By Angela Marshall
It was Skolnik's can-do attitude and years of academic and practical experience in social services that made her County Executive Thomas Suozzi's choice for deputy commissioner. We are excited to have someone with her qualifications on staff, Suozzi said in a statement.
Suozzi praised Skolnik for her easy transition from an advisory role to one of administration.
Although the title is new, Skolnik of Rockville Centre is no stranger to the county's Department of Social Services. She has been a member of the department's advisory council since 1980. She also chaired the department's Adult Protective Services Committee from 1980 to 1993.
Skolnik said her focus will be to effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the county's most vulnerable citizens. While supportive of the ideas behind welfare reform, she believes the changes in America's public assistance program have far-reaching ramifications.
Skolnik said the reforms kind of came in almost like a lamb and now we're living with the roar of a lion in terms of the implications of this. So, it isn't only Nassau County that's dealing with what to do with people in finding them jobs, in finding them adequate child care, in assuring them when people finish the five-year limit they move onto the safety net program and into employment. There are supreme challenges in this.
The motivation, the idea is certainly a positive one that people function better and feel better about themselves if they have a position in society that's favorably looked upon that is a job but we do have tremendous challenges linked to adequate funding for such things as child care to enable people to go to work.
She said the challenges are even more evident now that the country has moved into a recession. Remember, welfare reform came in during a time of great economic boom and therefore the rolls dropped.
As a former member of the Rockville Centre Housing Authority Board, Skolnik has seen first-hand the pressing need for affordable housing.
She said having a place of your own is not only significant for physical well-being but also for psychological well-being.
I don't think anything is more poignant ... than people facing not having a place to live and not having a place to live with their children. And I can tell you this Department of Social Services is really committed to finding adequate and appropriate housing for people in this county.... It is a supreme challenge, a supreme challenge to achieve that goal in the New York metropolitan region because of the cost of housing here.
She said members of the department have been working hard in this area and have seen some progress.
Nationwide, there has been a move away from public housing like that offered at the Rockville Centre Housing Authority and a move toward Section 8 housing in which people are given vouchers to help them pay for housing in the private sector. Skolnik said the county has been successful in acquiring more vouchers for its residents.
Skolnik called the social services staff energetic and hard working and said she is impressed with their dedication.
Skolnik earned bachelor's degree in social work from the University of Michigan and earned her master's and doctoral degrees from Adelphia University. She is on extended leave from Adelphia where she has worked in the School of Social Work since 1975. She was an associate dean from 1997 to 2000.
Outside the classroom, Skolnik has worked on many projects, including serving as supervisor for a program to assist Kosovar refugees on Long Island. She also served as principal investigator on the county's Self-Sufficiency through Activities, Resource and Training Project, a prototype of a welfare-to-work program.
She is also a member of many organizations in both Rockville Centre and the county. She is the president of the Rockville Centre Education Foundation and is on the board of the Nassau County Coalition against Domestic Violence.
The deputy commissioner has written three books, Hard Times: Narratives of the Human Consequences, Public Assistance and Your Client and Understanding Social Welfare, which she co-authored with Dr. Ralph Dolgoff and Dr. Don Feldstein.
