Tonya Ricketts De La Rosa

Tonya supports the online campus, where she passionately supports students and agency partners in the West Coast and Midwest. Hailing from Toronto, Canada, she was motivated to pursue an education in Social Work after spending five transformative years working abroad in Bogotá, Colombia.  Tonya is a dedicated social worker driven by a deep commitment to social justice, with a particular focus on the well-being of children, their families, and immigrant communities. A proud alumna of CSSW, Tonya specialized in International Social Welfare, Services to Immigrants and Refugees and Integrated Practice and Programming. Her extensive experience includes forensic social work, where she collaborated with an interdisciplinary team of attorneys, advocates and social workers to provide essential court-based advocacy for children, youth and families navigating the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. As Assistant Vice President of a preventive evidence-based program in Queens, NY, she continued her mission to uplift families navigating the complex and often dehumanizing challenges of the child welfare system. Most recently, prior to joining the Office of Practicum Learning, Tonya supported unaccompanied minors under the care of the Office of Refugee and Resettlement.  In this role, she assessed potential victims of human tracking and provided valuable recommendations grounded in best practices through a trauma-informed lens.