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Thresholds Conference

An annual conference that unites families, friends, healthcare professionals, and caregivers in meaningful conversations about end of life care. This year's conference is designed to educate caregivers and family members on what to except at the end of life and how to navigate the dying process and grief.

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Conference Schedule

  • 8:00am Registration Opens

  • 9:00am Daryl Cady: Welcome Remarks

  • 9:05am Ellen Goodman: Keynote Presentation and Q&A

  • 10:15am: Stretch and Bathroom Break

  • 10:25am: Breakout Rooms and Q&A

  • 11:45am Lunch Break and Book Sale 

  • 12:45pm Joe Primo: Keynote Presentation and Q&A

  • 1:55pm Closing Remarks

 

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Keynote Speakers

Speakers
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Ellen Goodman

Ellen Goodman has been hailed as an American original. As a trailblazer and powerful voice for women, she has spent most of her life chronicling social change and its impact on American life. A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, she was one of the first women to open up the op-ed pages to women’s voices and became, according to Media Watch, the most widely syndicated progressive columnist in the country. 

 

Ellen began her career as a researcher for Newsweek magazine in the days when only men wrote for the newsweekly. After two years, she became a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and then The Boston Globe where she began writing her column. The column was syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. She wrote her twice-weekly column until 2010 appearing in over 400 newspapers. 

 

In 2010, Ellen co-founded The Conversation Project, a public engagement campaign and a movement, that works to change the way people talk about, and prepare for their end-of-life care. As a social entrepreneur she was also awarded as an Ashoka Fellow and a Prime Mover for her work solving social problems.  

 

Ellen also serves on the board of Encore.org, a movement to transform the narrative around aging and encourage elders to use their passions, skills and decades of experience to make a difference in our communities and the world. 

 

A cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College, Goodman returned to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow, where she studied the dynamics of social change, and again as a Shorenstein Fellow. 

 

Ellen has a daughter, stepdaughter, two grandchildren and lives with her husband, Robert Levey in Boston. 

Joe Primo

Joe Primo is the author of What Do We Tell the Children?: Talking to Kids About Death and Dying. He began his work as a Chaplain at The Connecticut Hospice, where he supported dozens of children and teens as they said goodbye to a loved one. This experience made him passionate about creating supportive and safe places of belonging for grieving families, which led him to design and build programs at Good Grief, where he also served as CEO for ten years. Leading the largest children’s bereavement program on the East Coast, Joe partnered with more than 250 schools to implement Social Emotional Learning and expanded Good Grief to 4 campuses during his tenure.

 

Joe has served as the President of the National Alliance for Children’s Grief, and he is on the advisory board for Option B.

 

As a prominent advocate for grieving families, Joe designed educational programs and resources for funeral professionals to empower children and teens in end-of-life rituals while he was the National Spokesperson for the Funeral Service Foundation.

 

In his current role as CEO of Grateful Living, Joe leads a global organization that supports more than 1.5MM people each year in learning how to practice living gratefully to discover meaning in times of uncertainty and ease. Joe has written more than 30 articles on “The Grateful Life,” and taught courses on grief and hope, where he interviewed renowned voices in each. His TED Talk, Grief is Good is just one example of where he believes culture needs to change.

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