Carolyn Fish, the longtime executive director of the Center for Safety & Change, formerly the Rockland Family Shelter, is retiring. The Center’s board of directors made the announcement on Thursday.
Fish, who has led the agency for 34 years, will step down as executive director in January 2014 but remain for another year as part-time executive director emeritus to ensure a smooth transition. During that period, Michael Mandel, the former board president, volunteered to serve as interim executive director until a new executive director is appointed.
Fish said she had been contemplating retirement for a while and wanted a viable transition plan in place.
“With Michael’s wonderful offer to come on as Interim Executive Director, I feel confident that the agency will be in good hands during this time,” she said. “I am excited about reducing my hours and having the ability to focus my energies in the areas of social change that thus far have been inhibited by my administrative responsibilities. As a former teacher, I look forward to providing an array of trainings, educational programs and technical assistance to professionals and the lay community.”
Board President Richard Rein noted Fish’s contributions.
“Carolyn’s counsel has been sought by the entire community at all levels and her experience, hard work and dedication to ending violence against women and children has literally changed and saved lives,” he said.
Mandel, a 10-year member of the board, four of them as president, acknowledged Fish’s legacy.
“Carolyn Fish is a difficult if not impossible act to follow,” he said. “Her record in the women’s movement and the movements to end domestic violence and sexual assault are beyond compare.”
Mandel founded Mandel, Katz & Brosnan, an international law firm, and ClearPar LLC, a technology company. He helped develop the SAEDA (Student Activists Ending Dating Abuse) program.
Government officials praised Fish’s compassion and dedication. “She has been a visionary and the driving force in efforts to protect women and children from the devastation of domestic violence," said Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef.
"Thanks to Carolyn's leadership and the support of an amazing Board, Rockland Family Shelter (now Center for Safety & Change) is known and admired nationally as a model for creating awareness about domestic violence and protecting victims of all forms of violence”, said Harriet Cornell, Chairwoman of the Rockland County Legislature and Chair of the Rockland STOP F.E.A.R. Coalition. “For 30 years, I have learned from Carolyn and her wonderful staff, as we worked with the police, the DA, the judiciary, the clergy, local hospitals and the community at large to develop services designed to help women and their families survive the trauma of violence."
Fish began working to end intimate partner violence in 1976, when she organized the first public meeting to identify and discuss the issue of domestic violence in the county. In 1977 a group of Rockland residents started addressing what should be done to help survivors of domestic violence. Fish was a founding member of the group, which obtained funding to open the Rockland Family Shelter in 1979. She was hired as assistant director and in 1980 was appointed executive director.
In 1986, Fish co-founded the Rockland County STOP F.E.A.R. Coalition with Harriet Cornell, chair of the Rockland County Legislature, Phyllis Frank, interim executive director of VCS, Inc., former Rockland County District Attorney Ken Gribetz and former Rockland County Sheriff Tom Goldrick. Its mission was to bring agencies together for a coordinated community response to domestic violence.
Under her stewardship, the agency grew from a small emergency residential shelter and 24-hour crisis hotline for battered women and their children to a nationally recognized multi-service agency. The agency currently offers services and support that promote safety for women, children and all crime victims. Its 24-hour hotline is 845-634-3344.
Over the years, it expanded to non-residential domestic violence and sexual assault services, legal services, children’s services and training and educational programs that are multi-lingual and culturally sensitive. In 2012, the agency changed its name from the Rockland Family Shelter to the Center for Safety & Change to better represent the scope of its services.
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