Michael Roberts presents Margaret Aylward with a plaque honoring her 19 years of service to CYD and its students.

Margaret Aylward has been CYD’s Assistant Executive Director for 19 years. During this time, she has seen generations of students, waves of immigration from troubled spots all over the globe, and countless success stories achieved by our hardworking graduates. As an LMSW who also serves as Site Director at MCNDHS, she has provided direct services and trained many staff members to do the same. Aylward herself came to the U.S. from Ireland as an undocumented immigrant and has a personal understanding of the challenges the newest New Yorkers face.

“I always appreciated working with an older population of transfer high school students. You’re meeting kids at a point in their lives when they’re making very difficult and important decisions about where they want to end up. It’s really profound to see young people who are often working and supporting themselves but also dedicating themselves to their education, making that a priority, and using CYD’s resources to flesh out their thinking so we can give them some direction. I could look back over the years and count all my doctors and PhD candidates and all the years that it took them to get there – and know that if they hadn’t made the right decision at the high school level, things would have turned out differently.

“I’ve always felt that I chose the right career path, as a social worker and in doing work at CYD and MCNDHS. The focus and dedication of our Board members has always been central to allowing us to work so effectively. This work is aligned with my own personal beliefs, and our overall goal is to ‘teach someone how to fish.’ It’s not enough to help a student pass a class or get housing. It’s the comprehensive nature of everything we do that empowers young people to make informed decisions about their futures. As we enter this new political era, our commitment is still to give students as much up to date information as we can and work with them to realize their dreams.”