Photo by Tracy Wescott / Post-Bulletin
“[Rochester Public Library staff] are all about connecting people to information and resources. They have kind of gotten some on-the-job training for themselves in connecting people to social services, but they recognized there was a service gap.”
-Allison Carpenter, a Guiding Partners to Solutions (GPS) Social Worker.
Social worker Allison Carpenter sees her work as a natural extension of what was already being done by Rochester Public Library staff.
“There was a growing need that they weren’t quite able to fill themselves.”
The Rochester Post-Bulletin‘s Randy Peterson took some time to talk with Carpenter about her career and the work she’s been doing in recent months.
Carpenter joined the library team in January through a new partnership between the library and Family Service Rochester. She works for the nonprofit service agency, but is funded by a grant initiated by the library.
The Rochester native and Winona State University grad works 25 to 30 hours a week from the library’s second-floor wellness corner in an effort to connect a variety of library visitors to a broad range of county-based and community-based programs.
Read the full story in the Rochester Post-Bulletin
Learn more about social worker services at the Rochester Public Library
Learn more about collaboration between Winona State University and the Rochester Public Library
