” he said of the job’s reward. “That’s where my heart is.”

For his dedication, Driscoll was recently awarded the Disability Rights Advocate Award from Patrick Bloom and Virgil Edwards on behalf of Amy Dreps, Disability Action Center director.

“He has helped families, pets, and the community as a whole,” Edwards said during the presentation. “By pooling the resources in our area no matter what the cause.”

Driscoll has been working for the state department for 12 years, and said the need for financial help right now is the greatest he has seen.

He said the department could double its staff and every employee would remain busy, but the hand Coeur d’Alene reaches out to those in need is astonishing.

“Our community is very wealthy,” he said of his role of putting those resources in the hands those who need it. “But you only know that if you live here and are involved. For those who are the have-nots, they aren’t seeing it.”

The Disability Action Center also awarded Agnes Harges for her 20 plus years of volunteering for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Trinity Group Homes, Soroptimist and the Lutheran Church.

Honorable mentions included: Linden Custer, TESH employment specialist, Shannon Gilbert, men and women’s shelter advocate, John Corcoran, of Elder Help of North Idaho, Joyce Hughett, former president of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill’s local chapter and member of the advisory committee of the Center for Educational Access at North Idaho College and Alan Wasserman, managing attorney for VISTA volunteer for Idaho Legal Aid.