Community focused health care providers (CHCs) face difficulties on all levels – from the daily challenges of providing care to the difficult financial and regulatory environment in which they exist. FairStitch Solutions is here to ensure that your clinic can overcome those challenges to ensure you thrive today in order to serve your community in the future.

Bringing a unique mix of skills and expertise, FairStitch is well positioned to help you with a wide array of needs, including the items listed below.

While examples are below, if you don’t see something listed, please do reach out. If I am not the right fit, I might know others who are.

My experience is incredibly diverse as the term to describe myself which resonates the most is “multi-passionate.” I’ve been a camp counselor, sold books and then computers, both worked and volunteered as a community organizer, advocated for policy change, and, unbelievably for many who know me, worked as a youth minister. And all of that was before I settled into healthcare.

When I went into my macro-focused social work program I wanted to work on any issue which wasn’t healthcare – so I’ve worked on policy related to immigration, education, childcare, housing, and the Colorado state budget. I found my way into healthcare through my policy work, and specifically oral health policy. Through the National Network for Oral Health Access (NNOHA) I learned that my local Community Health Center wasn’t the only one out there, and I found my way into the CHC movement. It’s not a secret that our healthcare system is broken and really only works for those who are well financed. The work that CHCs are doing to be both the drivers of innovation (imagine that – the mouth is part of the body and should be treated as such!) and to ensure that EVERYONE has access to healthcare is a movement I support and seek to strengthen and expand.

My Work Philosophies

When it comes to what drives my work, including what I write about here, there’s a few key beliefs that you’ll see throughout:

• Budgets are moral documents – what you, your organization, government bodies spend money on are the things that are valued. It’s one thing to list your values, it’s another to practice them. Your budget and financials will show if those values are lived or not.
• Change requires not only understanding the problem but the people – too often we plan to implement change in organizations as if the people are not there and don’t matter. That’s why change fails.
• Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are not optional – and they don’t come about by accident. As stated above, our organizations are influenced by the larger systems and communities in which they exist, and structural oppression is built into those influences. These items will stay if not challenged relentlessly by leaders.

I love to write and to teach, especially about things that I’m passionate about, and I’ve had a lot of things that I’ve learned running operations for a Federally Qualified Health Center over the past five years which I wanted to capture.

So, the idea of a blog was born, and that of course needed a name.

As an avid knitter for the majority of my life, FairIsle knitting is one of my favorite types to work with. I love that it is built of small patterns which combine for an intricately decorated piece that is also sturdy and unique. Changing just one set of colors can change the whole look of a piece, making it unique but still cohesive. It is also a form of knitting grown out of cold and wet parts of the world, so it’s traditionally knit with 100% wool, making it incredibly versatile. Wool can absorb water while still providing insulation and warmth. The fibers also interlock closely with each other, making it incredibly difficult to unravel and strong enough to handle a snag or a hole until it can be repaired, which is an aspect missing in our current fast fashion world.

I loved the symbolism of incorporating FairIsle knitting into the name, but it also needed to be a clear that this is not primarily a knitting blog.

• Fair was important for me to keep because equity and justice has been the guiding light of my career – those central values have been the ones that drove each issue I’ve worked on, and eventually lead me to healthcare.
• Stitch, while being just a small piece of a whole knitted piece, is also something used to hold humans together. It’s also metaphor we use in non-profits to talk about stitching together funding.