Meet the Circle Leaders

Rosanne Corcoran’s journey into caregiving began with a dementia diagnosis of her fiercely independent mother, opening the door to a twelve year journey in sandwich caregiving. After experiencing first-hand the stress and isolation caregiving brings along with the lack of meaningful resources for caregivers, Rosanne created Daughterhood the Podcast: For Caregivers. As host of the podcast, Rosanne brings her authentic voice to each conversation and discusses challenges caregivers face with experts in all fields. She has been a Daughterhood Circle Leader since 2019 and has been featured in CNN Health, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Barron’s, Next Avenue and others. She was also named one of Next Avenue’s 2024 Advocates for Aging.  

Jessie Hillock has worked professionally serving the dementia population for the past 10 years in independent living, assisted living, memory care, long-term care, and home health. She has provided over a thousand cognitive assessments over the course of her career and is all too familiar with the lack of support families receive when facing cognitive decline challenges. Through these experiences, Jessie was driven to create her private practice, The Memory Compass, to provide individualized support services for families navigating a dementia diagnosis, picking up where our healthcare system drops off. Jessie was raised by her grandparents and her own village of support. She is a mother of one young son conceived via IVF, wife to an amazing cancer survivor, and dog mom to a rescue pittie. 

Karen Midlo is a Certified End-of-Life Doula and a David Kessler Grief Educator. Karen holds a B.S. in Education from Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio.  She has an extensive background with over 20+ years in elder care, including working in senior communities around the country, dementia care, hospice, mental health and other elder health issues. Karen’s husband died in 1998, and she knows that without the love and support of the senior community where she worked, she would not have been able to heal as well as she did. She made it her life mission to help and support others, especially around death and dying as a way of giving back to those who supported and listened to her at one of the most challenging times of her life. Karen is passionate about helping people have difficult conversations around the kitchen table vs the hospital bed. Her favorite saying is “Hope is not a plan!”

Jean Ross is a nurse who has spent 20 years working in various roles on the frontlines of healthcare. Jean knows care is only getting more difficult for families, healthcare practitioners, and community-based organizations to coordinate together. She is the co-founder of Primary Record, an application built to replace the three-ring binder and file folders families rely on today to share their health story. Jean is the mother to three sons, a wife to an emergency room physician, and the eldest daughter to two amazing, stubborn parents.

Nicole Smith is an author, speaker, and eldercare advocate. Nicole became immersed in the dementia dynamic when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2021. She released her first book, Diagnosis Dementia: Your Guide for Eldercare Planning and Crisis Management, in October 2023. Nicole is a distance caregiver for three aging parents and is the parent of five children. She prioritizes excercise to maintain her sanity as part of the sandwich generation. 

Elizabeth Miller, Certified Caregiving Consultant, created the Happy Healthy Caregiver site, podcast, and community because she craved a supportive community like this when her caregiver responsibilities took on a whole new level after her dad passed away in 2014, and she had no choice but to move her chronically ill mom to Georgia.  She was stressed, overwhelmed, and often felt suffocated by her never-ending to-do lists.  The Happy Healthy Caregiver mission is to help caregivers worldwide become happier and healthier while caring for others. We can do hard things but don’t need to do them alone.

Susan Rowe was a caregiver for her mother and has been leading programs at Daughterhood since its inception in 2015. She has a background in Information Technology and leading church congregations in worship. Susan serves on the front lines of Daughterhood’s service to its community, bringing a strong sense of empathy and a belief in building an authentic community of, “friends helping friends”. Susan is also an award-winning songwriter and has composed the music for Daughterhood The Podcast and the quarterly Daughterhood Policy Podcast.