A Briefing on Families and Health

The topic families and health includes a wide range of health related issues. Briefing meetings were held with Vice President Al Gore in an attempt to establish pressing concerns facing public health and policy in the country. Experts were gathered together to discuss various issues such as how to build healthy communities, healthy families and the role of policy in helping to support what is already working. This section features several of the health experts, their ideas related research and articles. Please take the time to explore their research and ideas.

Polly Arango Co-founder/Director of "Family Voices", and a member of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality.	Harry R. Jacobson Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Professor of Medicine, Vanderbilt University of Medicine Center.
Robert Wm. Blum Professor and Director, Division of Pediatrics & Adolescent Health, University of Minnesota, Chair of the Children, Youth, and Family Consortium.	Beverley H. Johnson President and CEO, Institute for Family Centered Care and former pediatric patient in chronic care.
Christine Cassel Professor and Chairman, Henry Schwartz Dept. of Geriatrics and Adult Development.	Judith Katz-Leavy Senior Policy Analyst, Office of Policy, Planning and Administration, Federal Center for Mental Health Services.
Jeffrey Cole Director, UCLA Center for Communication Policy. Principal Investigator of the Network Television Violence Monitoring Project.	David B. Kendall Senior Analyst, Health Policy and Director of Health Priorities project at the Progressive Policy Institute.
Karl Dennis Executive Director, "Kaleidoscope", Chicago. IL.	S. Robert Levine Chairman, Progressive Policy Institute's "Health Priorities Project". Founder of "Health Corporation".
Paula Duncan Maternal and Child Health Director, State of Vermont Department of Health; Division Director for Health Improvements.	David J. Lansky President of "FACCT", the Foundation for Accountability.
Barbara J. Friesen Director, Research and training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health. Professor, Graduate School of Social Work, Portland, OR.	Anne McGinntis Developed "Parent College", Chattanooga Tennessee. Child educator and counselor.
Margaret Hamburg Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation of Dept. of Health and Human Services.	Michael L. Millenson Author, Visiting Scholar, Northwestern University's Institute for Health Services Research and Policy Studies.
Val J. Halamandaris President, National Association for Home Care, Director General, World Home Care and Hospice Organization.	Irwin Redlener President and co-founder of The Children's Health Fund. Vice President for the Children's Medical Center, Director of the Child Health Network and Director of Community Pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center. Professor of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Lecturer in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Christine Harper Seitz Vice President for Clinical Operations of the newly merged Children's Hospital's of St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN.	Helen M. Sandalls Specialist in Medical ethics law, Phoenix, AZ.
Ruby P. Hearn Senior Vice President, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.	Lawrence N. Shulman Vice-chair for Clinical Services Dept. of Adult Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA.
Barbara Huff Executive Director, Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health.	Naomi Tannen Human Services Consultant, Burlington, VT.

Polly Arango lives in Algodones, New Mexico, and has four children; the youngest, Nick, has multiple disabilities. For the past 15 years, Polly has been an advocate for children in New Mexico and across the country with a focus on youngsters who, like Nick, have special health care needs. In 1992, with many national parent leaders, Polly co-founded Family Voices, a national grassroots network of more than 14,000 families and friends working to improve health care for children with special health needs through family-centered care practices. A writer and speaker, Polly now directs Family Voices and is a member of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality, serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Children with Disabilities, sits on the Steering Committee for the 5th International Congress on Serving Children with Disabilities in the Community, was a member of the National Commission on Childhood Disability/SSI, and serves on many national boards and task forces related to children with special health care needs.

In New Mexico, Polly is co-founder, and former chair of the Child and Adolescent Legislative Continuum and of Parent Reaching Out, the statewide organization of families who have children with special needs. She serves on the New Mexico Developmental Disabilities Council, and is a board member of New Mexico Advocates for Children and Families and El Pueblo Health Services, a rural community health center.

Robert Blum, M.D., Professor and Director of the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health at the University of Minnesota received international acclaim for the study recently released on the importance of the parental role in the social, academic and emotional health of adolescents. Editor of two books, over 150 articles and reports, he is past president of the SAM, serves in leadership roles in the Guttmacher Institute and the national Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and consults with UNICEF and other international organizations.

Christine Cassel, M.D., M.A.C.P., is Chairman of the Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development of Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, and Professor of Geriatrics and Medicine. Previously Chief of General Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago where she was Professor of Medicine and Public Policy Studies, Chief of the Section of General Internal Medicine, Director of the Center on Aging, Health and Society, Director of the Center for Health Policy Research, and Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. Among her numerous publications are three textbooks on geriatrics and medical ethics. In March of 1997, Dr. Cassel was appointed to the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. She is past President of the American College of Physicians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Society for Health and Human Values. She has served as a consultant to the VA, HCFA, the National Institute on Aging, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, and the US Congress.

Jeffrey Cole has been on the UCLA faculty for the past 22 years and serves as the Director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy. He is Principal Investigator of the Network Television Violence Monitoring Project which in 1995, 1996 and 1997 issued annual reports to the television networks, Congress and the nation. Upon the release of the 1996 report, Cole held a joint press conference with President Bill Clinton who referred to the Center for Communication Policy as "the premier educational institution setting trends in entertainment." Cole has testified before Congress on television issues and has spoken as a keynote and panel member at over 100 conferences on communications issues. In May of l994, 1995 and 1996 the Center co-authored with U.S. News & World Report national surveys examining attitudes and values of decision-makers in the entertainment industry. In 1994 the Center co-sponsored "The Superhighway Summit" at UCLA with keynote speaker Vice President Al Gore and the leaders of most of the nation's major media companies. Cole has produced films opening the 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 Family Reunion conferences. Over the past three years the Center has sponsored or co-sponsored national conferences on religion and prime time television, television and advocacy groups, and children and the media. Cole has lectured in Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Britain and throughout the U.S. He regularly consults with governmental leaders throughout the world on communications issues. He recently was appointed to the Executive Committee of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

Karl Dennis has been the Executive Director of Kaleidoscope Inc. in Chicago, Illinois for the past twenty-two years. His agency was recently selected as of one of the top five child serving agencies in the country by the prestigious Chesapeake Institute in Washington DC. Karl is considered one of the country's leading experts on community-based care and a pioneer of wraparound services.

Mr. Dennis was one of the national founders of Intensive In-Home Services and Therapeutic Foster Care. Under his direction, Kaleidoscope was one of our country's first agencies to implement a pediatric AIDS treatment foster care program, which has become a highly regarded role model across the nation. He has taught and lectured at Harvard and Yale Universities and has presented in 49 states. In addition he has helped orchestrate state initiatives to return children from out-of-state placements and has provided services to thousands of children and their families since 1973.

A popular lecturer and consultant, Mr. Dennis has contributed his vast knowledge of community-based care to individuals and agencies across the United States and several foreign countries. He serves on the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Executive Session to develop an alternative plan for child protection in this country. Mr. Dennis is a member of the "Friends" of the Federation of Families, and received their "Making A Difference Award" in 1995. Karl was also the recipient of the "Marion F. Langer Award" for his national advocacy on part of children and families from the American Orthopsychiatric Association, and the Life Time Achievement Award for WrapAround Services.

Paula Duncan, MD, Maternal and Child Health Director for the State of Vermont Department of Health, is also the Division Director for Health Improvements. A pediatrician with a sub-specialty fellowship training in Adolescent Medicine and Neonatology, Dr Duncan was on the Pediatrics faculty at Stanford Medical School and is currently Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont. Her research focus was the development and parenting of healthy adolescents. She has been instrumental in the development of a K-12 health curriculum, "Success by Six" and increased medical coverage for school age children.

Appointed Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics School Health Committee, she has authored chapters on health for parents and students. In 1996 she was awarded a Primary Care Policy Fellowship by the US Public Health Service.

Dr. Friesen is the Director, Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health, and Professor, Graduate School of Social Work, at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. She is currently conducting research related to family participation in mental health and other service settings, and an evaluation of an intensive case management system for children with serious emotional disorders. Her practice experience in the field of mental health includes a variety of residential and community programs serving adults as well as families and children.

Dr. Friesen's overall professional focus is on improving social and mental health delivery systems through research and advocacy. Since 1984 she has been involved in systems change efforts on behalf of children who have emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders and their families. Major activities include the "Families as Allies" project, designed to promote partnerships between family members and service providers, and other projects undertaken to promote and support the organization of family members at local, state and national levels. Dr. Friesen has published extensively in the children's mental health area on topics such as parent-professional relationships, family support, family-centered service, family members in service-providing roles, and system change strategies.

Val J. Halamandaris has served since 1992 as the President of the National Association for Home Care (NAHC) and is Director General of the World Homecare and Hospice Organization. Under his leadership, NAHC has increased its membership from 400 to more than 6,000 home care agencies and hospices.

Mr. Halamandaris previously served for five years as Counsel to Representative Claude Pepper’s House Select Committee on Aging and for fifteen years as Counsel to Senator Frank E. Moss and the U. S. Senate Committee on Aging. While serving the Congress he authored more than two dozen congressional reports and helped achieve numerous legislative reforms, including legislation creating the Office of Inspector General and the Department of Health and Human Services and creating Medicare fraud units.

In 1985, he was a founder of the Caring Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of caring, integrity, and public service. In 1987, he founded the Center for Health Care Law, a public interest law firm advocating the rights of the elderly, the disabled and chronically ill children. He is editor and publisher of two national magazines, Caring and Caring People. He has also published several books on the U.S. Congress, health care, aging and home care. Mr. Halamandaris received his B.A. degree from George Washington University and his J.D. from Catholic University of America School of Law.

Margaret Hamburg, M.D., is the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services. As such, she is the principal policy advisor to the Secretary. Prior to joining the Administration, she was the third woman and youngest appointee ever to assume the post of Commissioner of Health for the City of New York in which she served for six years. She has also been Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). She has held academic appointments at Cornell University Medical Center, Columbia University School of Public Health, Rockefeller University, and Georgetown University School of Medicine. Some of her areas of expertise include addictions, AIDS, behavioral science, child development, and environmental health issues.

Christine Harper Seitz is Vice President for Clinical Operations of the newly merged Children's Hospital's of St Paul and Minneapolis. She is a registered nurse and holds masters degrees in both nursing and business administration. Responsible for leadership, direction and strategic planning for the patient care departments and functions across the system, she is leading a system wide re-engineering effort and co-leading the implementation of a clinical information system focusing on quality, service improvement and cost effectiveness. Family-centered care is a philosophy imbedded across the organization.

Ruby P. Hearn, Ph.D. is sr. vice president of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest health care philanthropy is the United States. The Foundation has awarded over two billion dollars in grant funds since its inception as a national philanthropy in 1972. As a member of the executive management team, Dr. Hearn participates in strategic program planning with the president and executive vice president and serves as a special advisor to the president and as the Foundation's liaison within the non-profit community. Dr. Hearn has had the major responsibility for oversight and program development of initiatives in maternal, infant and child health, AIDS, substance abuse and minority medical education. Dr. Hearn received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biophysics from Yale University and is a graduate of Skidmore College. She is a Fellow, Yale Corporation. She served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the 1995 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Connecticut, the Science Board for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the governing Council of the Institute of Medicine, the Board of Directors of the Council on Foundations, the Advisory Committee to the Director, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hearn is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP), and is also serving on the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council (1997 - 2001), National Institutes of Health.

Barbara Huff is the Executive Director for the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, a national family-run organization for children with emotional, behavioral or mental disorders and their families. Having developed a statewide children's mental health advocacy organization in Kansas in 1988, she was the first president of the Federation and is herself the parent of a daughter with serious emotional problems. She provides training, workshops and lectures to organizations across the country, and has received numerous awards and represents the Federation on many national boards and task forces.

Dr. Jacobson is Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Dr. Jacobson received his M.D. from the University of Illinois Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine in Chicago, where he was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed his residency in medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by a Nephrology Fellowship at the University of Texas Health Science Center. He served as Chief of the Renal Section of the U.S. Army Surgical Research Center at Brooke Army Medical Center for two years before joining the faculty of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in 1978. In 1985, Dr. Jacobson joined the Vanderbilt faculty as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Nephrology.

Dr. Jacobson's research interests have focused on the mechanism and regulation of renal epithelial cell ion transport and on the renal actions of eicosanoids. He has published numerous articles, editorials and reviews. He has contributed sections or chapters for ten medical textbooks and edits the book, The Principles and Practices of Nephrology, now in its second edition.

Dr. Jacobson is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Society of Nephrology, the International Society of Nephrology, the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He is a founder of Renal Care Group and is a member of its Board of Directors.

Beverley H. Johnson is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Family-Centered Care in Bethesda, Maryland. She began her career as a direct care provider in a children's hospital, where she developed psychosocial and family support programming. She later served as a trustee of Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and of the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions. Between 1979 and 1992, she was Executive Director of the Association for the Care of Children's Health. She has been the project director of numerous federal and private foundation grants on family-centered issues. She co-authored Maternity Care: Resources for Family-Centered Practice, Newborn Intensive Care: Resources for Family-Centered Practice, Family-Centered Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs, Caring for Children and Families: Guidelines for Hospitals, and Hospitals Moving Forward with Family-Centered Care. She is currently developing patient- and family-centered materials for adult oncology care. Ms. Johnson served as executive producer for the films, Harm, both of To Prepare a Child and First Do No awarded the CINE Golden Eagle. Ms. Johnson is the recipient of the 1992 Lloyd Bentsen Award and the 1990 Humanitarian Award from Pediatric Nursing. She currently serves on the Board of Advisory Editors for the journal, Families, Systems, and Health..

Judith Katz-Leavy, Senior Policy Analyst, Office of Policy, Planning and Administration, federal Center for Mental Health Services. She is the co-founder of the Child and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP), and has spent her career working to improve service delivery systems for children and adolescents with mental health needs and their families. In 1993 she served as Co-Chair of the Child Mental Health Sub-Group in the Administration's National Health Care Task Force.

Mr. Kendall is currently the Senior Analyst for Health Policy and Director of the Health Priorities Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. He is the author of several PPI reports as well as the chapter entitled "Modernizing Medicare and Medicaid: The First Step Toward Universal Health Care," in Building the Bridge: 10 Big Ideas to Transform America. Prior to joining PPI in 1994, Mr. Kendall served for seven years on the staff of Congressman Michael A. Andrews (D-TX) where he held several positions including Legislative Director and Senior Policy Director. He worked extensively with the Jackson Hole Group and Congressman Jim Cooper on the Managed Competition Act. In 1993, he served on the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. In 1986, Mr. Kendall was a legislative assistant to Congressman James R. Jones (D-OK), a former chairman of the Budget Committee. Prior to working on Capitol Hill, he managed fund raising for public interest organizations like Common Cause. Mr. Kendall attended the University of Chicago from 1977 to 1981 and studied public policy.

Dr. Levine is Chairman of the Advisory Group of the Progressive Policy Institute's "Health Priorities Project (HPP)." HPP is an ongoing project focused on defining critical issues and articulating policies which respond to the complex challenges posed by our desire to create an Information Age Health Care System whose goal is universal access to high quality, affordable, market-based, health care.

Following completion of his undergraduate studies in Human Development and Nutrition at Cornell University, Dr. Levine attended Loyola-Stritch School of Medicine (Chicago, Ill.), where he graduated summa cum laude in 1979. He completed his Internal Medicine and Cardiology post-doctoral training at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City (MSMC) where he later joined the full-time faculty as the founding Director of MSMC's Cardiac Health and Rehabilitation Program.

In 1990, Dr. Levine helped launch TVN Entertainment Corp., a "direct-to-home" satellite pay-per-view (PPV) service. TVN's recently debuted digital cable television service, DCTV^TM, with allow medium and small-sized cable operators to immediately bring the latest in digital video, audio, and data services to subscribers without costly system upgrades. Dr. Levine is also a founder The Health Corporation, a start-up developer of intelligent health information management services which focus on health enhancement, disease prevention, and disease state management.

Dr. Levine serves on the Executive Committee and International Board of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and is Chairman of JDF's Government Relations Steering Committee. In this role, Dr. Levine leads JDF's volunteer advocacy efforts in support of enhanced federal funding of medical research. Dr. Levine currently serves on the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases Advisory Council.

David J. Lansky, Ph.D., is the president of FACCT - The Foundation for Accountability. FACCT is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping consumers make better health care decisions. FACCT's board of trustees is made up of consumer organizations, corporate health care purchasers and government purchasers representing 80 million Americans.

FACCT believes that America's ability to create a more responsive health care system depends on informed, empowered consumers who help shape the system, hold it accountable for quality and act as partners in improving their health. To achieve this goal, FACCT creates tools that help people understand and use quality information, develops consumer-focused quality measures, supports public education about health care quality, supports efforts to gather and provide quality information, and encourage health policy to empower and inform consumers.

Before joining FACCT, Lansky was regional director of clinical information for Oregon-based Providence Health System, a statewide integrated system that includes six hospitals, primary care groups, home health services, and both HMO and PPO insurance services. At Providence, Lansky led the Center for Outcomes Research and Education. which helped members, patients, doctors and managers measure and understand the quality of health care delivery. Lansky's team was responsible for outcomes research, measurement of consumer satisfaction, health risk and health status assessment, development of electronic member and patient records, and communicating with purchasers and the larger community about health care quality.

During 1993 and 1994, Lansky provided support to the Jackson Hole Group, with responsibility for national accountability measures under the "managed competition" model. He holds a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of California in Berkeley.

Anne McGintis is coordinator of the Parents, School, and Community Involvement Program in Chattanooga, Tennessee. McGintis is also the creator of the "Parent College" endeavor, a collaborative program that relies upon many resources...schools, community businesses, non-profit foundations, support agencies, hospitals, colleges and universities.

The Parent College is a place where parents and families come to learn how to better educate their children. National studies indicate that when parents are involved in a child's school life, test scores improve and the desire to learn increases.

McGintis has been a teacher and guidance counselor for the past 28 years and has had numerous awards and honors for her work as an educator and community organizer.

Michael L. Millenson is nationally recognized for his analysis of issues affecting the cost and quality of medical care. His book, Demanding Medical Excellence - Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age (University of Chicago Press), is the first examination of quality-of-care issues for the general public and has been widely praised in the general and medical press.

Research for the book was funded by an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Upon completion of that grant in 1996, Michael joined the Health Care and Group Benefits practice of William M. Mercer, Incorporated. Michael is also the author of Beyond the Managed Care Backlash, a paper issued by the Washington-based Progressive Policy Institute.

Millenson worked with the Jackson Hole Group during the creation of the Foundation for Accountability (FACCT). Before that, as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1987, 1991 and 1993. He was one of the first journalists to cover socioeconomic issues involving health care for the general public, and his awards include an Alicia Patterson Foundation journalism fellowship and the University of Missouri Business Journalism Award.

A sought after speaker, Millenson has appeared before numerous national organizations and has testified on health care quality issues before the U.S. Congress. He is a visiting scholar at Northwestern University's Institute for Health Services Research and Policy Studies and a member of the board of the Association for Health Services Research.

Dr. Redlener is President and co-founder of The Children's Health Fund, a philanthropic initiative created to develop and support health care programs for medically underserved children. At Montefiore Medical Center he is vice president for the Children's Medical Center, Director of the Child Health Network and Director of Community Pediatrics. He is also Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Lecturer in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

The nationally acclaimed New York Children's Health Project, the country's largest health care program for homeless children, was developed in 1987 by Dr. Redlener. It is the model for a number of innovative health care projects in The Children's Health Fund's program network for disadvantaged child populations in urban and rural communities across the country.

In his role as pediatrician-child advocate, Dr. Redlener has published, spoken and testified widely on the subject of health care for homeless and indigent children, child abuse and neglect and national health policy.

Dr. Redlener currently serves as co-chair of the Healthy Start Advisory Group for America's Promise: The Alliance for Youth. He recently completed a two year term as Chairman of the National Advisory Council on the National Health Service Corps. In 1993 Dr. Redlener was Vice Chairman of the Health Professional Review Group for the White House Task Force on National Health Care Reform.

Dr. Redlener has served as a physician special consultant to the White House, as well as Expert Consultant to Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Redlener currently leads Kids First, Kids Now!, a national initiative proposing comprehensive health reform for children.

Helen Sandalls is a lawyer working to develop patient protections in the managed care environment. Her clients are exclusively hospital medical staffs, because they were created solely to protect patients and are legally responsible for evaluating and reporting on the quality of patient care in hospitals. She focuses physicians on their individual and professional responsibilities to patients and to other practitioners in managed care settings and hospitals that often thwart good patient care and helps them develop formal procedures to protect patient welfare and to assure high quality medical care. Ms. Sandalls is currently developing mechanisms to require health plans to create independent medical staffs and working to establish an internet web site with health plan profiles to aid the public in making informed choices of health plans. She helps physicians advise state legislators and enforcement agencies on the impacts of state and federal policies on patient welfare and medical practice.

Before becoming a lawyer, Ms. Sandalls taught foreign language and literature in public high school for several years and subsequently worked on environmental issues, establishing a national network for toxic substances exposure victims and activists. She graduated from Wellesley College (BA), Harvard University (MA) and Arizona State University College of Law (JD). She is an avid hiker and lives with her husband and son in Washington, DC.

Dr. Shulman is Vice Chair for Clinical Services for the Department of Adult Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Previous to this position he was the Clinical Director of the Hematology-Oncology Division at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is the co-founder and co-leader of the Patient and Family Working Group and Council at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Brigham and Women's Hospital. His areas of clinical expertise include the treatment of breast cancer, Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. In addition he is involved in the development of new anti-cancer agents including chemotherapeutic agents, viral therapies and chemotherapy and radiation therapy sensitizers. He is the former chairman of the Public Issues Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and is presently on the Cancer Education Committee of the same organization. He is the former President of the Leukemia Society of America, Massachusetts Chapter. He is a graduate of Harvard Medical School.

A highly regarded human services consultant who designed and directed an intensive therapeutic home-based program in Vermont which has received national acclaim. Her program was used as the basis for the expansion of the family preservation program on the state of Vermont. The recipient of numerous awards, she has offered training and technical assistance in the US and Canada on developing a system of care for families and children. After a year in Israel, she has settled in Burlington. She is the sister of Deborah Tannen.