Just a few of the things she’s been working on…
Jillian is an award-winning journalist who concentrated primarily on business and motoring writing before turning her hand to authoring books in 2012 when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 42.
Having lived a fast-paced life with a demanding career in journalism and strategic communications in the United States and Asia, Jillian recognised the need to make significant and sustainable changes to her lifestyle to accommodate her own symptoms of MS whilst still forging meaningful and consistent contributions for her community.
She now spends her time working with a variety of philanthropic and charitable foundations, authoring books (4 of which have become best sellers), writing for a variety of publications and rediscovering some of the nicer things about life.
Community and philanthropy are ingrained into Jillian’s spirit. Naturally adept at connecting with broad audiences while keeping the stakeholder’s needs in mind, Jillian has taken her three decades of providing pivotal skills in community and stakeholder engagement, communications, media relations and corporate governance to contribute to social change via philanthropic projects. However, the first thing her friends and family will tell you is that she’s never forgotten where she came from or who she’s been fighting for.
-
National Advisory Board Member and Research Officer - The Real Price of Health: Experiences of Out-of-Pocket Costs in Australia:
This research project, chaired by Prof Michael Kidd (Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Australian Government Department of Health), seeks to understand the impact of out-of-pocket costs on the day-to-day lives of people with chronic illness, and in relation to their income level, will provide important new knowledge, and an opportunity to improve the equitable financing of health and healthcare in Australia. This study will explore the challenges people experience in managing the affordability of certain health services or medicines. It will also describe the choices that people make, which are reflective of the value they place on aspects of their health and life. This research group has multiple year funding under an Australian Research Council grant.
-
Advisory Board Member:
As an inaugural member of the Consumer Advisory Board to the RFDS, Jillian was charged with providing advice on consumer and community views so they are recognised and reflected in the organisation’s service design, delivery, planning and policy development.
Other key areas of focus are to identify and advise on priority areas and issues requiring consumer engagement, participate in the monitoring of RFDS key performance indicators related to patient safety and quality and also to assist in the identification of staff training and development in relation to patient safety and quality.
-
The Hopkins Centre is a national leader in translational research in the field of rehabilitation and severe disability. The Centre is renowned for research methods that bring service users, clinicians and researchers together to develop practical solutions that promote measurable improvements for recovery and resilience.
As a subject matter specialist in health communications, Jillian was invited to join the Hopkins team in creating an online learning platform that gives consumers the opportunity to refine their citizen scientist capabilities.
The resulting short course - offered via Griffith University - also supports researchers at The Hopkins Centre to develop high-quality partnerships between researchers and those with lived experiences, as well as supporting researchers, clinicians, and consumers to work collaboratively to plan and implement research activities.
-
Member of the consumer reference group researching the support for ethical inclusion of people with acquired disability in research. Final output was the Resource Guide “Deciding whether to participate in research: A community resource for Australians who live with a disability.” Using the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research as a framework, this group explored peer reviewed and grey literature, alongside recent consumer experience, to articulate best practice and actionable strategies for optimum ethical engagement of people with acquired disability in research projects.
-
As an inaugural ambassador for Kiss Goodbye to MS, which has grown its influence into a global audience and awarded the highest honour of ‘Campaign of the Year’ from the FIA - Jillian worked tirelessly and was afforded many opportunities to raise awareness for research into multiple sclerosis. She was appointed as the Writer In Residence for MS Research Australia and frequently gave speeches, including the Keynote address at Parliament House on World MS Day 2018.
However, one of the projects most dear to her heart was being invited onto the foundation team of ‘Stop and Reverse MS’ – a global strategic initiative to drastically reduce the time it will take to find a cure for MS from 40 years down to just 10 years via accelerated medical research.
-
Jillian was a founder and chairman of the Teneriffe Festival – now recognised as one of the most significant community events in Queensland. During her time, she grew the Teneriffe Festival from a 10,000 pax event to one in excess of 50,000 pax, expanded the Teneriffe Festival’s media presence to 50 million views/hits per annum and implemented community consultation for the Festival in the height of international terrorism threats and community concern as the festival expanded its footprint.
-
This ground-breaking group researched and published Australia’s first comprehensive report into MS nursing so as to establish an evidence base to support advocacy and lobbying efforts to achieve increased funding for MS nurses in Australia.
This report highlights the state of the current Australian MS Specialist Nursing workforce, what rigour exists internationally around these specialist roles, and how MSSNs currently meet Australian demand.
Random Things:
Jillian can fly a plane.
She’s preparing to sit for the Diplôme Elémentaire de Langue Française.
Her favourite expression is ‘Regret is a Fool’s Emotion.’
The best piece of advice she ever received was “work out what stops your clients from waking ups in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare…. and then provide that.”