Leadership & Staff
Program Leadership
Ilene Mitchell
Bio
Ilene Mitchell has been a part of Massachusetts Grandparents Raising Grandchildren since its inception. She is also a longstanding member of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, where she previously served as Chairperson. Ilene brings deep personal commitment and extensive policy expertise to the mission of supporting kinship families.
Deanna Forist
Bio
Deanna Forist holds a Bachelor’s degree in Special Education and a Master’s in Education/Human Services Administration. She retired after forty-three years of service to children and families in a variety of professional roles. The first years of her career were spent teaching children/youth with significant disabilities, supervising teachers, and developing family support programs focused on self-advocacy for parents and families in concert with broader systems change efforts. Building on her passion for educational equity, Deanna spent twenty plus years advocating for the educational rights of students in the child welfare system, and several years as the Director of MSPCC’s KINnections Program, where she built a strong, diverse and vibrant grandparent community.
Gerald Lanson
Bio
Jerry Lanson is a part-time writing consultant for Harvard Kennedy School. A professor emeritus from Emerson College, Lanson served as the first chair of that school’s Department of Journalism from 1999 to 2005 and taught students there for nearly 20 years.
Prior to arriving at Emerson, Lanson served on the full-time faculties of Syracuse University, Boston University and New York University, and worked as a newspaper editor, reporter, columnist and writing coach.
He is the author or co-author of four books on writing and editing and continues to write essays and opinion pieces from time to time.
Lanson’s teaching has been recognized with awards from Emerson College and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. He and his wife Kathy live in Falmouth, Mass., with their 17-year-old grand-daughter, Devon, a rising senior at Falmouth Academy.
Commission Staff Support
Colleen Pritoni
Bio
Kristen Cipullo
Bio
