Board of Directors
Janet Schreiber, President
Dr. Janet Schreiber has a distinguished career in behavioral sciences in post-graduate education. For over thirty years she has trained counselors and other health professionals. She is the program director for the Grief, Loss and Trauma Certificate Program, as well as the MA in Counseling with a concentration in Grief, Loss and Trauma at Southwestern College in Santa Fe. She completed her masters' and doctoral degrees in psychology and anthropology from UC Berkeley. She received additional training at the Langley Porter Institute and the Hastings Institute. Since the 1970's she has helped develop hospice services as well as community programs. She has taught at the University of Texas, School of Public Health, where she served as chair of behavioral sciences, and at the University of New Mexico Medical School. Dr. Schreiber is the former director of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Hospice Program at the Northern New Mexico Community College. She is the author of numerous articles and technical reports. She has served on the boards of directors of several nonprofit organizations and has a great deal of experience with creating and funding programs.
Robert Richards, Esq., Vice-President
Mr. Richards is a solo practitioner who works and resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is also a National Certified Guardian. He was the former general counsel for the New Mexico Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, Office of Guardianship. Mr. Richards' duties with that agency varied, but included at one time or another representing the agency in legal matters, contract review, supervising and assigning attorneys for guardianship proceedings, petitioning for guardianship, acting as guardian ad litem, drafting regulations for the agency and working to find better ways to serve the indigent incapacitated person in New Mexico. He was also an active participant in the New Mexico Guardianship Task Force in 2007 and 2008, and served on the committee that drafted proposed changes to the Probate Code and Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code that were adopted by the state legislature in 2009. Mr. Richards earned his J.D. degree at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. He has practiced law in New Mexico for over 20 years.
Jan S. Olsen, Treasurer
Ms. Olsen is a gerontologist with 20 years' experience assisting elderly and disabled clients and their family caregivers with accessing and understanding the available resources in their communities in order to enhance the quality of life for all family members. She has been a professional court visitor in guardianship and conservatorship cases for vulnerable adults since 1999 and has served as auditor of guardianship court case files. Ms. Olsen founded a multi-disciplinary Case Management Alliance for elderly clients and has trained elderly volunteers in many rural communities to help elderly citizens understand the complexities of health insurance and benefit programs in the State of New Mexico. She is currently a self-employed consultant on all aspects of aging, including housing, entitlements, psychosocial issues, long term care funding and community resources.
Rebecca A. Allahyari, PhD, Secretary
Dr. Rebecca A. Allahyari is a qualitative sociologist with a doctorate from the University of California, Davis. She is finishing a book tentatively titled "Utopian Devotions: Anxiety and Enchantment in Homeschooling" which explores homeschooling as an on-the-ground, experimental practice interwoven with urgent visions of sacred childhoods and the constraints of mundane life. In an earlier book, Visions of Charity: Volunteer Workers and Moral Community (University of California Press, 2000), Dr. Allahyari considered the competing emotions and moralities wrapped up in the self-work of feeding the poor early 1990s, a time of compassion fatigue and welfare reform. Since recently becoming a family guardian, she has begun a research project to compare the socio-emotional experiences of professional and family guardians. What are the beliefs, contradictions, demands, and anxieties underlying family guardianship? How are generosity and obligation challenged or re-imagined when funneled into the legal and bureaucratic realms of professional guardianship?
Elisa Bongiovanni, JD
Elisa Bongiovanni counsels in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has a certificate in Grief, Loss and Trauma, a certificate in Energy Medicine, a JD and a MA in Sociology. Her career involved time as a social worker in Philadelphia where she worked with abused children. She then obtained a law degree and was employed by a major health care delivery system where she worked with all the legal issues involved in health care. Guardianships were a part of this work. She has taught at Thomas Jefferson University and St. Joseph's University and has published various articles. She serves as an editor for Matthew Bender for the "Pennsylvania Transaction Guide." She continues to explore her passion for the rights of individuals to live and die fully through her private practice, continued training and volunteer work.
Staff Members
Janice N. Ladnier, Executive Director of Guardian Angels Foundation
Janice is a is a National Master Guardian and a professional court-appointed guardian and conservator, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC), and a geriatric care manager in Santa Fe. She serves as legal guardian, conservator or power of attorney for incapacitated adults in Northern New Mexico, and is also an experienced court visitor. Janice was an active participant in the New Mexico Guardianship Task Force in 2007 and 2008, and she proposed most of the changes to the Probate Code and Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code that were adopted by the state legislature in 2009. For over 25 years Janice worked as a paralegal in several states, primarily in the areas of estate planning and probate law. She has a strong background in patient rights and advocacy and was formerly an Ombudsman with the New Mexico Aging and Long Term Services Department. Janice presents seminars on incapacity and guardianship for guardians, legal professionals, counselors, social workers, case managers and other professionals who provide services to people who have or may need guardians.
Angela T. Melton, Financial Director
Angela is the Financial Director of Guardian Angels Foundation and is an experienced national certified guardian, geriatric care manager and power of attorney in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas. She is also a skilled bookkeeper and office manager. Angela has extensive experience working with interdisciplinary teams (IDTs), especially in cases involving the Developmental Disabilities Waiver (DD Waiver). She was also an active participant in the New Mexico Guardianship Task Force in 2007 and 2008, and served on the committee that drafted proposed changes to the Probate Code and Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code that were adopted by the state legislature in 2009.