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Everyone in the family gains when grandparents and grandchildren connect with one another. This precious relationship brings a sense of joy and well being to both adult and child as they express love, explore new ideas, and discover new aspects of themselves and each other. Grand Connection is a produced by Catalyst Benefits, Inc. and Maturity Mark Services Company. The program is a multi-leveled educational, social and interactive grandparenting program designed to give Senior Membership Programs with different service needs a variety of options.
Meet the "Experts" Grandparenting
Grandparenting & Art
Grandparenting & Finance L. Kean Block was born in Chicago on January 6, 1931. He received a BA degree from Yale University in 1953 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1955. In 1958, Kean married the former Judith Katz. They had three sons and are now the proud grandparents of six. Kean has worked as a management consultant, banking consultant and stockbroker. Kean retired from the Northern in April 2000, and is now doing some financial consulting, traveling, and working on his golf game.
Long Distance Grandparenting
Sue... runs Gramma's Graphics, Inc., a business offering blueprint kits used to sun print photos on fabric. She's a mother of three, grandma, former teacher, and was a host mom to eight exchange students. Julie ... also a former teacher, is the mother of two sons and a writer and manuscript editor for the university presses at Yale and Harvard. Sue and Julie know what works with kids and how to inspire grandparents to connect with their grandchildren. Grandparenting and Travel Colette Vacations
Grandparenting and Books
Grandparenting and Early Childhood
Lois is currently a volunteer consultant for "Young Moms Together" and an advisory board member of Family Network. She is a member of NAEYC, the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Lois is very proud to be the grandmother of two grandsons ages 2½ and 5. Grandparenting and Child Development Michael Witkovsky,MD - Dr. Michael Witkovsky is a board certified Child and Adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Holding joint appointments as an assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, Dr, Witkovsky has a special interest in working with children with medical illnesses. As these situations involve all aspects of a child (mood, thought, behavior, and spirit) and all aspects of a child’s life (family, peers, school and community), Dr. Witkovsky maintains a strong interest in the assessment and treatment of children in an eclectic and thorough manner. Dr. Witkovsky has recently ended 8 years as Director of the consultation-liaison service at University of Wisconsin Hospital. He is now the Medical Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UW and Meriter Hospitals, inpatient services director, and the Training Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for the UW-Madison College of Medicine.
Grandparenting and Professionals
Denise Heimlich -- As a professional communicator for more than 20 years, Denise specializes in helping clients get their message across clearly and effectively. She has an extensive background in copy writing, public relations, and editing.
Catalyst Benefits, Inc., is a privately owned Northbrook, Illinois-based company committed to providing the finest in "stand-alone" benefits to hospital membership programs. At present, Catalyst serves over 250 hospitals with memberships in excess of 2 million adults over the age of fifty. Catalyst's strategy is to provide its benefits exclusively to a single hospital (or network of hospitals) in a given geography. In so doing, it forms a strong alliance with that specific hospital and is seen as a "partner" in that program's growth and quest for excellence. Catalyst's hospitals are located in more than 40 states. Visit
the Catalyst Benefits, Inc. website for details about benefits and
packages for hospital senior membership programs. Catalyst
Benefits, Inc.
Founded in 1992, Maturity Mark Services Company (MMS) is a communications and marketing consulting organization that has been guided by the need to challenge stereotypes and conventional thinking about mature adults and by its own motto, "The mark of maturity is wisdom tm." MMS draws on the wisdom of its principals and associates who have specialized in marketing and communications programs for the mature consumer since 1960. In addition to publishing RetirementWise (R) Maturity Mark Services has produced relationship-building custom newsletter and communications programs to reach, educate, and inform mature adults for companies such as State Farm Insurance, YMCA Pension Fund, Elant Health and Housing Solutions, Principal Financial Group, American Express Publishing and many others.
Maturity Mark Services Co. |
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A service of Catalyst Benefits, Inc and Maturity Mark Services Company. © Copyright 2005 All Rights Reserved |
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Jerry
Witkovsky, MSW, recently retired as General Director of the Jewish
Community Centers of Chicago (JCC). He is a member of the National Family
Partnership and serves on the Grandparent Volunteer 
Committees
of Highland Park and Deerfield High Schools in the suburban Chicago area.
Jerry's greatest honors are having been named one of Chicago's "Most
Effective CEOs" by Crain's Chicago Business, and, more importantly,
being a grandparent to five children, two boys and three girls, ages 1 to
17.
Barbara
Palatnik is a retired kindergarten teacher. She spent 26 years
teaching at the Solomon Schechter School in a Chicago suburb. Besides her
teaching she has also performed at parties for children and adults as a
storyteller, magician, and song leader. She continues to perform as well
as teach part tune. She also leads a family discussion group at a local
synagogue.
Mike
Palatnik is a retired high school teacher, having taught Social
Science for thirty years at Sullivan High School in Chicago. He
occasionally has taken on an intermittent Job as a movie extra or writing
for Trivial Pursuit. Barbara and he spend as much time as they can
visiting their California grandchildren.
Lynne Samuels. Creative
expression and the arts were part of Lynne Samuels? life almost from the
beginning. Her formative years were filled with drama, piano, and dancing
lessons, interspersed with the reading of any book she could get her hands
on. After receiving a B.A. degree from Northwestern University in 1958,
she married her husband Neil a week later—a common scenario in the
?50?s. Raising a daughter, Andi, and a son, Craig, proved to be another
outlet for creativity, as did a 27-year career as a junior high school
English teacher. On her 60th birthday, she was awarded a Master of Liberal
Studies degree from Lake Forest College. Recently retired, Lynne is
devoting more time to two of her passions: writing and her grandson Sam.
Marvin
Dolinko is 66 years old, married, and living in Highland Park,
Illinois. He is the father of three daughters who have a total of five
children, of both sexes, and ranging in age from 3½ to 7½. Still
employed, for fun, Marv teaches a course, How To Teach Your Children and
Grandchildren To Appreciate Fine Art Marv will share with us some of the
art appreciation activities he shared with his daughters when they were of
grade-school age and what he is doing now with his grandchildren. Marv is
not an artist, photographer, or art historian. He is just a person who
enjoys fine art and likes to share his enthusiasm with his grandchildren.
His objective is not only to develop their interest in art; but, more
importantly, to nurture the bond between grandparent and grandchild.
Sue
Johnson and Julie Carlson, a unique mother-in-law /
daughter-in-law team, who help families build heartfelt & strong bonds
between all ages. It's not every day that you see family members working
together, sharing dreams and making them happen. And perhaps it's
especially rare when that chemistry is at work between two "in
laws." But this dynamic duo is committed to helping families and
sharing the joy of Grandloving!
Mary
Harris Russell, Ph.D. is a professor of English at Indiana University
Northwest. Her specialty is children's literature. Along with her
teaching, Ms. Harris Russell writes book reviews and is a frequent
lecturer on children's books. Her reviews appear weekly in the Chicago
Tribune Sunday Book section, monthly in the KIDNEWS section of the Chicago
Tribune, and are published in the New York Times Review of Books. She has
won many awards and is a frequent lecturer on modern and classic
children's literature.
Lois
A. Kupritz, MS, TEP, Early Childhood Specialist -- recently retired
after over 20 years as a Director of both nursery school and daycare
programs in Glencoe and Highland Park, Illinois. Her areas of
specialization include early childhood development, parent education, and
staff training. She has presented workshops for the Chicago Association
for the Education of Young Children and Regional HeadStart, and is a
speaker for local parenting programs.
Sandra
Alexander, MSW is a gerontology specialist with broad-based experience
in the fields of health care, social services and academia. She is
currently working on public health and aging issues. In her spare time she
enjoys freelance writing, reading, gardening and walking. She lives with
her husband and two children in the Chicago area.
