Jenna Wilson

I started my career fresh out of college working for a company called Families First, doing casework and social work with kids with severe emotional disabilities and mental health issues. I'm a very caring person, and I just couldn't leave the kids at home - I kept bringing work home with me, and it was getting too much for me. My boss at the time had been asking me for a while to come work for him in home care, and I finally decided to take the leap and switch jobs to become Director of Business Development, even though I wasn't sure about being a caregiver and it wasn't my background. I soon found out that children and seniors are very similar, and the processes for protecting our older population are similar to those for our younger population, so my experience with things like APS actually really helped me navigate my work with Adult Protective Services. The business development part came naturally to me because I come from a family that owns a small business - my family owns an automotive repair shop down in Fox Lake where we're from, and I've seen that growing up my entire life and worked there when I was a very young kid. I've been with First Light for about 4 years now, and I've picked an office up from literally zero to 700 hours. The best thing I know how to do is find solutions for older adults to stay in their home and figure out how we want to age in place and what we want the end of our lives to look like, really succeeding in connecting them with those resources.