Help for SOS: A New Leader Named : Charity: Share Our Selves selects Barbara Considine, a staff member with the Orange County Human Relations Commission, as executive director.

An Orange County community organizer who has worked extensively for immigrant rights and has won praise for a report about the exploitation of day laborers has been selected to head one of the county’s largest private charities.

Barbara Considine, 33, a staff member with the Orange County Human Relations Commission for four years, was named executive director of the 20-year-old charity Share Our Selves by its board of directors late Monday.

She will replace SOS founder Jean Forbath, who announced in May that she would retire from her longtime position.

“I’m really excited and look forward to working for a group I’ve always admired,” Considine said. “When I first started working for the commission, I visited SOS because I had heard so much about it. I was very impressed.”

Considine said Tuesday that she will assume her new post in late August after wrapping up duties at the Human Relations Commission and going on her honeymoon.

Forbath, who has shepherded SOS through two decades of unparalleled growth, said Considine was the unanimous choice of the board because of her record of service and administrative abilities.

“Our No. 1 quality was someone who was willing to look at SOS as more than just a job,” said Forbath, who is also chairwoman of the Human Relations Commission. “We wanted someone who has concern for the poor and is willing to be an advocate because that’s what we’ve been all about. Barbara brings just the right mix of abilities to the job.”

SOS has assumed a leading position among county charity providers, serving an average of 300 needy families daily with emergency food, clothing and financial assistance. The agency also operates a free medical and dental clinic.

Considine will face a number of challenges. In the most recent, SOS--after a long and controversial battle with city officials--bought its own building at 1550 Superior Ave. but still has a $450,000 mortgage to pay off.

The city just recently approved the relocation of the organization’s medical and dental clinic from the city-managed Rea Community Center to the new building, a move that Considine will probably have to oversee.

Considine will also face the problem of keeping SOS in pace with the most urgent needs of its clients, including job counseling and child care.

Although Considine has been a behind-the-scenes player while at the commission, she is generally regarded as a committed activist with deep roots in the county’s Latino and Asian communities.

But she has also earned praise for her work with disparate segments of the county--for example, in conducting police sensitivity training--that is likely to prove useful in shepherding SOS, whose goals have often clashed with those of city officials and surrounding neighbors.

She is fluent in Spanish, has studied Vietnamese and is a consensus-builder, say those who know her.

“She’s a great facilitator with the ability to bring people together,” said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Human Relations Commission. “When I first heard that Jean was leaving, I wondered how they could replace her, but I think they’ve found someone who can walk into that tough situation.”

Among Considine’s achievements while at the commission was a report detailing widespread exploitation of day laborers, the first of its kind in the county and one that received grudging praise from proponents of stricter regulation of day laborers.

The January, 1989, report prompted many police departments in the county to treat non-payment of wages as theft and to target wayward employers.

Police sensitivity training videos developed by Considine and the commission have been used as models statewide, and Considine is also the primary force behind a county advisory council composed of Asian community members and law enforcement representatives. The group meets regularly and has also served as a statewide model.

Before joining the commission, Considine worked at processing plants in Watsonville and Fullerton as a bilingual liaison between workers and management. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she worked for the federal VISTA program, doing community work in migrant camps, and was also a union organizer for the United Farm Workers.