Jill Miller has joined Patchwork’s staff as our new Associate Health Minister. Jill brings a wealth of social work experience, having spent more than 25 years doing case management. With this background, she sees herself very much as a health care advocate. This complements John Rich’s nursing and ministerial background to provide wholistic healing for our guests and clients.
Jill has already done much for Patchwork guests. She speaks to everyone, taking time to hear their stories and to listen for the things that might be holding them back from finding better health and well-being. She makes phone calls, working to connect these guests with area clinics and doctor’s offices along with other agencies like housing and homeless service agencies including Aurora and Echo Housing.
At Patchwork, we can see the ways that struggles with health care interconnect with struggles related to daily living. For instance, it is difficult to care for serious foot and leg injuries if someone is unhoused, and it is difficult to follow the proper diet or to keep insulin refrigerated if someone doesn’t have a kitchen of their own.
Jill’s advocacy helps us address the breadth of these concerns and strengthens our ability to connect people across multiple organizations in the community. Jill also hopes to continue some of the complementary and alternative medicine practices that Katie Loehrlein, our previous Associate Health Minister, began.
We look forward to seeing more of the ways that Jill will change and expand her role here. As with everything at Patchwork, there is flexibility to fit her skills and interests into the situations and needs that we see on a daily basis.
“I’m enjoying my job!” she says.