Lynnette Ford, LMSW, MA, SIFI

Lynnette Ford joined The Door in 2021 as Chief Program Officer and currently serves as Chief Administrative Officer. In this role, she provides strategic leadership and oversight of agency-wide administrative functions, ensuring operational alignment, effectiveness, and support for The Door’s mission and programs.

Lynnette began her career in 1996 in social services at the Jamaica Community Adolescent Program, where she led an alternative-to-incarceration initiative supporting youth involved in the criminal justice system. In this role, she developed and implemented GED programming and built post-secondary access pathways to reduce recidivism and expand educational and life opportunities for young people. She went on to hold clinical and leadership roles at Queens Village Committee for Mental Health, where she led an Article 28 medical clinic within a residential substance use treatment program. She also worked as a social worker at Faith Mission Crisis Center and served as a Senior Treatment Educator at the National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project.

Prior to joining The Door, Lynnette worked at GMHC, where she held a range of leadership roles, ultimately serving as Chief Program Officer. In this role, she provided executive oversight across Food & Nutrition, Legal Services, HIV Testing & Prevention, Analytics & Evaluation, Youth Services, and Advocacy, and led the ACRIA and Love Heals Center for Children & Families programs.

Lynnette is a published author and co-author of the research paper “The Prevalence and Correlates of Receiving Confirmatory HIV Test Results Among Newly Diagnosed HIV-Positive Individuals at a Community-Based Testing Center.” Her work and expertise in public health have been featured at major conferences, including the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS and Social Work and HIV/AIDS conference, as well as in POZ magazine and on Here and Now with Sandra Bookman. She is the recipient of the New York State Department of Health Commissioner’s Special Recognition Award in recognition of her contributions to public health and health equity.

She holds a Bachelor of Social Work from York College, a Master of Social Work, and a Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor (CASAC) certificate from Adelphi University. She is a Licensed Master Social Worker and holds a SIFI (Seminar in Field Instruction) certification from NYU.