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About Us: The HCBS Team

Boston College Graduate School of Social Work

Kevin J. Mahoney, PhD | Brenda Vitale, MSW | Ruth Fleischer, ED.S.

Kevin J. Mahoney, PhD

is a faculty member at the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work where he serves as Associate Professor as well as National Program Director for the Cash and Counseling Demonstration and Evaluation, a policy-driven evaluation of one of the most unfettered forms of consumer direction of personal assistance services, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. During his 25 year career in gerontology and long-term care, Dr. Mahoney has served in a number of policy making and administrative positions in the state governments of Connecticut and California. Prior to coming to Boston College in 1999, he held academic appointments at Yale University, the University of Connecticut, the University of California- San Francisco and the University of Maryland. From 1978 to 1987, Dr. Mahoney served as Chief of Research and Program Development at the Connecticut Department on Aging where he was responsible for that state's home care programs for the frail elderly. From 1987 to 1995, Dr. Mahoney developed and implemented innovative partnerships between private insurance and Medicaid to finance long-term care -- first in the State of Connecticut and then in the State of California. An expert on state government and long-term care innovation, he speaks and writes extensively on consumer direction, the roles of the public and private sectors in financing long-term care, long-term care insurance and care management. Most recently, Kevin J. Mahoney became Deputy Director of the Home and Community-Based Services Resource Network established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Brenda Vitale, MSW

is the Associate Project Director for the Clearinghouse for Home and Community Based Services. Ms. Vitale is responsible for the planning, development and management of www.hcbs.org. She provides training and technical support to contributors and will be responsible for disseminating electronic correspondence to all site subscribers. Before coming to Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Ms. Vitale worked with the Alzheimer's Association, Massachusetts Chapter coordinating many of their technical needs namely developing a dynamic helpline caller database and referral center and implementing a friend to friend personalized fundraising page for the Memory Walk website. Ms. Vitale has worked in a variety of different home and community based settings where she designed and provided unique services to allow seniors to live independently. She has her Masters of Social Work from Boston College (1999) and a Bachelors of Social Work from the University of Southern Colorado (1994).

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Ruth Fleischer, ED.S.

is the Information and Program Specialist for the Clearinghouse for Home & Community Based Services. Ms. Fleischer works with Ms. Vitale to provide day-to-day content management, research and document review. Before coming to HCBS.org, she worked as the Director of Knowledge Management at The Forum Corporation, a training and consulting firm in Boston, Massachusetts. In this role, Ms. Fleischer directed all knowledge management efforts within the global corporation including the development and maintenance of the company's intranet, electronic libraries and informational databases. Prior to this, she served as the Information Technology Manager for the North American Management Consulting division of Arthur D. Little, Inc. a global business consulting firm. Ms. Fleischer earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the State University of New York at StonyBrook, and a Masters/Educational Specialist degree from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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