Cheryl Qamar has been working in the field of social work since 1970. She is currently the Mental Health Program Supervisor for Children and Family Services in Ulster County, New York (an upstate county two hours north of NYC). She has worked in a variety of settings located in both rural and urban communities, including correctional facilities, welfare departments, and out-patient mental health and substance abuse clinics. She was one of the original staff for the Women’s Alcoholism Program of CASPAR, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Cheryl has taught social work courses at the college level in the Boston area and provided consultation to agencies on such diverse topics as treatment for alcoholic women, children affected by domestic violence, play therapy, lesbian therapy, clinical supervision, and treatment for mentally ill chemical abusers. She has been faculty for the Omega Institute of New York where she led a workshop on women in Islam, "Behind the Veil," and a workshop on lesbian issues, "The Personal is Political."

As an Arab-American of Lebanese descent, Cheryl has been active in Middle East politics for 30 years. As an artist and filmmaker, she has taken her social activism to the stage and screen. She has produced documentaries on lesbian families and the video soap opera, "Two in Twenty," and she acted in the Mood Swings, an improvisational theatre group that raised issues regarding lesbians in recovery from alcoholism.