National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment 2022–2023 Mentorship Program Cohort
About the Program
As the nation’s health system expands its focus on and commitment to improving care for the growing population of older adults, the National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment (NCAEM) recognizes that improving elder mistreatment identification, intervention, and prevention requires supporting people with a broad range of interests and careers. We are pleased to support this talent pipeline with the NCAEM Mentorship Program, and we will offer the program again next year. View our 2023–2024 NCAEM Mentorship Program cohort here, and learn more about the NCAEM Mentorship Program here. Please feel free to contact us (ncaem@edc.org) with questions, and scroll down to meet the 2022-2023 NCAEM Mentorship Program Cohort.
Meet the 2022-2023 NCAEM Mentorship Program Cohort
We are excited to welcome the inaugural cohort of the NCAEM Mentorship Program. This year’s cohort is composed of professionals from a range of clinical, practitioner, and research backgrounds who are dedicated to addressing elder mistreatment through their work.
Vanessa Jimenez, LCSW, is an Integrated Behavioral Health Clinician at Eisner Health, an urban Los Angeles Federally Qualified Health Center. Older adult patients seen in this clinic are often living with dementing illnesses and complex health issues and benefit from a multidisciplinary approach to a care plan that integrates family caregivers. Ms. Jimenez is also the lead MSW Field Practicum instructor, selecting MSW student interns and providing clinical training and supervision. She received training from the Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program team and has extensive experience working with older adults and their families. Her long-term goals are to improve older adult care and more effectively identify risk factors for mistreatment in family systems. She is also interested in culturally appropriate psychoeducational interventions that reduce the risk of family members mistreating each other.
LaCinda Jones, LISW-S, is a Senior Social Worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs and a 2021–2022 Health and Aging Policy Fellow. During her Health and Aging Policy Fellowship, Ms. Jones was a health fellow in Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s office. She works directly with veterans affected by traumatic brain injuries and amputations and is the Facility Coordinator for Advance Care Planning via Group Visits. She serves as co-lead for the National Social Work Elder Abuse Tiger Team and is a member of the National Social Work field-based work group for Advance Care Planning via Group Visits at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Her interests include interdisciplinary collaboration, improving social work practice to address social determinants of health and health inequalities, and improving screening processes to detect elder abuse.
Tina Kilaberia, PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Professor at NYU Silver School of Social Work. Dr. Kilaberia's research is focused on older adults. Her current projects include social isolation among older adults and their caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and elder family financial exploitation. Prior to joining NYU Silver, she was a postdoctoral fellow in healthy aging at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California–Davis Health. She was involved in a statewide evaluation of service expansion and technology implementation by 11 nonprofit caregiver resource centers in California. She earned her PhD from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, where she also earned her MSW in Human Services Management.
Lena K. Makaroun, MD, MS, is a Staff Physician and Core Investigator at the VA Pittsburgh Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP), Affiliate Faculty of the VA Pittsburgh Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), and Assistant Professor of Geriatrics at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Makaroun's research examines health-related social risk factors for older adults. Her current work aims to improve detection and response for elder abuse among older veterans in the Veterans Health Administration. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania, MD at Weill Cornell Medical College, and her MS in Health Services at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She trained in internal medicine and geriatric medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
Anne Bradley Mitchell, PhD, ANP-BC, is an Assistant Professor in the Jefferson College of Nursing and serves as the Co-Faculty Lead of the Jefferson Health Mentors Program (JHMP), a three semester inter-professional program for 12 professions. Her goal for NCAEM is to create a requirement for elder mistreatment continuing education for nurse licensure renewal. Dr. Mitchell is an adult nurse practitioner who works with older adults in the community. She earned her nurse practitioner degree at UCLA, and completed her doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, focused on the relationship of older adult physical activity and the built environment. She is currently working on her MPH at Thomas Jefferson University with a concentration in policy.
Orlando Parrales, LCSW, is a Social Welfare PhD student at the University of California Berkeley. He also has experience as a clinical social worker working with a Homeless Outreach Team in New York City. His research focuses on developing evidence-based practices to better improve comprehensive care related to middle and older Latinx adults who are unsheltered.
Lauren Southerland, MD, is the Director of Clinical Research for Emergency Medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Southerland also serves in the community as the medical representative for the Franklin County interdisciplinary team, a team focused on preventing elder abuse and neglect. Her research is focused on improving the care of older adults in emergency departments and using emergency departments to intervene for those who need more care and resources at home. She is currently studying how implementing geriatric screening tools into emergency departments can improve patient outcomes. She has funding through the National Institute on Aging for this research. She completed her undergraduate and medical degrees at Duke University.
Kenneth Steinman, PhD, MPH, is a Senior Research Scientist at The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology, where he studies health policy and its intersection with child maltreatment and elder abuse. Dr. Steinman’s projects focus mostly on Ohio, such as an assessment of Ohio’s adult protective services system, evaluating programs to prevent child maltreatment in families who struggle with substance use, and how state efforts to expand Medicaid have helped Ohio residents. In this work, he has extensive experience employing both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Other roles include co-founding the Research Committee of the Ohio Elder Abuse Commission, co-directing the Adult Protective Services Administrative Initiative with the National Adult Protective Service Association, and serving on the Executive Committee of the Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey.
Meredith Troutman-Jordan, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC is an American Nurses Credentialing Center-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist. She has experience overseeing research assistants, recruiting participants in the community, and facilitating psychoeducational groups with older adults. Her current research involves refinement and testing of the effectiveness of caregiver guides to support Spanish-, Mandarin-, Tagalog-, and English-speaking caregivers of persons living with dementia.
Meet the 2022-2023 NCAEM Mentors
We are grateful for the time and dedication of our group of mentors who are experts in their respective areas of practice and research. Please learn more about them below.
Jason Burnett, PhD, is an Associate Professor with the McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston and Director of the Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute. Dr. Burnett’s work includes studying risk factors and designing and evaluating interventions and public health programs to facilitate community-based agencies with identification and long-term positive outcomes of elder mistreatment and self-neglect. He serves on several national advisory boards and research committees for elder mistreatment.
Alyssa Elman, LMSW, is the Supervising Social Worker for the Vulnerable Elder Protection Team (VEPT) at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Ms. Elman was integral to the development of this program, which aims to better identify, treat, and care for victims of elder abuse in emergency departments and hospitals, while also providing an opportunity to gather forensic evidence. She also assists with research pertaining to elder abuse and the role of health care in identification and intervention. She has contributed to 18 peer-reviewed articles on the topic. She received her BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and MSW from Rutgers University.
Kathy Greenlee, JD, is the Senior Director for Elder Justice Programs at Advancing States, the national membership association of state agencies on aging, disability, and Medicaid home- and community-based services. From 2009 to 2016, Ms. Greenlee served as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Aging, a position to which she was appointed by President Barack Obama. Prior to leaving for Washington, she worked in the Kansas government for 18 years. She was the Kansas Secretary for Aging for Governor Kathleen Sebelius and served as the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman. Currently, she is the Board Chair for the National Council on Aging. She earned a BS in Business Administration from the University of Kansas and holds a JD from the University of Kansas School of Law.
Mark Lachs, MD, is an American physician, scientist, and popular author specializing in the field of aging. Dr. Lachs is the Irene and Roy Psaty Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City and the Director of Geriatric Medicine for the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System. He is also the immediate past President of the American Federation for Aging Research. An internationally recognized authority on the field of elder abuse, he has authored over 100 articles on the subject and other areas of gerontology and conducted important research on the topic. He is also a founder of the New York City Elder Abuse Center and the not-for-profit charity www.elderabuse.org.
Laura Mosqueda, MD, is a Professor of Family Medicine and Geriatrics at the Keck School of Medicine (KSOM) of the University of Southern California. She is a widely respected authority on elder abuse and care of the elderly and underserved. Since joining KSOM, her roles have included Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, Associate Dean of Primary Care, and Dean of Primary Care. She is the Principal Investigator of a National Institute on Aging (NIA)-funded R01 study to understand the causes of the abuse of people with dementia and is the Director of the National Center on Elder Abuse. As a clinician, researcher, educator, and academic administrator, she has a unique perspective that is informed by her extensive experiences in the community, including her role as a volunteer long-term care ombudsman.
Bonnie Olsen, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist with extensive experience as a geropsychologist. She provides cognitive assessment and short-term mental health treatment in a collaborative geriatric primary care setting. As the Vice-Chair of Academic Affairs in the Department of Family Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Dr. Olsen is involved in several research and program grants that focus on inter-professional geriatric education and elder abuse education and prevention. She is particularly interested in elder mistreatment as it occurs in the context of dementia caregiving and understanding decisional capacity.
Tony Rosen, MD, MPH, is a Researcher in elder abuse and geriatric injury prevention at Weill Cornell Medical College and a practicing Emergency Physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Rosen’s research focuses on improving identification, intervention, and prevention of elder abuse in emergency departments and other health care settings. His research has explored forensic injury patterns in physical elder abuse and health care utilization among elder abuse victims using Medicare claims data and data mining/machine learning approaches. He has also led the development of an emergency department-based multidisciplinary Vulnerable Elder Protection Team to assess, treat, and ensure the safety of elder abuse and neglect victims while collecting evidence and working closely with the authorities. His work with collaborators also explores the optimal role of prosecutors in elder abuse response.
Theresa Sivers-Teixeira, MSPA, PA-C, is a Physician Assistant specializing in geriatrics. She is an Education Advisor and Professional Educator for the National Center on Elder Abuse and a Faculty Member at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Research projects include California APS Interview for Decisional Ability RCT, funded by the Administration for Community Living (ACL); National Collaboratory to Address Elder Mistreatment, funded by The John A Hartford Foundation; Abuse Intervention Prevention Judicial Project, funded by the Department of Justice; and the Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Project, funded by HRSA.