New dame happy to stick with Lesley

One of the country's newest dames has no illusions about what people she works with and works for will now call her.

"Lesley is just fine by me," Dame Lesley Max said from her Auckland home.

Dame Lesley was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to children and said it was important nothing got in the way of her future work.

She laughed when it was pointed out she would become Dame Lesley Max and was asked what that represented.

"I am known to everybody as Lesley and I hope to continue to be known as Lesley.

"I would hate anybody to feel this represented any kind of barrier.

"I go into communities all around New Zealand, communities of struggling people and what I don't want is for there to be a barrier between anybody and me, so I hope nobody will see it in that way."

Dame Lesley, chief executive of the Great Potentials Foundation which works with young people and their parents, said the award was "a wonderful surprise and a wonderful honour."

It was also an honour for her to accept it on behalf of all the people she worked with and "a very good feeling to know there is a recognition that this work is effective."

She said working with children and their parents was hugely rewarding when children responded and she hoped the award would help reach even more parents and children and to help develop their potential and change their future.

She said there was no greater reward than seeing children succeed but there was also a frustration knowing how much more work still needed to be done.

"That is what we hope this recognition will enable us to do."

As well as her work with the Great Potential Foundation, Dame Lesley also chaired the Parenting Council, was a founding member of the Brainwave Trust, and was a member of the Family Service National Advisory Council. She was a member of the Northern Regional Health Authority and Family Advisory Council.

Dame Lesley who was made a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1994, said she could not keep the award from her husband Robert, but her four children would only find out when it was announced publicly.

"There will be incredulity, there will be all kinds of jokes," she said of her children who live in Auckland, Melbourne, New York and London.