Speaking
Jill is no stranger to sharing what she has learned in her journey as a mental health specialist, educator, and advocate. One of her greatest passions is helping others understand what they just don’t understand. She is aware that in her years of helping others through crisis she has gained a unique, and often times unfiltered, perspective of the impact of trauma, and the best practices for healing.
Jill has been asked to speak to audiences, big and small. She is just as happy in a room of 15 as she is on a stage in front of hundreds. Topics that she is asked to speak about include:
Grief and Loss
Suicide prevention and postvention
Anxiety
Speaking to children about grief
Teenaged mental health crisis
Combatting professional/personal burnout
Gun violence trauma
Starting your own mental health movement/organization/group
Educating
Jill is passionate about helping the next generation of mental health providers better understand their clients. Her goal is to share what she has learned in over 20 years of practice, and pass the torch to the new generation. Jills unique expertise in working with suicide Survivors can be found in several publications. She has been chosen to present at The American Association of Suicidology conference several years in a row, as well as being chosen to speak at the International Suicide Prevention Conferences in both Europe and Canada.
She spends her time training others in suicide bereavement, or providing peer support for organizations that offer grief services. Jill has served as guest presenter to chaplains and college students as a part of their semester’s curriculum.
L.O.S.S.
Studies have shown that the sooner you connect the newly bereaved to support services, the more likely you are to prevent the next suicide. The L.O.S.S.(Local Outreach for Suicide Survivors) Team model pairs a support team, comprised of a mental health lead and Survivor of Suicide volunteers, sometimes as soon as hours after the loss has occurred. Jill has trained several communities across the country in this unique program. This training spans the complete process, from initial program inception through the team’s first call out.