Board of Directors

Chair - Jennifer Craigue, LNA
Jennifer Craigue worked for 10 years as a  direct care worker, five as a CNA in Massachusetts and five as a licensed nursing assistant (that state’s equivalent) in New Hampshire. She has worked in a wide variety of long term care settings, from nursing homes to home care to rehabilitation centers to hospitals. At Quality Care Partners, the home care agency that was her most recent employer, she provided leadership and support to other direct care workers as a peer mentor trainer, a Basic Life Support instructor, and a training assistant.  She has also advocated for direct care workers in the policy arena, testifying in favor of a wage increase at a state hearing.

Vice Chair -- Tracy Dudzinski, CNA
Tracy Dudzinski has been a certified nursing assistant since 1997. She started her career in a nursing home and worked there for seven years in various positions: on the floor on all three shifts, in the kitchen as a cook, and in the office as assistant to the administrator. She then moved into home health care, working as a home health aide. She is president of the board of directors of Cooperative Care, a worker-own home health care provider in Wautoma, Wisconsin. She is also vice chair of the Wisconsin Direct Caregivers Alliance.

Treasurer - Clari Gilbert
Clari C. Gilbert is the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Beth Abraham Family of Health Services, which is headquartered in the Bronx, New York. An expert on instituting culture change in an urban environment, she is also a licensed nursing home administrator with the operational responsibility for approximately 1,200 nursing home beds, 1,500 home care clients, and 7 adult day care centers with a combined budget of $225 million. Under her leadership, all three of Beth Abraham’s nursing homes have started on the culture change journey, and a number of CNAs have been trained to become peer mentors. She believes in growing leaders at all levels and is currently creating  an Institute for Leadership Development at Beth Abraham. She was recognized by the New York Association for Homes and Services for Aging as Professional of the Year in 2007, and was appointed to the 2008 Baldrige Board of Examiners.

Secretary - Mark Cerna
Mark began working with people who had disabilities in junior high school as an elective, and continued to do so until he graduated from high school. After high school he worked as a forklift operator. Mark was brought back to the field of caregiving when his father became sick in 2006. Mark was his primary caregiver for three months. After his father passed away, he realized it was his calling was to be a caregiver. He has been working in the field ever since. Mark is now a direct caregiver with A Better Way of Living in Albuquerque. In his spare time, Mark enjoys playing sports and hiking in the mountains.

Judith B. Clinco
Judith B. Clinco, RN BS, is the founding president and CEO  of Catalina In-Home Services, Inc. The first home care employer in her area to increase salaries, offer benefit packages, and provide ongoing education and career advancement opportunities for direct care workers, she recently founded the Direct Caregiver Association, a member-supported organization dedicated to increasing the number of qualified, screened, trained direct caregivers in Arizona.  She has served on the board of the National Association for Home Care, is a delegate member to the National Institute on Community Based Long-Term Care, and participates in the National Council on Aging’s Community-Based Long Term Care Committee.

Claire E. Curry
Claire E. Curry, Esq. is the legal director of the Civil Advocacy  Program at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.  A specialist in legal services for the elderly, she co-founded the Community Partnership for Improved Long-term Care and Regional Family Council, an innovative advocacy partnership among residents, family members, and legal, medical, and social services providers in long-term care facilities. She is also a clinical supervisor for the Advocacy Clinic for the Elderly at the University of Virginia School of Law and a member of the board of directors of the Virginia Elder Rights Coalition.

Neill DeClercq, PhD
Neill G. DeClercq is a professor of labor education and the director of the School for Workers at the University of  Wisconsin Extension.  He provides education and consultation to workers and unions on labor and employment law, workers’ compensation law, ergonomics and OSHA, labor-management facilitation and more. He is also on the board of the Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance.  He has a degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, a Masters from the Industrial Relations Research Institute at the UW—Madison, and a BA in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dennis Fitzgibbons
Dennis Fitzgibbons is the executive director of Alpha One, Maine’s Center for Independent Living. He has advocated for increased community-based care and quality health care for people with disabilities on numerous state and national public policy task forces, and as the director of a pilot project to help Maine nursing home residents under the age of 65 re-establish life in the community. He has also been instrumental in developing and administering consumer-directed service programs. He is the current chair of the Maine State Independent Living Council and an avid wheelchair tennis player.

Jane A. Lipscomb, PhD, RN, FAAN
Jane Lipscomb, PhD, MS, BSN, FAAN, RN, is the director of the University of Maryland School of Nursing Center for Work and Health Research. She has conducted research on the health and safety of health care and social service workers for over 20 years, working in partnership with front line workers, their representatives in organized labor, and management to assess workplace hazards and then develop and implement workplace interventions and evaluate their impact on health and safety.  She has been awarded funding for four large research projects  by NIOSH, where she once worked a senior scientist in the Office of the Director.

Jim Locke
Jim Locke has been providing care for about 10 years, about half of that as a paid worker. Following an injury several years ago, he was introduced to the other side of direct care when he became a care recipient.

Terry Lynch
Terry Lynch left a federal long-term care advocacy position in 1985 to establish his speaking and consulting business,  Strategies for Independent Aging, in Racine, Wisconsin. He soon began living his work, helping his mother remain at home for ten years in spite of significant medical problems and a memory disorder. In his book But I Don’t Want Eldercare! he highlights the invaluable support he and his mother received from direct care workers. In 2007, the governor appointed him to the Wisconsin Board on Aging and Long-Term Care.