Rosa Agosto
Rosa’s immigrant experience shaped her commitment to improving the lives of
vulnerable communities. Her career has focused on creating programs and
services, expanding and enhancing strategies, and leading organizational
development efforts that have greatly impacted the educational and social
advancement of youth and families. Embedded in her approaches is a focus on
evaluation to ensure continuous improvement.
Rosa is the chief talent and learning officer at Urban Health Plan, a position
targeted to developing and promoting opportunities for the over 500 associates of
this rapidly expanding organization, focusing on professional and leadership
development, education, learning, culture, internal communication, with the
ultimate goal of service excellence by assuring that Urban’s values and vision are
embedded in all opportunities and creating a seamless experience for the
associates, the patients and the community. Rosa’s knowledge of Urban’s
operations and associates came from her previous tenure as Chief of Staff.
She previously served as vice president of programs at Learning Leaders, an
organization established to support the academic achievement and success of
NYC’s public school students through family engagement practices, education
and volunteer development and training, There, in addition to developing
systems responsive to school needs, Rosa also developed systems for data
analysis, established performance success measures and built teams focused on
geographic regions based on community needs. As CEO of the Girl Scout
Council of Greater New York, she piloted program initiatives and enhaced the
funding structure, and restructured roles and functions to increase diversity,
promote youth development practices and transform the organization into a
leadership development organization for girls.
Rosa was also the chief program officer at The Educational Alliance where she
led all of the agency’s programs including mental health and substance abuse
treatment and residential programs, community centers, early childhood, youth
and family programs. Here she expanded the number of youth and children
served, introduced evaluation to program design, led community building
strategies, and increased support through government grants and private
foundations. At the Children’s Aid Society, she was the founding director of the
Community Schools Program, where she developed the infrastructures for 10
schools in New York City and launched the National Technical Assistance Center
for Community Schools, establishing partnerships across the country and
abroad, with government, foundations, and communities.
Earlier in her career, Rosa worked as both a practitioner and then program
administrator for programs serving dually diagnosed children and adults with
developmental disabilities and psychiatric disorders; and conducted field
research and contributed to research designs at Columbia University and the
NYS Psychiatric Institute. She has consulted for the Communities In Schools
National Office, Columbia University’s Center on Substance Abuse, Lutheran
Medical Center’s Warren Street Center, Jewish Child Care Association and the
Grand Street Settlement, among others.
Rosa has taught, lectured and presented at conferences across the country and
abroad, including: Bank Street College, Center for Social and Emotional
Education, University of Maryland Journalism Fellowship, Harvard Graduate
School of Education, New York University School of Social Work, National
Institute on Care and Welfare, The Netherlands. She has written a number of
papers and articles on community schools and family engagement in education.
Rosa is a graduate of City College, New York University and Columbia University
Teachers College; she is also a graduate of Columbia University Business
School in executive not for profit management, is a certified rehabilitation
counselor (CRC) and a certified psychotherapist.