About Jenni

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 associated beliefs. 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.

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, she was an early adopter of internet communities and 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 and Instagram accounts only for 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 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. She rents a Sears house near the Jesus slide and the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. 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 neurodiverse, 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 do 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.

She finds the words of the Good Jewish Carpenter to be mostly wise words to live by, while noting that the evangelical wing of his followers do enormous harm. That said, while she’s a fan of the carpenter, she’s not a follower. She follows older, less rigid beliefs that are more in line with her core values. Jenni has read and analyzed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and bases her definition 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. She does not run ads on the site and has no plans to do so, nor does she 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 and privacy for therapy participants with regard to social media and public conversations online are protected.

The website has no funders other than Jennifer Liles, and is currently an expense for the business. The goal is for this website to eventually be self-supporting and then to provide sufficient income that Jenni can free herself and her therapy participants from dependence on insurance companies.

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 feedback@jennisspace.com.

---