For more than 25 years as the principal of Grassroots Initiatives, Roberta has provided leadership, quality training and consultation to community-based organizations with a major focus on empowering citizen groups to be effective advocates in the public policy arena. She has played a significant role in successful change efforts on a range of social justice issues by working to develop skilled leadership, building community coalitions and consulting and organizing on issue and electoral campaigns. She also provides consultation and training to numerous nonprofits on organizational development, fund development, program development, community engagement, and social marketing.

For over 20 years, she served as the founding Executive Director of the Childhood Lead Action Project, the only organization in RI devoted exclusively to the elimination of childhood lead poisoning. In addition to her overall management and operational responsibilities, she was the primary staff for many legislative and advocacy initiatives as well as providing supervision to a small staff who have built effective coalitions in promoting legislation, policy changes and community-based education. Roberta has also served as the Interim Executive Director for several non-profit organizations and has worked as a community organizer.

Roberta is a former Professor of Social Work at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where she designed and coordinated a social service concentration and taught all of the social work courses in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. She has also provided field supervision to social work students from several colleges engaged in community organizing internships. She also served as an adjunct faculty in public health at Roger Williams University.