Meet The Gentle Home Care Team
Gregg Berliant
Gentle Home Services co-owner
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Gregg Berliant, co-owner, has enjoyed working with elderly clients for over 25 years. Gregg is responsible for Growth/Development and oversees all Financial Aspects of the agency. Gregg gets tremendous satisfaction knowing that he is making a difference not only to the thousands of clients he has helped, but also to their family members. Prior to Gentle Home Services, Gregg handled mostly large institutional accounts for Medline.
Away from the office, Gregg has served as a Board Member for Lake/McHenry Continuity of Care and Life Services Network. Gregg is currently active in a number of charitable organizations, including finishing the Ride to the Rock for MS and The Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's Walks. In addition, Gregg has been a volunteer delivering meals, for Meals on Wheels for 15 years.
A graduate of Bradley University, where he met his wife, Kris. Together they have two wonderful children. Gregg has thoroughly enjoyed coaching his daughter’s hockey team for the past several years and his son’s baseball team. He gets the most pleasure out of volunteering with his family at PADS (Public Action To Deliver Shelter) Lake County, preparing and serving meals.
Michael Berliant
Gentle Home Services co-owner
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Michael Berliant has been the co-owner and President of Gentle Homecare and Gentle Home Services for over 25 years. Gentle was founded in 1990 with the intention of providing quality and compassionate care to seniors in and around the Chicagoland area. Through hard work the business has grown to become one of the largest privately owned non-medical agencies in Illinois.
Michael enjoys working with seniors and other individuals with healthcare needs as well as the families and professionals who support them. Mr. Berliant is one of the founders of the Best Practices Home Care Alliance which was formed to establish higher standards in home services. GHS is a founding member of the Home Care Association of America and Michael was instrumental in the formation of this group and helped to make licensure of private-duty become a reality. Michael is the past Treasurer for HCAOA formerly known as the National Private Duty Association. Mr. Berliant also serves as a staff volunteer for the Mankind Project and devotes several weekends each year to lead retreats to help men lead lives of integrity and mission. Michael is also very involved with The Chicago Chapter of the American Parkinson’s Disease Association, an organization he became particularly interested in after his father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s over twenty years ago. Michael graduated from Southern Illinois University Business School with a degree in Marketing. Michael has been married to his wife, Elizabeth, for over twenty years and they have three children Leo, Halle and Joie.
Penelope Neuhaus
Office Manager
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Penelope joined Gentle Home Services in May, 2011 and boasts a resume which includes over 20 years of professional experience in home health care with an emphasis on human resources, scheduling, billing, employee relations and customer service. Her responsibilities encompass many aspects of Gentle Home Services business, including hiring, conducting new employee orientations and providing administrative support for licensure compliance. She also handles all client and employee scheduling and service requests outside of normal business hours as our On-Call Manager. Penelope is always identifying new and better ways of maintaining the excellent quality services Gentle Home Services has become known for. She works closely with our staffing coordinators and our caregivers to ensure that all clients have an exceptional care experience.
Lisa Shenkman
Staffing Coordinator
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Lisa has been with Gentle Home Services as a Staffing Coordinators since May, 2008. Her role is to help facilitate client care by carefully selecting caregivers, best suited to assist the clients specific needs, in their home environment. Lisa has over twenty six years of experience in the healthcare administrative field. Having started out as a Certified Nursing Assistant Lisa expanded on her medical knowledge by going into Ambulance Dispatch Assisting before moving on to Pediatric and Geriatric staffing in clinical and home settings. Her compassion and excellence in customer service has served to benefit in assisting and advocating care for many families. Born and raised in the Chicago area, Lisa loves spending time with family and friends.
Debra Sweet
RN,CMC
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Debra has been a registered nurse for over 35 years. She worked for 17 years as a staff nurse on an orthopedic, medical-surgical unit and as a nurse in charge of the unit. Pursuing her desire to expand her expertise and a passion for working with seniors, Debra transitioned into the senior living industry. Working in independent and assisted living facilities, her duties included healthcare coordinator and regional assisted living coordinator.
In 2001, Debra began working in the private home care field and became active in providing geriatric care management services for clients. She obtained certification in geriatric care management in 2008 and joined the team at Gentle Home Services. In addition to her role as a geriatric care manager, she performs client assessments, creates and coordinates comprehensive plans of care, performs follow up on-site client visits, and supervises caregivers in the field. She also provides medication services when needed.
Luz Ramirez
Staffing Coordinator
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Luz has been with Gentle Home Services since 2011 as Staffing Coordinator. Luz concentrates mostly on our facility staffing business. Luz started working in the medical field as a C.N.A in 1996 at a Chicago area retirement home. From 2000 - 2008 she worked as the lead care manager at an Assisted Living Property in Buffalo Grove with Alzheimer’s and Dementia sufferers. In 2003, Luz became certified as a Med Technician. She worked extensively with physicians and nurses in a variety of settings. In December 2009, Luz began working with Unlimited Health Services, which in May, 2011, merged with Gentle Home Services. Her compassion to help people and excellent customer service has served to benefit Gentle Home Services and it's clients.
Born in Chicago and raised in Puerto Rico Luz now resides in Des Plaines, IL . She has been married for 14 ½ years and is the proud mother of 9 year old son Orlando Junior. In her personal time Luz loves spending time with family and friends and enjoys going to the movies, dancing , and babysitting her nieces and nephews.
Linda Wilson
Care Coordinator - Continuing Education Coordinator
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Originally from Canada, Linda has lived in the US since 1989 and has worked in the Healthcare Industry for 26 years. She started out selling I.V. solutions and other related products. For the last 10 years she has worked and found a home with Gentle Home Services.
Linda assists our clients in determining what their needs are and she specializes in finding the right match with our caregivers to ensure those needs are met. She helps setting up in-services for our continuing education program and provides counseling and ongoing training for the caregivers.
Miriam Bromberg
Comptroller
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Miriam lives in Skokie with her husband Mark, her 2 children and Pogo the family dog. Outside of the office, Miriam volunteers with many organizations. She is active in her children’s schools where she staffs the Book Nook, coordinates the Solomon Schechter yearly Passover food drive, and has served on the PTO board. Miriam is also on the Executive Board of her synagogue and is the Special Events chairperson. In this role, Miriam is most proud of starting the tradition of having the community children bake baskets of cookies, which are delivered to 17 police and fire departments on the North Shore as "Thank You for Your Service" gifts.
Lorena Nehring
LPN
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Lorena has extensive experience working with older adults and their families, as a Geriatric Care Consultant/Manager providing assessments, case management and counseling. Additionally, she has worked as a nurse for over twenty-five years in hospitals, homecare nursing homes and at an assisted living facility.
Lorena received her Master’s Degree in Counseling from National Louis University and worked as a Case Manager/Counselor at North Shore Senior Center and Evanston/Skokie Valley Senior Services. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Social Services for Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia and her nursing degree from Smith School of Nursing in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Lorena enjoys facilitating groups, such as: Alzheimer’s Support group, Parkinson’s Support group and Caregivers Support group. She has been trained in the practice of Mindfulness and Stress Reduction and is a trained facilitator in Cog Fitness (Brain Fitness), having studied under Dr. Baer of NeuroQuest. Lorena is a member of the American Counseling Association and a member of both the Lupus Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Amy Konke
Administrative Assistant
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Amy joined Gentle Home Services in 2008. She has more than 10 years of customer service experience and accounting. She is responsible for processing payroll and billing and making sure client and caregiver files are up to date. Her organization and time-management skills allow office operations to be carried out efficiently and effectively. She is quick to help and always has a positive input into the care of our employees and clients.
Besides working for Gentle Home Services she is a mother and assists in managing her husband’s electrical company.
