Jill Warner – Supervisor Spotlight

Jill Warner was hired in May as our agency’s clinical services manager – a restructured position that is designed to give increased support to our OASAS programs. She brings a wealth of academic and real-world experience to her new role. Jill holds bachelors’ degrees in psychology, criminal justice, and forensic psychology, along with a master’s in criminal justice from Buffalo State. She has previous experience in counseling and case management, as well.

At the moment, Jill is working towards her PhD in counselor education at the University at Buffalo. Her dissertation is on ensuring that doctors treat the mental health and emotional needs of people with head and neck cancer. This ties in with addiction since many doctors are overprescribing opiates as a coping method. “Pain management is inevitable, but opiates are a huge issue,” she noted. “Doctors are concerned with making the patient comfortable to get through treatment, so they might push addiction issues to the side.”

Jill herself is a three-time head and neck cancer survivor, and her experience shaped her current focus. “No one ever asked me how I was feeling about my diagnosis,” she said. “No one screened me for things like grief and loss.” Through her research, Jill has discovered that this is a common theme. “I kept hearing the same story over and over.”

She hopes to bring this focus on empathy and trauma to her new work with Cazenovia Recovery. In her newly-restructured position, Jill will oversee most of our OASAS treatment programs. So far, she has found our managers and staff to be very supportive. “It’s very obvious to me about how everyone cares about every resident,” said Jill. “Person-centered care is actually visible here.”

As our programs transition to Medicaid, Jill’s experience and knowledge will prove helpful. She is eagerly anticipating this positive development. “Being able to treat the resident holistically within one agency is huge. Residents will be able to have access to more parts of their recovery program through one agency,” Jill explained.

Understandably, Jill has some pretty high ambitions for herself and for the agency. “I’m hoping to help the program mangers achieve their personal and professional development goals.” Not only does Jill employ a holistic view of counseling, she employs a similar view for her staff. “I want to help the programs with team building,” she said. “We can’t provide adequate care for residents without strong teams at our programs.” Staff and managers throughout the agency are looking forward to Jill’s contributions to our care.