[2] Ostroff served as Director of training for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health where she developed programs and courses supporting community-based living for disabled people.
[2] In 1978 Ostroff co-founded, with Cora Beth Abel, of the Adaptive Environments Center, which specialized in creating access for people with disabilities.
[2] She emphasized more creative approaches to accessibility than the basics of legal code requirements,[5][6] and foregrounded the role of disabled people themselves in design.
[1] She also contributed to the Principles of Universal Design, along with collaborators Ronald L. Mace, Edward Steinfeld, Mike Jones, and Jim Mueller.
[7] In 2015 Ostroff donated her papers to the Smithsonian Institution in order to allow others to benefit from her experience working on universal design.