You cannot give what you haven’t found in yourself.

Keynotes, workshops, and facilitated experiences for mental health clinicians, behavioral health organizations, and the leaders who keep them moving forward.

My career built on one question

Jody Nelson LMSW

  • 25 years as a therapist

  • 7 years as a clinical supervisor

  • Creator of the FIND Framework

  • 9 years leading CMHA-CEI's Critical Incident Stress Management team

  • Zero Suicide adoption & implementation lead, CMHA-CEI

  • Regional suicide prevention coalition leader, mid-Michigan

  • Author of the forthcoming book My Life in Crisis

  • Audiences served: state legislators, hospital systems, universities, law enforcement, community coalitions, CMHAs, ACMHA, Intermediate School Districts, non-profits, municipality leaders, churches, and (probably the best audience ever:) the Girl Scout Troop of Bath Michigan.

I have spent much of my career asking one question: what does it take to authentically show up for the people who need you most?

I’ve asked a lot of people this in different ways over the years.

As a therapist, speaker, trainer, and consultant, my own answer has always been to look inward. I strongly believe that you cannot give what you haven't found in yourself. This shapes everything I do, from my clinical practice to keynotes and workshops that have reached audiences as varied as state legislators and Girl Scouts, law enforcement officers and university faculty, hospital staff and community coalitions.

I’m the creator of the FIND Framework, an evidence-informed reflective practice for helping professionals navigating meaning loss, burnout risk, and disconnection from the reasons they do this work in the first place. Built on eight evidence-based theoretical pillars, The FIND Framework gives practitioners a structured path back to what brought them to this work and helps them sustain that connection moving forward.

My professional background has included home-based therapy, crisis services, prevention work, clinical supervision, and organizational change leadership. I was a key leader in Zero Suicide adoption and implementation at CMHA-CEI, a large community mental health agency serving mid-Michigan. While doing that, I also built and developed community programming teaching social and emotional skills across Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties that served thousands of youth, and I led the agency’s Critical Incident Stress Management team for 9 years. I have facilitated large scale responses to community trauma, led a regional suicide prevention coalition, and helped facilitate cross-sector conversations and response in the aftermath of the 2023 Michigan State University shooting.

Wherever I’m at, from individual therapy sessions to small team workshops to large group presentations, I’m known for bringing presence, warmth, humor, and the ability to create space where people feel safe enough to be honest and authentic. I strive to blend teaching and facilitation in a style that invites everyone in the room to learn from each other and themselves, not just from myself.

I intentionally make space for reflection in these rooms, and I think that’s important. That’s where change starts. And after all, that’s why most of us are doing what we do: to help create positive change in people’s lives.

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What Makes Jody Different?

Whatever the topic, my core focus is engagement. I do this through authenticity, vulnerability, energy, and a bit of strategic quirkiness, all in the service of audience transformation.

01
Commands the room
This is a direct quote from multiple audience members across vastly different settings ranging from community health authorities to state legislative task forces. If I can keep people's attention engaged and off their phones for 3 hours, I must be doing something right.
02
Vulnerability in large groups
I lead with authenticity, which is a skill I developed through years of crisis response, training, and coalition facilitation. This creates conditions where honest reflection feels safe and transformative.
03
Blended teaching & facilitation
I design my talks so the audience can learn from each other. The collective wisdom of the room is a resource I tap into.
04
Loops back
I don't just talk at people. I listen. I track participant contributions across a session or multi-day training and brings them forward. People feel genuinely heard.
05
Strengths-based, always
No one leaves feeling dismissed or embarrassed for participating. Every contribution is honored and built on.
06
Theatrics in service of learning
I was never in theater, but I studied Shakespeare! I understand how important pacing, voice modulation, and dramatic timing can be used deliberately to move content. I am incapable of delivering dry, monotonous talks. Besides, where's the fun in that?

Speaking, Training, and Facilitation

  • The FIND Framework — Feel, Identify, Name, Deliver — is an original, evidence-informed reflective practice designed for mental health clinicians and helping professionals navigating meaning loss, burnout risk, or disconnection from vocational identity. Drawing on eight theoretical pillars including positive psychology, Flow, Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, and the work of Rogers, Jung, and Buechner, FIND gives practitioners a structured path back to the meaning that brought them to this work.

    Ideal for: Clinician training days, conference breakouts, agency in-service programs, social work continuing education.

    Note: The presentation has been approved for continuing education credit by NASW-Michigan. NASW-Michigan has not validated or endorsed the framework itself.

  • A workshop that reframes how clinicians relate to the difficult, activating experience of working with risk. Drawing on CE-CERT principals, mindfulness practices, and the FIND Framework, participants develop the internal resources and reflective practices that sustain them through high-stakes clinical work. The core message is that navigating risk is part of our work and cannot be avoided. Instead, it is something that shapes and develops you as a practitioner. This workshop draws on lecture, small group work, and large group processing.

    Ideal for: Clinical staff, crisis programs, supervisors. Can be delivered standalone or as Part 1 of a two-part series.

  • I believe the most transformative shift a clinician can make is from expert to curious companion; one who walks alongside the client rather than someone who “has the answers.” This workshop challenges the assumption that clinical authority requires having answers. Instead, it demonstrates how releasing the expert identity opens the door to genuine curiosity, deeper therapeutic connection, and significantly reduced burnout. Previously delivered to approximately 100 clinicians across multiple programs with strong response.

    Ideal for: Clinicians, supervisors, anyone experiencing the rigidity and anxiety that comes from performing expertise

Please note: Many of these workshops may be CEU eligible. I am happy to work with your training department to provide CEU application materials. CEU-eligible workshops for Social Workers usually require at least two to three months' advance notice for state processing.

Keynote Presentations

  • A keynote drawn directly from Jody's lived experience as a therapist, crisis responder, and leader who has navigated the deepest intersections of personal and professional life. This is a testimony about what it costs to show up for others, and what it takes to keep showing up. Audiences leave with a renewed connection to the meaning behind their work.

    Ideal for: Annual conferences, agency all-staff events, leadership retreats, social work education programs. Opening or closing keynote slot.

    Jody is currently completing a book of the same title. "Author of the forthcoming book My Life in Crisis" is an appropriate bio line now.

  • What happens when the crisis lands in your own life while you are expected to lead the response? Drawing from Jody's experience helping to lead his agency response to the 2023 Michigan State University mass shooting, while he was with his own child on campus that evening, this presentation explores what it takes to stay present, functional, and human when the stakes are highest.

    Ideal for: Crisis services conferences, leadership tracks, emergency response teams, hospital staff, behavioral health administrators

Workshops

  • Ethics continuing education that actually connects to practice. This course approaches professional ethics through the lens of self-awareness and vocational identity. It focuses on grounding ethical practice in who the clinician is, not just what the code prescribes. Ideal for: Licensed clinicians, social workers, counselors requiring ethics CEU credit.

  • After spending almost two decades in Crisis Services, I know firsthand that vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress are occupational realities. We do a disservice to our teams if we view these as failures of personal resilience. Drawing on CE-CERT principles and the FIND Framework, this training focuses on helping clinicians connect to those moments where they truly shine and find fulfillment in their work.

    Ideal for: Agency staff, clinical teams, supervisors, administrators

  • Clinical supervision is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools for practitioner development and workforce retention. But I believe it must be done reflectively and with authenticity to be effective. This training helps supervisors build genuine reflective capacity into their practice.

    Ideal for: Clinical supervisors, directors, agencies strengthening supervision culture

Leadership Retreats

  • Drawing on nearly a decade of CISM team leadership and direct involvement in community crisis responses including the 2023 MSU mass shooting, this training provides practical frameworks for crisis intervention, de-escalation, and critical incident response.

    Ideal for: Agency clinical staff, crisis services programs, supervisors, hospital staff, schools.

  • Structured training in clinical risk identification, documentation, and decision-making. Builds both clinical competency and the internal confidence clinicians need to navigate high-stakes assessments.

    Ideal for: Licensed clinicians, crisis staff, supervisors.

  • Next to compassion, I believe that curiosity is the most important attribute a clinician can develop. But as our attention spans shrink and algorithms increasingly control our focus, we are collectively losing site of what clinical curiosity really means. This workshop focuses on helping clinicians reconnect to the curious mindset which drives good practice.

    Ideal for: clinicians, supervisors, administrators.

I provide facilitated leadership retreat experiences designed to move beyond surface-level team building toward genuine reflection, honest conversation, and the kind of clarity that actually changes how a team operates. I design retreats that create conditions for organizational insight, drawing on my background in reflective practice, organizational change leadership, clinical supervision, and the FIND Framework.

Ideal for: Agency leadership teams, behavioral health organizations, supervisory cohorts, non-profit leadership groups.

The FIND Framework

A structured path to reconnect with meaning, purpose, and fulfillment

The FIND Framework is an original, evidence-informed reflective practice created by Jody Nelson for mental health clinicians and helping professionals navigating meaning loss, burnout risk, or disconnection from vocational identity.

Drawing on eight theoretical pillars including Seligman’s positive psychology, Flow, Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, and the work of Miller, Rogers, Jung, Buechner, and more, FIND gives practitioners a structured, repeatable path back to the reason they entered this field.

Prerequisite Stance: Curiosity. Before a practitioner can genuinely feel, identify, name, or deliver, they must approach their own inner life with openness, interest, and a willingness to look deeply at what they find there. The Cultivating Curiosity workshop is the natural companion offering.

F
Feel
Attending to the emotional and somatic signals that arise in clinical work rather than suppressing or bypassing them.
I
Identify
Recognizing the specific experiences, moments, and values that give the work its meaning and naming what is there.
N
Name
Articulating clearly what the practitioner carries, what they need, and what restores their sense of vocational purpose.
D
Deliver
Re-engaging with the work from a place of authentic presence; bringing back what was found, for the benefit of those they serve.

  • "You absolutely commanded the room! I didn't see a single person on their phone the entire time you were up there talking."

    — Therapist at Keynote address of My Life In Crisis

  • "I came in skeptical that a workshop on crisis and burnout would tell me anything new. I left with a strong reminder about why I do this work. THANK YOU!!!!"

    —— Clinical social worker, agency workshop: Growing Through Risk pt 1.

  • "We can only take people as far as we have taken ourselves. That will really stick with me."

    —Agency Therapist. Growing Through Risk workshop pt. 2

  • "The way you told your story was so brave. It made me rethink my own trauma history. I always thought it was something I had to work around and in spite of it. But I like realizing it actually makes me a better therapist."

    Keynote audience member - My Life In Crisis

  • I've learned that I never own what's happening, but rather have learned to be curious with every family in every session...Thank you for this understanding! :)

    -Therapist, Growing Through Risk Workshop participant

  • "Years ago I attended a training you did. You probably won't even remember it, but you were so warm and funny and you connected with me in a way that made me want to work for your agency. Now here I am, a manager alongside you."

    Agency Manager

  • "I attended one of your two day trainings through MSU several years ago. What you said about working with risk has stayed with me ever since then."

    Crisis Service Therapist, Student in Risk Assessment Class, MSU Graduate School of Social Work’s Summer education program

Book Jody

Let’s talk about what your audience needs.

Whether you’re planning a conference keynote, a clinical training day, a leadership retreat, or a facilitated conversation for a team at a turning point, just reach out below to start the conversation. Let me know what you’re looking for. I’d love to connect.