Introduction
To celebrate Black History Month, we asked African American social workers to talk to us about their career.
Rolanda Pyle, MA, LMSW
Associate Director of the Relatives as Parents Program
Brookdale Foundation Group
New York, New York
Ms. Pyle
Q. Ms. Pyle, where did you earn your social work degree, what is your area of expertise, and where are you currently employed?
I earned my social work degree at the Hunter College School of Social Work. My areas of expertise include aging, child welfare and kinship caregiving. I am currently employed at the Brookdale Foundation Group as the Associate Director with the Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP). Previously, I was the Director of the New York City Department for the Aging Grandparent Resource Center for ten years.
Q. Why did you choose social work as your career?
I always wanted to help people. As a child my dream was to become a teacher. When I reached junior high school that dream quickly changed. I started out as a counselor in an alcohol detoxification ward and then went on to become a caseworker in foster care and then later for many years in preventive services. I realized that social work was what I was "called" to do.
My grandmother stepped in to help my father raise me and my siblings, and I never got to say thank you. Working in kinship care and assisting relatives who are raising children is a way to say thank you and to give back for me.
Q. What is your proudest professional achievement?
My proudest professional accomplishment is establishing and expanding a resource center for grandparents raising grandchildren while I worked for the New York City Department for the Aging. The center became a nationwide model of supportive services, information, training and resources for relative caregivers families and professionals who worked with them. I received many awards because of my work with the Grandparent Resource Center (GRC) and I am proud of all of the awards including the Sloan Public Service Award. I am especially proud of being named one of the "100 Women Who Shape Our City' in the New York Daily News in 2004.
###
To find a social worker in your area, please click here.
“ROLANDA PYLE: They never plan for things to turn out this way. Which is why grandparents thrust into the role of primary caregiver – the result of divorce, child abuse, drug abuse, AIDS or jail – often lack the money, resources or strength to start all over again. That’s where Pyle comes in. The head of the Department of Aging Grandparents Resource Center – the first of its kind in the nation – the Brooklyn-born social worker has spent a decade helping grannies-turned-parents find everything from warm meals to warm coats to warm hearts.”
Ms. Pyle was awarded:
Ms. Pyle is the author of:
 |
Beneath His Everlasting Wings |
 |
Finally Awarded: Best Inspirational Poems, 2008 by Christian Storyteller |
