After several unsatisfying employment experiences, Clark found a position that would lay the foundation of her life's work and extensive contributions to the field of developmental psychology. The job was a counselling position at the Riverdale Home for Children in New York. Here, she conducted psychological tests and counselled homeless African American girls. This experience at Riverdale, she described, was also the moment when she clearly perceived the tremendous shortage of psychological services available for blacks and other minority children in New York City: "I think Riverdale had a profound effect on me, because I was never aware that there were that many children who were just turned out you know, or whose parents had just left them, so to speak.