Expert Category: Course presenter

Wendy Walters has been in direct clinical practice for over 30 years, with the bulk of that experience in end-of-life care. She spent the first 17 years of her career in hospice work, ultimately returning to UAB in 2006. She joined the UAB Hospital Ethics Committee in 2009 and began taking ethics consults for the…

Leigh Ann Kingsbury is the CEO and Principal Consultant of InLeadS Consulting. For more than 30 years she has strived to use best practices in supporting people who live with disabilities, including people with physical disabilities, people who live with intellectual and developmental disabilities, older adults, and people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias….

Mary Beth Lepkowsky is an experienced trainer, facilitator, coach, and person-centered practitioner. For nearly 40 years she has supported social workers and other helping professionals to do their best work serving individuals and families. She is an Advance Care Planning Facilitator and owner of Helen Sanderson Associates USA, an international training and development consultancy.

Christina Axelrod has been a Music Therapist for Hospice of the Western Reserve for 12 years and stepped into the role of Internship Director in 2015. Christina graduated from State University of New Paltz in 2007 and is currently enrolled in the Clinical Mental Health program at Cleveland State for her counseling license. In 2021,…

Amber Ash is a pediatric hospice and palliative care social worker and co-chair of the Trauma Informed Care Committee at Hospice of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. She also has experience providing end-of-life care to adults and has served as a clinical supervisor. Amber has served as a field educator for social work students at…

William Worden is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and holds academic appointments at the Harvard Medical School and at the Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology in California. He is also Co-Principal Investigator of the Harvard Child Bereavement Study, based at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Recipient of five major National Institutes of Health grants,…

Lara Palay is a licensed social worker and clinical supervisor. She teaches clinical social work at The Ohio State University College of Social Work. Ms. Palay served as the first Project Manager for the Mental Illness/Developmental Disabilities Coordinating Center of Excellence for the Ohio Department of Mental Health and the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities….

Lisa Morgan is a certified autism specialist and advocate of the autism community with regards to crisis supports, suicide prevention, and postvention. She is co-chair of the Autism and Suicide committee of the American Association of Suicidology and author of ‘Crisis Supports for the Autism Community–a toolkit. Lisa is a subject matter expert as an…

Kimberly Acquaviva is both Founding Faculty at George Washington University’s School of Nursing and the first non-nurse to receive tenure there. As a social worker teaching within the school, Dr. Acquaviva’s research and scholarship are interdisciplinary and collaborative. Dr. Acquaviva is nationally known as an innovator and authority on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or…

Henk Schut is the coordinator of the international Master Clinical Psychology (CP) of the department of clinical psychology at Utrecht University. He is coordinator of the master’s course Loss & Psychotrauma and he coordinates the master’s thesis in the Master CP. At postgraduate level , Schut provides education in the field of research ethics, bereavement,…

Judith Stillion is professor emerita of psychology and currently serves as a consultant on a variety of subjects including end-of-life issues, meaningful aging, positive psychology applied to grieving and dying, and facilitation of grief groups. Stillion’s varied career includes teaching and counseling in the public schools and at the university level. She also served as…