Doyle Pruitt ’98 built a career helping people in traumatic circumstances find a way forward.
Right before her senior year in high school, Doyle Pruitt’s family moved to Canandaigua, a tight-knit community where many of the other teens had grown up together.
She felt like an outsider but only until she started classes at FLCC in fall 1996.
“I felt like here I did fit in,” she said. “The professors saw beyond what clique you belonged to. It allowed me to explore who I was and what I wanted without having to explain myself.”
At FLCC, Doyle began her deliberate pursuit of a career in clinical social work, starting with her associate degree in human services in 1998, followed by a bachelor’s in social work and psychology from Nazareth, then a master’s in social work at Syracuse University. She earned a Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo in 2013.
Now a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice in Canandaigua, she specializes in the assessment and treatment of trauma and sexually harmful behaviors in children. Her decision to devote her life to such weighty matters began in her teens.
“My whole career has focused on trauma, and it came from in high school, having friends disclose to me they had been sexually abused,” Doyle explained, noting two of those three friends were young men. “I couldn’t do much to help my friends. I didn’t want other kids to go through what they went through.”
Her work is about prevention and breaking destructive cycles. Early in her career, she worked at KidsPeace in Romulus, providing individual, family and group treatment of youth who caused sexual harm. Doyle has also worked at the Crestwood Children’s Center Outpatient Clinic in Penn Yan and Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes.
“It all goes back to no one was born to be a sex offender. No one was born to be a criminal. They did bad things in part because they themselves faced adversity and struggles in life,” she said, adding that she sees hopeful signs that society increasingly agrees. “People are realizing change is possible, even in those whose decisions were so devastating to others and the community.”
The question is how to change and where to start. As a clinician, her role is to partner with clients, helping them reflect and clarify their own thoughts.
Doyle tells her clients: “You have the answer inside of you. You are the expert on your life. I’m just helping you find the solutions.”
The skills she fosters in others – thinking for yourself and finding meaning through reflection – are not unlike those she began developing in college.
“I remember how Josh encouraged us to think about things from different viewpoints,” she said of Joshua Heller, professor in social science. “I think with him it was encouraging us to think outside of the textbook.”
She found an assignment in one of Peter Kuryla’s classes so intriguing she uses it in her own classes. She is an adjunct instructor at Syracuse University and an assistant professor at Winona State University in Rochester, Minn. Peter, who retired as assistant professor in 2020, asked his students to analyze a song, challenging them to explore the words using both logic and creativity. Doyle selected a song by Tori Amos, who is a rape survivor.
Beyond the classroom, Doyle said attending community college helped her make choices about further study because she was making decisions based on experience, not impressions a high schooler might have about college.
“It can serve as a bridge. It is so different from high school,” she said, adding that she often recommends two-year college to youth in her practice.
She would also advise any student today to make the most of their relationships in and out of class. Greet faculty in the cafe – maybe they will pay for your coffee, she added, winking – and ask for advice, pick their brain, become known in a positive way.
As a social worker, Doyle may be more deliberate about relationships than most. She needs to get to know each client as a whole person. How is their health? Whom do they live with? What is their home life like? The average person does not need such clinical detail, but it is worth asking whether we are as intentional as we should be about our interactions with those around us.
“Everything is about relationships, and college is where you build those relationships for your personal life and your professional life. That is as valuable as the degree that you get,” she said. “Each person who comes into your life can give you something and you can give them something.”
