CARES Conference

Clarence H. Carter | TDHS Commissioner

Clarence H. Carter was appointed to serve as a member of Governor Bill Lee’s Cabinet as the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) in January 2021. Mr. Carter leads the state’s second-largest agency with an operating budget of more than $3 billion and nearly 4,000 employees working in offices in all 95 counties. Through more than 17 programs and services, the Department partners with Tennesseans to facilitate nutrition programs, employment assistance, vocational training, and protective services to enhance their well-being. 

Full Bio Here

Dr. Rodney E. Stanley | Interim Dean of the College of Public Service at Tennessee State University

Dr. Rodney E. Stanley currently serves as the Interim Dean of the College of Public Service at Tennessee State University. Prior to his appointment as Interim Dean, Dr. Stanley served as the Department Chair for Public Administration for 14 years at TSU. Dr. Stanley’s research has focused on gaming policy and its impact on funding education across the fifty states. Dr. Stanley received his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Mississippi State University and his master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  Dr. Stanley enjoys the outdoors where he spends much of his leisure time with his two sons James and Mark and his wife Lisa.

Taryn Hughes | Compassion Fatigue Therapist 

Taryn Hughes is a compassion fatigue therapist and founder of NYC-based, Forest, Hughes and Associates (FH&A), a firm dedicated to offering healing-centered trainings that addresses employees’ mental health needs without stigma. With more than 15 years of experience in direct trauma support, somatic therapy, nonprofit, education, and specialized training on the mental health needs of law enforcement professionals, Ms. Hughes has a deep personal understanding of the complexity and exhaustion often experienced by those who serve others. She regularly conducts workshops on and recovery programs for vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and empathic strain within the workplace.

Ms. Hughes is a Green Cross Academy of Traumatology graduate and member of the International Association of Trauma Professionals with coaching credentials from Texas State University. Beyond her passion for learning, human growth and development, and entrepreneurship, she enjoys dancing and spending time with loved ones in nature.

More information about Ms. Hughes and her work at FH&A can be found on the firm’s website at www.ForestHughes.com.

Karen Vail | Professor & Extension Urban Entomologist

Dr. Karen Vail is a Cook College and Rutgers University graduate with a master’s degree from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. While working towards her Ph.D. degree, she worked on the Imported Fire Ant and Household Insects Unit as a member of the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service team (USDA-ARS)

Currently, Dr. Vail serves as a professor and Extension Urban Entomologist in the Entomology and Plant Pathology Department at the University of Tennessee. Her Extension/research programs have focused on managing the common bed bug Cimex lectularius L., odorous house ant Tapinoma sessile (Say), imported fire ants Solenopsis spp., brown recluse Loxosceles reclusa and other urban pests. As the Extension Urban Entomologist, she provides leadership to pest management professionals, county agents, housing managers, other professionals, and the public pertaining to urban IPM programs.

William Benson | NAPSA Policy Advisor & President of Health Benefits ABCs (HBABCs)

As the President of Health Benefits ABCs (HBABCs), an organization invested in health and aging policy, educational and strategic planning consulting services, Bill Benson’s work centers around preventing elder abuse and health care fraud and protecting consumers.  However, his commitment to this work spans his career.

In the late twentieth century, Mr. Benson spent eight years in leadership roles on Capitol Hill and became heavily involved in the nursing home reform provisions of 1987 and the 1987 and 1992 reauthorizations of the Older Americans Act, including the creation of the Elder Rights Title of the Act. Starting in 1998, Mr. Benson operated as the National Policy Advisor for the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA), representing state and local Adult Protective Service (APS) programs. He played a key role on behalf of NAPSA in drafting and enacting the Elder Justice Act and other legislative initiatives related to elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

In his former role as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Aging (AoA) at the U.S. Administration on Aging, Mr. Benson led AoA’s role in Operation Restore Trust, the U.S. Government’s national anti-Medicare and Medicaid fraud initiative, the establishment of the Senior Medicare Program (SMP) program, and management of the Elder Rights program.

From 2006-2018 Mr. Benson worked with the Administration on Aging ‘s (AoA) national resource center for the states providing technical assistance to SMPs in their efforts to educate beneficiaries about fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Between 2020 and 2021, he helped secure direct federal funding for states to use for the purpose of APS.

Mr. Benson’s work also supports elders who belong to Native American nations. As co-founder and president of the American Association for International Aging (IA2), he focuses on American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) elders. IA2 recently completed a federally funded project about health care providers’ experience in identifying elder abuse among AIAN patients. Mr. Benson is a former California State Long-Term Care Ombudsman and is a past president of the National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (now Consumer Voice).

Outside of his work to protect older community members, Mr. Benson works to preserve the stories of older community members. In 2000, Mr. Benson began hosting First Person, a series of conversations with survivors of the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Usually conducted before a live audience, during the COVID pandemic, the session continued in a virtual setting.

Kathy Cherry | RN, BSN, MSN, Registered Nurse Specialist

Kathy Cherry RN, BSN, MSN is Tennessee Adult Protective Services, Registered Nurse Specialist (RNS).  Ms. Cherry graduated from Methodist Hospital School of Nursing through the University of Wisconsin and obtained a Clinical Specialty in Forensic Nursing and Death investigation through the University of Colorado. She obtained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) certification and started the first free-standing sexual assault center in Florida in 2010 where victims were treated and examined outside the busy emergency room. Ms. Cherry also provided child abuse examinations at the Children’s Advocacy Center through the University of Florida

Ms. Cherry’s career includes experience in general medicine, acute neurology, ICU and Emergency Room Nursing. She worked 17 years with Florida Adult Protective Services and 3 years with California Adult Protective Services. She has been with TN APS since 2021 and was the first nurse hired by the agency.  She is enjoying developing the program to support and protect vulnerable adults across the state.

Dr. Raymond Romano | MPH, MSN, PhD, Family Nurse Practitioner

Raymond Romano is a family nurse practitioner with experience in research and quality improvement. His focus is on health services research, and his specific interests are in the detection, diagnosis and care of dementia in the primary care setting. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology at Marymount Manhattan College, his master’s degree in public health from Boston University and his master’s degree in nursing from Vanderbilt University. He completed his PhD at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center with studies around how alteration in the pain experience differs in those at risk for developing Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Ramano’s interest in dementia began as an undergraduate studying the role a certain protein plays in insulin-related neurodegenerative diseases. While at Boston University, he worked in clinical research at the school’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center, then moved to Nashville to join the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center. He also completed a yearlong fellowship at the Department of Veterans Affairs, focusing on quality improvement.

Candace Heisler | JD, Heisler & Associates

Candace J. Heisler is a teacher, legal expert and author dedicated to public service. She served as Assistant District Attorney in San Francisco for more than 25 years, including 10 years as head of the Domestic Violence unit.  A graduate of the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, she was an Assistant Adjunct Professor there for 20 years. She now trains and consults for a variety of organizations and governmental entities in the areas of elder abuse and domestic violence and has published articles and designed curricula on elder abuse and domestic violence for judges, law enforcement, protective services workers, medical personnel, and prosecutors. Ms. Heisler also teaches a course on ethics in an aging society at Virginia Tech and is responsible for creating the original National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) Core Competency Module on "Working with the Criminal Justice System" and other online and in-person curricula on undue influence, working with the criminal justice system, and documentation. During her time with NAPSA, she joined the technical assistance team for the NAPSA Resource Center grant and in 2016, the organization granted her the 2016 NAPSA Collaboration Award. Later Ms. Heisler participated in an Office of Victim’s C funded grant on Polyvictimization in Later Life.

Ms. Heisler also shares her knowledge through written word. In addition to composing the chapter titled “Elder Abuse” in the book Victims of Crime, she coauthored Elder Abuse Detection and Intervention: A Multidisciplinary Approach and both coauthored and edited the Ethics and Vulnerable Adults.