NALLTCO

The National Association
of Local Long Term Care Ombudsmen

Jackie Case (NJ)
NALLTCO Chair

Jackie is a retired Director of the New York City Long Term Care Ombudsman Program. She was with the program for almost 20 years, and began as a volunteer. During that time, she helped found the New York State Ombudsman Association and served as its President for four years and is its current Government Affairs Officer. She has always put the residents and their rights and needs as the philosophical underpinnings of all her advocacy work. To that end, she continues to work for at least adequate surveys to be done by the NYS Department of Health and to improve the complaint hot line and the resultant investigations done by the NYS Department of Health as they oversee nursing and board and care homes and assisted living facilities through her volunteer work with other advocacy organizations. For the past year, she has served as the Chairperson of NALLTCO, and has served as a Board member for six years. As an officer of NALLTCO, she meets quarterly with the "National Ombudsman" and brings the perspective of the local programs to the table. She believes we should always work to increase ombudsman membership in the organization so that local programs can be a strong force when discussing policy issues. Jackie is also on the Board of Directors of NCCNHR, representing a local program in New York State .

J. Mary Sorrell(MA)
NALLTCO Vice Chair

J.Mary has been the Ombudsman Program Director at Highland Valley Elder Services since 2003. She manages volunteers in 16 facilities, provides dispute mediation and assists family and resident council development. J.M. presents in-service training for facility staff. She has spoken at conferences and conducted workshops throughout her region, s well as in Montreal. She serves on the Ethics Committee at the regional hospital to represent elder concerns and rights.

Eileen Bennett(MD)
NALLTCO Secretary

Eileen Bennett is currently serving the NALLTCO Board as secretary, and has been an active member since the organization began in 1997. As an advocate, Eileen has worked on many legislative issues on a local, state, and national level. She has been the legislative liaison for NALLTCO on the Elder Justice Coalition for the past six years. As a board member, she continues to promote the NALLTCO membership recruitment efforts and highlight the accomplishments that local programs experience on daily basis. She is an avid supporter of resident's vocalizing their needs and arranged for testimony of residents at the NCCNHR pre-White House Conference on Aging event in 2005, the initial Advancing Excellence symposium, and focus groups with CMS during annual NCCNHR conferences. She has served on the publicity committee, the newsletter committee, the nominating committee, the auction basket committee, and the state coordinator for Maryland and DC members. In her professional duties, she is a program manager with the Montgomery County MD Long Term Care Ombudsman Program. For 19 years, she has maintained primary responsibility for the recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers that resolve complaints. She regularly shares her expertise with many other programs throughout the country as they expand their programs to include volunteers. Eileen has been a leader in the effort to standardize training and reporting issues of state and local ombudsmen. She has assisted Sara Hunt in the development of the national core curriculum modules for long term care ombudsmen. She co-chaired the ombudsmanager users group session at the Synergy conference in 2006, and continuously acknowledges all of the work that is done to make this a viable work group. She was a consultant with National Ombudsman Resource Center as their information specialist during some transitions that occurred awaiting the renewal of the AoA grant. This gave her a unique opportunity to work closely with the state ombudsmen and gain significant insight into the opportunities for partnership between the state and local programs. She volunteers to coordinate many aspects of the NCCNHR annual conferences and you may remember from the "pirate commercials" of 2007. She loves to travel throughout the US, and you may receive a call one day saying she is in your part of the country and would like the opportunity to meet with you about your own program's endeavors!

Tonya Amos(IA)
NALLTCO Secretary

Tonya Amos has been a Long-Term Care Ombudsman for the state of Iowa since October 2004. She has served as an ombudsman for several districts in the state. Currently, Tonya is the LTC for Polk County and serves as a back-up for the SLTCO and the other LLTCO when needed. Additionally, she is the program coordinator for the Resident Advocate volunteer program. Tonya serves on several committees that serve older Iowans including: the Legal Assistance to Older Iowans Grant, Iowa Caregivers Association conference committee, and Accountability Measures for LTC facilities. She has also provided testimony to the legislators to request more Ombudsman positions for the State of Iowa. Tonya graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a degree in social work. Prior to her work at the LTC Ombudsman office, Tonya worked as a social worker in a nursing home and a hospital.

Vanessa Fitchett (MT)

My name is Vanessa Fitchett. I am a 54 year old mother of three and grandmother to six. I live in a small town in Montana with my husband, Clint. We have been married 38 years and have spent most of it on a ranch in western Montana. We raise buffalo and each fall we operate a small hunting lodge for big game and buffalo hunters. In 1999, I accepted a position at a local nursing home. I had worked in healthcare for approximately 20 years and needed a job a bit closer to home. I thought I would work for a few months and then go back to my “real work”. I never went back. I fell in love with the residents and wanted to make conditions better for them. I worked my way up and became administrator of the nursing home and realized I was virtually powerless against the corporate ownership. After five years, I left the nursing home. I spent the next three years establishing a ranch for 18 year old boys with addiction problems. Our ranch was a half way point for the boys that had gone through the program to control their addiction but weren’t ready to return to their homes. We took our boys and volunteered at the local nursing homes and did volunteer yard work for elderly people in our community. The boys loved providing these services to our senior residents. I applied at the Area Agency on Aging and was hired in April of 2007. I have been a Regional Ombudsman for a year and a half.

Karen Guice(AL)

Karen Guice, though a Louisiana native and a graduate of Louisiana Tech University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, has made Birmingham, Alabama her home for the past 29 years. During this time, she has served as Minister of Education and Outreach for Crestway Baptist Church, taught and coached for nine years at Briarwood Christian School, and served as the Director of the Irondale Senior Citizens' Center. Karen is actively involved in advocacy for seniors throughout the State of Alabama and presently serves as the Jefferson County Lead Ombudsman; an advocate for residents in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and boarding homes. She currently resides in Pelham, Alabama. Her hobbies are singing and entertaining, outdoor activities, and working with the Ms. Senior Alabama Inc. Board of Directors. She has served as the Contestant Consultant, Pageant Emcee, and has written and assisted in the production of the Ms. Senior Alabama State Pageant for the past five years.

Cindy Kincaid(NC)

Cindy Kincaid graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BA and received her Masters in Gerontology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has worked in the aging field for the past 20 years. Cindy started in Adult Day Care, worked 10 years in the mental health field on a geriatric psychiatric unit and has served as a regional ombudsman for the past 7 years. She works hard to create a strong working relationship between the Ombudsman Program, AAA's and Lead Regional Organizations.

Sue McCauley(AZ)

Sue has been an ombudsman since 1998 for Yavapai County in Arizona at the Northern Arizona Council of Governments Area Agency on Aging. As an advocate, she believes the strongest success for advocacy lies with volunteers, who can visit more residents, than a coordinator alone, could ever hope to. Continued volunteer training is one of Sue's constants with her regional program. Sue is also the manager of the Elder Rights Unit at her agency and oversees the Legal Advocacy and Medicare/Benefits Counseling programs in the four county region of Northeast Arizona. Sue is the chairperson of the Yavapai County Elder Abuse Task Force and is a member of Arizona State Elder Abuse Task Force. She has successfully planned and developed as conference chairperson, two Aging Issues conferences that attracted over 200 participants in the last two years. Participating in NALLTCO as a board member twice had provided Sue with an open door and network with co-advocates throughout the country that is invaluable for strengthening knowledge and inspiring the spirit of advocacy in Arizona and the Southwest. As a board member, Sue looks forward to the continued opportunity of uniting with others for service to our elders.

Alice Nicholson(VT)

Alice Nicholson has been a Regional Long Term Care Ombudsman in Vermont for more than 17 years. She has also served as the Vermont Long Term Care Ombudsman Program's Volunteer Coordinator. Alice has been a member of NALLTCO and served on the Board for more than 10 years. She served 3 years as Chair of NALLTCO. She is currently serving as the co-chair to the National OmbudsManager User's Group.

Drew Strayer(OH)

Drew Strayer is a certified Ombudsman Specialist working with the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program in Dayton, Ohio since late 2006. He also obtained certification as a Regional LTCO Program Director. Drew received his undergraduate degree in Political Science and History from Anderson University, Anderson, Indiana and obtained his Masters’ in Organizational Leadership and Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. This background developed skills and provided training he uses each day to resolve residents’ concerns and address systemic issues. Drew is Secretary of the Ohio Association of Regional Long Term Care Ombudsmen (OARLTCO), and is member of the organization’s legislative issues subgroup. Drew encourages OARLTCO members to join NALLTCO, and has been instrumental in increasing Ohio’s membership. His experience also includes two Classical (government) Ombudsman offices as well as an Organizational (employee) Ombudsman office. Drew’s previous fields of employment include human services and environmental policy development, donor relations, and patient financial assistance. He is married and has two children: a son, 4 ½, and a daughter, 1 ½. Drew’s favorite leisure activities include hiking and camping with his family, playing with the kids, having coffee with good friends, listening to music, and reading books on a variety of subjects.

Tami Wacker(IL)

Tami Wacker has served as a Long Term Care Ombudsman with the East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging since 2002, serving as the Regional Ombudsman since 2003. Advocating for residents of long-term care has become a passion for her and she enjoys the variety and enrichment that working with residents and staff members brings on a daily basis. Tami, along with her husband Scott and two boys Alec (12) and Quinn (9) and their two cats Mac and Cheese, live in Hudson, Illinois.

John Weir(MI)

John Weir has been a local ombudsman in Michigan for 20 years. He continues to serve a 5 county area which includes residents who live in both urban and rural homes. For all but about 2 years he has been a 1 person office so naturally he says he wants to make sure that as changes are proposed to the Ombudsman Program that AOA & others hear the concerns of offices like his, that not only have limited funding but also limited coverage & time possible as well. Besides being a certified Eden Associate he has run a regional support group for homes that have started the culture change journey. He organized a local Chapter in the Kalamazoo area of the Michigan Campaign for Quality Care and has run a couple of fundraisers for the state group as well. John was awarded the Wilma Douahue Award by the Elder Law & Advocacy Section of the State Bar of Michigan for both his years of service to the his clients and the leadership he provides to the other 7 regional Ombudsman offices around the State. He was also recognized by the Michigan Commission on Services to the Aging & the Office of Services to the Aging for his dedication & commitment to assisting persons who were relocated to Nursing Homes in his area after Hurricane Katrina. One of John's biggest concerns is to help families & residents to learn about their rights and to expect to receive quality care in the setting of their choice—not to accept just what they receive because they don't know they are entitled to the highest quality of care.