Lucia is the sister of Ladislav Kossár and co-founder of the BUDDY program. As the lead expert for ​​quality improvement and impact measurement, she is dedicated to child protection, maintaining the quality of the program and capturing its impact as the organization grows.  

With her help, processes in the program are constantly being improved, professionalized and monitored to protect the best interest of children and to ensure that volunteers receive excellent support. She is also the organisation’s knowledge and experience “library”. She cares that all people involved in the program are heard and tirelessly looks for ways to maximize the impact on the lives of children and young people. She carefully monitors the feedback from all BUDDY volunteers, Centers for children and families, BUDDY supporters and the team. Thanks to her, the BUDDY program can show valuable data to the BUDDY community and society at large about the quality and sustainability of the program, and especially the importance of a safe and trusting adult in the life of a child who is not growing up in their family. 

She hopes that the BUDDY program, together with other organizations, will help towards a gradual system change so that all children can grow up in families or have at least one close adult in their lives to lean on while growing up. 

Lucia left Slovakia more than 20 years ago when she received a scholarship to study abroad.  She studied social sciences at the University College Utrecht and international development at the John Hopkins University SAIS in the USA and in Italy. She has worked for the Council of Europe and the World Bank, as well as a consultant in health and social development in various countries around the world. She lived in London, where she obtained her PhD in Health Policy at the London School of Economics and worked as a researcher for the independent think tank, the Nuffield Trust, in the field of international comparisons, measurement, evaluation, and quality improvement of health care systems and social policies. In addition to working in the BUDDY program, she continues to provide her consulting services in international development, and health and healthcare quality improvement. Currently she lives in Barcelona with her family. 

Special educational needs educator and expert in attachment theory with a wealth of experience in the foster care system. 

The BUDDY program is led by a team of coordinators (psychologists) who oversee the safety and quality of relationships between children and their BUDDY volunteers. With her deep knowledge of the impact of childhood experiences on adulthood, Zuzka supervises the program team so that the main focus of the volunteers in their BUDDY relationships with children are always understanding, acceptance, respect, support, reliability and predictability. Her absolute priority is to prevent children in the program from experiencing further relational harm. Zuzka also advises and oversees the organization's relations with the Centers for children and families and their employees, who are our key partners. Their trust in our work is an important prerequisite for collaboration and our ability to support the children and young people in their care. 

Zuzka also cooperates with the civic association Návrat and  Coachingplus. Her work in the civic association Návrat brought her closer to foster families and their concerns. She worked as a methodologist at the Center for Labor, Social Affairs and Family for four years, where she was trying to improve the quality of the care system in residential foster care homes. She also collaborated with the Rodinka.sk portal, wrote articles for the Raabe publishing house and was the editor of the “Social relations and problems in schools” publication. She contributed an interview about child rearing in the book "How to be happy?”. She provides counseling, therapy, education and supervision in Bratislava.