MCDES Board Members for 2009-2010

Dee Bailey, MA, CPCC, is a life transition coach, grief specialist and hospice volunteer. For 10 years she served as facilitator for a weekly grief support group using her own curriculum, and then was invited to lead the grief group at Pathways for a year.  She co-created and coordinated Starting Over Single, a program for families in divorce, helping families work through their grief for 15 years.  Dee has trained lay ministers and helping professionals to better support those in transition and grief, is a frequent presenter at support groups, and offers workshops, coaching circles and grief retreats.  Her private practice is focused on transition and loss.

Jan Bergman, MSSW, LISW is a hospice Grief Counselor with Allina Home and Community Services. For the past fifteen years, Jan has worked in home care and hospice as medical social worker, hospice social worker, bereavement social worker, and now grief counselor. Jan brings with her many years experience working with clients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and their caregivers in a variety of community based and long term care settings. She became interested in end of life care twenty years ago when her mother entered a hospice program with lung cancer. Jan was her caregiver. As a MCDES member, Jan has been consistently impressed by the high quality of MCDES conferences.

Ted Bowman is a trainer/consultant who specializes in work with families, organizations, and communities facing change and transition. He has worked throughout Minnesota, other states, and internationally, in work related to resiliency and capacity building in response to stressful life events. Ted is an author of numerous articles and has published two books dealing with loss of dreams. He is also an active member of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, serving now on its board of directors.

Steven Breitbarth, M. Div., LMFT, CISM, is a graduate of Concordia Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN and currently is serving as Parish Pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Chisholm, MN. He is married to his wife, Janelle and the father of three grown sons. Steve is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in MN with training and experience in counseling victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. He also has experience in grief counseling, co-dependency counseling, crisis management and sexual misconduct counseling along with its prevention. Rev. Breitbarth is a member of the Head of the Lakes Critical Incident Stress Management Team; in addition he serves as Police, Fire and Emergency Services Chaplain. Steve has served as Program Director for the Crisis Intervention Teams at two National Youth Gatherings with over 30,000 in attendance. Currently he is on the local school crisis team, the Coordinator of the Lutheran Crisis Consultation & Support Teams as well as serving as the local coordinator for Police Chaplains. He is a member of the International Conference of Police Chaplains, the Federation of Fire Chaplains, the Minnesota Coalition for Death Education and Support and the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. He has given over 600 presentations in the area of sexual misconduct, grief support, crisis management, and chemical dependency.

Sharon Dardis, RN, BSN, is the MCDES Newsletter Editor. She was the Children's Bereavement Coordinator with the St. Croix Chaplaincy Association and Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, MN. Her background includes nursing in medical/surgical units, ICU, CCU in the 1960's and 70's in numerous hospitals in North Dakota, Mississippi, and South Dakota. From 1982 – 1987, her various roles at Hospice of the Red River Valley in Fargo included volunteering, staff nursing, fundraising, and bereavement follow–up. From 1987–1993 Sharon designed and directed a Kids Grieve, Too program in Fargo for the hospice program and served as the Children's Bereavement Coordinator during that period. She gave community education talks regarding kids and grief also facilitated grief support groups for children. In 1993 Sharon moved to the Twin Cities and began volunteering with Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater. She helped design the Kids In Grief Program there which led to a part–time position in 1996 as coordinator and lead facilitator of the Kids in Grief program at Lakeview Hospital. She is the co–author of a book on meditations for end–of–life, As I Journey On: Meditations for Those Facing Death.

Jean Havlina-Madsen is currently working as a hospice nurse at the Pillars Residential Hospice House in Oakdale, MN. She has been with the Pillars since it opened in 2000. Prior to Pillars Jean worked with the very diverse populations that HCMC serves. She is also the owner of Portages, Alternative Funeral Advocacy and assists families in caring for their own at the time of death. She has served as a facilitator with the Center for Grief, Loss and Transition and was recently accepted into the End-of-Life Counselor program through the Alaya Institute in California

Edward Holland currently serves as the Coordinator of Spiritual Care and Grief Support at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospice in Minneapolis, a program he helped to create in 1979. Ed is a United Methodist minister, a board certified chaplain (BCC-APC), a certified Gestalt therapist and a state licensed marriage family therapist (LMFT). He has served in a number of leadership positions with Park Nicollet, Hospice Minnesota (formerly known as the Minnesota Hospice Organization), the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, and his denomination's Health Ministries Action Team. Ed and his wife, Mary, are pleased to be owned by their black cat, Shadow.

Paul Johnson –After serving for nearly 16 years as the Director of Aftercare Services with Bradshaw Funeral and Cremation Services in the Twin Cities, Paul is now the Bereavement Services Supervisor for HealthPartners Hospice & Palliative Care. He is also a consultant and trainer in areas related to loss and grief. Paul believes MCDES has always provided a valuable means for networking with other individuals interested in issues related to death, grief and bereavement and his goal is to enhance such networking. Through the MCDES educational conferences as well as its newsletter, the Coalition provides an unparalleled opportunity to learn from each other. Paul states, “Professional relationships and personal friendships are among my most valued benefits of active involvement with MCDES.”

Christine Lewis has a diverse clinical background. She is certified as a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) in adult mental health and has been employed as such for 24 years by Hennepin County, providing crisis intervention, loss and trauma therapy, medication management, and some public speaking about grief and similar topics. In addition, Christine has been called upon by county supervisors in several situations to provide guidance and support to other county workers who experience sudden loss. She also worked for two years in after-care for a funeral home providing bereavement groups and individual counseling.

Amy Shaleen, LGSW is currently a Social Worker with Fairview Lakes HomeCaring and Hospice in Chisago City, Minnesota. She works with individuals and families in both home care and hospice so she gets to serve people (and families) on a continuum from temporary medical issues to those individuals who are nearing the end of life. She is also a former Child Protection Worker (Chisago County, Minnesota) where she worked for over 10 years with children and families facing numerous issues including abuse, neglect, chemical dependency, mental illness and physical disabilities. Grief and loss are pervasive in this population and impact all facets of the lives of these families. Amy has served as the MCDES Board Secretary for over five years.

Ben Wolfe, M.Ed., L.I.C.S.W. Ben is the founder and Program Manager/Grief Counselor of the 24 year old St. Mary's Medical Center's Grief Support Center in Duluth where he does individual, family and group counseling for persons dealing with life–threatening or terminal illnesses, or who are bereaved (from any cause of death). Ben serves on the St. Mary's Medical Center's Bioethics Committee, and is a mental health member of the Northern MN CISD team, He also does a significant number of presentations throughout the region and country, and has taught graduate courses for over 25 years on dying, death and bereavement for UMD and for the past 20 years teaching a course on life–threatening illnesses for the UMD School of Medicine. Ben is a Past–President of the international organization, the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), which currently has almost 2,000 members, was on the National Kidney Foundation's National Donor Family Council Executive Committee from 2000 to 2004 (the “Home for Donor Families”-over 11,000 members) and has served as a Board Member for MCDES since the early–80's, and chair of MCDES since 1994. Ben states, “I have GREATLY appreciated the MCDES friendships over the years and look forward to the organization’s continued growth.”

Judy Young, M.Ed., is Manager of Spiritual Care, Bereavement & Integrative Therapies, Allina Home Care, Hospice & Palliative Care, St. Paul . She has worked in many phases of the life cycle including childbirth education, perinatal loss, community and hospital–based hospices, oncology support and education, and home care. She has facilitated support groups on depression, Parkinson's disease and leukemia/lynphoma. As the Coordinator of Bereavement Services, Judy is responsible for supervising bereavement care by staff grief counselors, mentoring graduate students, facilitating grief support groups, death and grief education of healthcare employees and community groups, school partnerships, an annual family grief retreat and an annual memorial service.