Learn more about ACANY and CCANY Award Winners
Office Management
McKenna Guzzardi, Office Manager- Hauppauge
McKenna is an Office Manager for the Hauppauge office and has been with ACANY and in this role since June 2023. She was chosen for this award because she embodies the qualities of an excellent Office Manager. Staff and visitors are greeted by her warm smile that creates a positive, welcoming atmosphere. McKenna is not only friendly, but she is also incredibly hard-working and always puts in the extra effort to ensure that tasks are completed efficiently. She stands out by her willingness to go above and beyond to help other departments with extra responsibilities such as orientation preparations, assisting the Care Connection team with special projects, and completing an abundant amount of mail on a daily basis. Her dedication to her role is evident in the way she handles her responsibilities with grace and professionalism. McKenna genuinely cares for others especially the people we serve, which makes her a true asset to our agency.
Care Connection
Bonnie Eckardt, Specialized Care Connection Coordinator
Bonnie Eckardt is a Specialized Care Connection Specialist and has been with ACANY since June 2022. She is our resident expert in all things Children’s Waiver, ICF Conversions and Residential School Age-Outs, and stops at nothing to provide the highest level of service to both the prospective member, family and providers within their circles of support. One situation where a young adult intended to move directly to an IRA from their residential school, but due to unforeseen circumstances with the IRA, his discharge from school no longer aligned with the move-in date. He was forced to move home for a period of time with seemingly no in-home supports or assistance from their designated Transition Coordinator. Bonnie’s even keel approach and calm, compassionate demeanor helped to ease the prospective member and family’s anxieties and worked together to think outside of the box for how to secure necessary supports in the interim. While continuing to advocate on the prospective member’s behalf with OPWDD and the provider agency for waiver services and a move date, Bonnie connected them to a variety of programs that he could trial at, as well as local non-OPWDD opportunities and transportation through the county. This example is only one of many instances where Bonnie’s dedication to our prospective members goes far beyond the step-by-step processes of the specialized cases she supports.
Jessica Young, Specialized Care Connection Coordinator
Jessica Young has been with ACANY since May 2023 as a Care Connection Specialist, however, was recently promoted this past month to one of our Specialized Care Connection Coordinator positions. Jessica is truly dedicated to assisting our prospective members in ways that go far beyond her job duties, and always puts the person and their needs first. For example, Jessica was working with a prospective member who recently immigrated from Africa to the United States, did not have a primary care physician and was having a lot of medical and behavioral challenges. Jessica not only assisted the parent in finding an emergency room near them, but compiled a list of necessary questions to ask at time of visit and helped to ensure he was admitted to the psych unit for the necessary therapeutic and pharmaceutical interventions despite heavy pushback from hospital staff. While also keeping the long-term goal of OPWDD eligibility and services in mind, Jessica identified an Article 16 Clinic who was able to bypass inpatient protocols to assess and evaluate the prospective member while on the unit. He was ultimately granted OPWDD eligibility. Their journey has just begun and Jessica’s tireless efforts has afforded them the opportunity to obtain access to critically needed services and a lifetime of support.
Care Management
Metro/Staten Island /Lower Hudson Valley
Diana Cilente, Assistant Director
Diana Cilente is an Assistant Director and has been with ACANY since November 2018 under the leadership of Regional Director, Patty Larsen. She is an exemplary Assistant Director. Diana puts the people supported at ACANY at the top of her priority list, but equally shows the same level of caring and attentiveness to the team she supports. Her unwavering leadership and appreciation for her team keeps the focus on how important Care Managers are to the people we support. She is respectful, understanding, and remains calm despite all of the challenges that can be present in the day to day. The role of the Assistant Director can be challenging but Diana makes it look easy, makes her team feel like she is working for them, and above all, ensures that the work being done reflects the mission and values of ACANY.
Annie Barkor, Care Manager
Annie Barkor is a Care Manager and has been with ACANY since May 2019 under the leadership of Assistant Director, Christina Drakeford, and Regional Director, Holli Rubiano. Annie exemplifies what it means to go above and beyond for the people we support with the person at the focus of what she does as a Care Manager. Annie has attended autism walks with her members, walking with them and other attendees, ensuring she is able to connect on a deeper level with the people she provides Care Management to. After attending Provider Fairs and collecting valuable resources to help her do her job, she also makes it a point to share promotional items and other information with members and their families, allowing her to share in a small part of their lives and happiness. Annie also supports a diverse group of people who often need more than a light touch, and she does so without a second thought. Annie does not just provide Care Management, she has made true person-centered connections with people.
Charlotte Grindstaff, Care Manager
Charlotte Grindstaff is a Care Manager and has been with ACANY since August 2023 under the leadership of Assistant Director, Miranda Koss and Regional Director, Holli Rubiano. In her short tenure in her role, she has made a great difference to the people she is supporting. She is tenacious and despite the red tape Care Managers often encounter to obtain needed services, she perseveres and works hard to help people get what they need. Over the last year, Charlotte has helped someone who had no identification and no supporting documents to get an ID. She worked tirelessly to get an EMOD and VMOD approved as well as getting a member’s Self-Direction budget to pay for a $7,000 tricycle modification! She also has supported a young child and his mother get services that were previously denied because of their status of being in a shelter by advocating and helping OPWDD to deem it an apartment style setting. The person now has OPWDD services, CDPAP and a stable home. To further highlight her tenaciousness, she helped a person who for two years was working to get Self-Direction off the ground connected with a broker, and the budget launched in August 2024.
Michael Lattimore, Care Manager
Michael Lattimore has been a Care Manager with ACANY since December 2018 under the leadership of Assistant Director, Michelle Maniscalco and Regional Director, Kristen Ribnicky. Michael’s dedication to Care Management and to the members we support is exemplified in the support that he has helped to provide to his peers. Michael is seen as a mentor amongst his peers and always makes himself available to help troubleshoot difficult problems and help his peers to come up with solutions. He was nominated by his peers for the collaboration he does with them as a group and how he goes above and beyond to help anyone on his team when they are in need. He shows that it is the teams success that helps our members the most. More recently Michael helped to identify housing solutions for a member who recently moved to the Metro area, where the new Care Manager was not familiar with the services available, and provided one-on-one support to the Care Manager and the member. Michael helped to connect the Care Manager to resources she needed, section 8 housing in the Metro area and facilitated the conversation directly with the provider. Through collaboration with the newer Care Manager, and using the connections he established, he helped a person we support and her three children move from a shelter into a three-bedroom apartment where the person and her children felt safe. Michael has also assisted to find shelters for members that were homeless and connects members with food banks in lower socioeconomic regions. He has dedicated himself to not just supporting members on his own caseload but helping other team members to successfully support the members on theirs, leading to positive outcomes for many.
Brooklyn/Queens
Rousline Cesar, Assistant Director
Rousline Cesar is an Assistant Director and has been with ACANY since October 2018. She has created and fostered a fantastic team of Care Managers, who are diligent and knowledgeable about what they do. She and her Care Managers share a similar passion of providing timely and quality services. Rousline is one of ACANY’s CCO Liaisons, working closely with OPWDD and Care Management to troubleshoot concerns with service requests and barriers with SART submissions. When she volunteered for this role, she could not imagine the volume of requests for help that she would receive. However, she responds to each request for help with the same level of dedication and attention to detail as she would for any Care Manager on her team. Rousline goes above and beyond, dedicating time to each Care Manager and person supported by her team, to ensure that people are receiving the help they need. She assists her peers, beyond her Regional Team, with general assistance and sharing of resources. Rousline’s dedication, passion, and unwavering commitment to ACANY’s success are admirable. She has a willingness to mentor and help team members that does not go unnoticed.
Lyvette Robles, Care Manager
Lyvette Robles is a Care Manager and has been with ACANY since November 2023 under the leadership of Danielle Romanucci, Assistant Director and Margaret Martinez, Regional Director. Lyvette exemplifies what it means to be person-centered. She demonstrates the ability to listen actively to understand what the presenting needs are and uses this to take the best approach to meet the person/family where they are at to assist, advocate and ultimately achieve the desired outcome. For example, Lyvette supports a member living in a certified residence where he has been the target by a peer. Lyvette has provided continuous support to the person and their mother while working with the residence to ensure he is safe and receiving the proper supports and services and recently has been moved to his own apartment within the house.
Nechama Pascal, Care Manager
Nechamah Pascal has been a Care Manager with ACANY since December 2019 under the leadership of Shelly Deutch, Assistant Director and Dorothy Wohl, Regional Director. Nechamah is an exemplary Care Manager. In a specific situation, a member she supports had been experiencing health issues with no explanation. With Nechamah’s encouragement and persistence the gas company was contacted and a leak was eventually found outside the home and fixed. Nechamah had recommended a health podcast about CO2 levels which lead to the member acquiring a monitor and discovered the levels were high. Nechamah’s assessment of the situation, relationship to the member and family, and subsequent recommendations truly saved this family!
Khadene Norman, Care Manager
Khadene Norman is a has been a Care Manager with ACANY since December 2020. Khadene consistently goes above and beyond, embodying ACANY’s core values. Khadene is passionate about her job. She acts with a sense of urgency and unwavering passion to help the people she supports. Khadene was assigned to support a member on a temporary basis due a linguistic preference other than what Khadene could provide. The family at the time was skeptical, but Khadene worked diligently to build a relationship with the person (who is a child) and their mother. She was successful in acquiring the supports and services needed. While this started as a “temporary” assignment, the parent chose to have Khadene remain as her child’s Care Manager. The parent was happy with the services received, she began to share Khadene’s contact information with others at parent conferences and rave about how wonderful Khadene is as the Care Manager for her son.
Long Island
Alexandra Godfrey, Assistant Director
Alexandra Godfrey, better known as Ally to her team, is an Assistant Director who has been with ACANY since April of 2019, under the leadership of Alison Parthey, Regional Director. Ally is described as kind, professional, approachable, calm, detail-oriented, responsive, encouraging, and dedicated to our members as well as the Care Managers on her team. Despite encountering the roadblocks that are inevitable in the human services field, Ally never gives up and consistently goes out of her way to demonstrate support for her team and the people we support in both a personal and professional capacity. Ally’s team enjoys coming to work each day because they know no matter what they face, they will not face it alone. Ally is there to guide, educate, support, and lead by example. As an advocate for a person supported by ACANY, Ally deeply appreciates and understands the important work of Care Management, which is evident by her hard work and commitment each day.
Michelle Vitalino, Care Manager
Michelle Vitalino is a Care Manager who has been with ACANY since January 2022, under the leadership of Cody Sheeler, Assistant Director and Stephanie Pearsall, Regional Director. Michelle has a unique ability to “win others over.” She does this by using active listening skills. Michelle was successful in assisting a person she supports with moving to a Supportive IRA with their partner. Not only did she complete all of the necessary paperwork as required timely and accurately, but she also supported the person by going to all of the screenings and attended tours to support them in their self-advocacy. It is due to her exemplary relationship-building skills with members, families and providers that she was able to help this member and their partner to achieve this outcome. They moved into their apartment as of 8/1 and have shared with Michele just how happy they are living together and taking the next steps in their relationship. She is truly deserving of this recognition.
Zuleima Ramirez, Care Manager
Zuleima Ramirez is a Care Manager and has been with ACANY since July of 2019 under the leadership of Nathalie York, Assistant Director and Frank Crispino, Regional Director. As a bilingual Care Manager, Zuleima has been a lifeline for many members and families helping them to connect to services and supports over the years. Recently, Zuleima facilitated the process of changing the rep payee for Social Security to the newly court appointed legal guardian, following the passing of the persons caregiver. During this time, she also took the steps necessary to establish permanent eligibility for the person being supported. Simultaneously, worked to ensure the person received essential support, including diapers and food, while educating the new legal guardian on the care practices previously used by the persons aunt. This guidance was instrumental in ensuring continuity of care, enabling the person supported to receive the same level of support and affection from his “new” family.
Tafannum Chowdhury, Care Manager
Tafannum Chowdhury “Taffy” is a Care Manager and has been with ACANY since November of 2023 under the leadership of Cindy Salzman, Assistant Director and Annmarie Guzzardi, Regional Director. Taffy speaks four languages Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and English. Families and people she supports, benefit from her ability to speak in their native language and understand their particular cultural needs. In the short time she has been with us, families have specifically complimented her and expressed gratitude for having her as their Care Manager. Taffy has supported many members in crisis. In one situation she was able to use her language skills to advocate for a person hospitalized by being able to translate the issues in Urdu, and get the person released from inpatient care with appropriate supports. In another situation, Taffy worked to support a member by translating at a CSE meeting helping the family understand the necessity for their young son to be moved to as specialized ABA school. She even accompanied the mother to visit the school and worked as a bridge between the school and family with great success. Taffy is kind and caring woman who has learned so much in a short time. She is huge asset to ACANY and the people, children, and families she supports.
CCANY Human Resources
Iola Samuel, Employee Relations Lead
Iola Samuel currently works for CCANY in the Human Resources Department in role of Employee Relations Lead. Iola has been with ACANY since 2022. Iola is great in her role as she has the ability to listen to our employees and with her calm and collect demeanor, employees feel very comfortable in speaking with her. Iola is a team player always willing to help in any situation presented to her. Iola is a knowledgeable, compassionate, and dedicated employee, who always goes above and beyond. She is an absolute pleasure to work with.