Educational and Work History:
Jenni Liles is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker licensed in the state of Missouri, United States. She graduated from New Mexico State University (NMSU) in 1995 with a Bachelor’s degree in History. In 2005 from University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) with a Master’s degree in Social Work.
Before earning her social work degree, Jenni worked for six years providing services for people with developmental disabilities. She also worked for seven years in customer service for a mutual fund company. During her social work training, she had practicums working with children in school and child protection settings, and with veterans in the unhoused community.
For the last two decades, Jenni has worked in western Missouri as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She works mostly with adults and teens who are in the LGBTQIA community. In addition, she has significant experience working with people deconstructing from childhood trauma and with neurodivergent people. She opened her own practice, Responsive Mental Health Services, LLC, in 2013. In March of 2020 she began providing services on a telehealth-only basis.
Jenni is in the process of finding new ways to fund providing services to her therapy participants. Soup & Solidarity Community Mutual Aid Discord server seeks to do this by paying Jenni a wage for setting up and managing the server, and by allowing clients to access mutual aid funds as self-pay, co-pay and deductible grants.
Publishing History:
Jenni started writing poetry and short stories as a small child. She has completed a couple of NaNoWriMo novels (before the organization became another iteration of The Bad Place) but has never traditionally published anything. (We don’t count the one smutty story that was so badly edited she doesn’t claim it).
However, Jenni was an early adopter of internet communities under the name odanu (and slight variations) and more recently Jenni’s Space. She has written millions of words on mental health, human rights, and her various neurodivergent hyperfixations. Yes, it is true that she went through an early and unfortunately prolonged libertarian stage. She has (fortunately) long since recovered. She blogged on several generations of personal blogs as well as on alt.callahans, Livejournal, and other long gone sites. Since 2018, Jenni has added short and medium length videos to her repertoire.
You can currently find Jenni’s work on Patreon, Bluesky, Mastodon, Tumblr, Twitch, TikTok, YouTube, and Dreamwidth, in addition to this site. She no longer has a Twitter/X account and at this point uses her Facebook account only for advertising this website, sharing memes and keeping in touch with family and friends, as Meta has decided that they have the right to train AI on public work on their platforms and she doesn’t willingly contribute to plagiarism programs. At any given time, her current social media strongholds, as well as any mutual aid and solidarity links not yet added to the website, can be found on her Linktree and on the Social Links page of this website.
Personal History:
Born in Vermont, Jennifer D. Liles LCSW has lived in nearly every region of the US and has lived in Missouri since 1995. She married the love of her life in 1997 and has two grown sons and a couple of handfuls of “children of the heart” who populated her living room during her sons’ teen years.
Jenni spends her time working, hanging out with family and friends, and rotating between numerous hyperfixations on a regular basis. She rotates between least one unfinished knitting project, book, TV series, and writing project near her work station at any given time. Her two cats and her dog keep her busy and beloved.
Where Jenni Stands on the Issues
Both queer and neurodivergent, Jenni has been an active member of both communities for decades, and is a vocal proponent of LGBTQIA rights and universal accommodations. In addition, Jenni strives to deconstruct from harmful beliefs and does anti-racist work on a regular basis. She typically votes for the Democratic candidate, but would love more viable options on the left. Her writing tends to focus on the United States because that’s where her expertise is. And yes, she is aware that the rest of the world has issues too. Issues that others have more expertise on.
Jenni has read and analyzed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and bases her definition of human rights on it. It is her absolute belief in human rights as the basis for all interactions that guides her beliefs. She grounds her mental health work in these principles and uses therapy methods that uphold them.
Transparency:
Right now, Jennifer D. Liles LCSW is the owner and sole employee of Responsive Mental Health Services, LLC. Some links on the site are affiliate links, and she gets paid when people click on those links. Currently, links to lists, books, and audiobooks from bookshop.org and libro.fm are affiliate links.
She doesn’t collect data not needed for the functioning of the site. She does not and never will sell visitor, customer, or therapy participant information or data to third parties. Jenni takes extra measures to ensure boundaries, dual relationships, and privacy for therapy participants with regard to social media and public conversations online are navigated and protected.
Like most of us in late stage capitalism, Jenni never plans to retire. Glad to have you here. If you have any comments or suggestions, please or email jliles@responsivellc.com.
Remember, if you want to be a founding member of the Soup and Solidarity Discord server (opening May 1, 2025), sign up to support it by becoming a Patron at $1 or more today.
Click here to go to the site directory to find more information and entertainment, and click here to email me to offer feedback or help me build the server.
Find more books that you might like through my Jenni’s Space / Soup & Solidarity store on Bookshop.org. I am an affiliate and earn money when you click through and buy anything, much of which gets passed on to Soup & Solidarity mutual aid.
