Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Relationship Researcher | Retention Specialist
Engaging - Empathetic - Empowering
Dr. Jen knows teaching from the inside out.
As a former public school teacher and current university teacher educator and researcher in teacher mental health and burnout prevention in the College of Education + Human Development at the University of Minnesota, her keynotes are grounded in lived experience, science, and deep respect for the complexity of the work educators do every day.
Jen’s keynote experiences are designed to spark meaningful change, foster resilience, and restore a sense of purpose. With warmth, clarity, and evidence-informed insight, she helps educators reconnect with the truth that their Presence is powerful and that protecting their light is not optional, but essential to their impact.
Educators leave feeling seen, steadied, re-energized, and reminded that they matter, the work they do matters, and that their impact is extends far beyond what is measurable or easily seen.
Every keynote address includes
Direct instruction on current, evidence-based knowledge and research about the 5 core capacities of mental health, burnout awareness, stress resilience strategies, and adaptive approaches staff can immediately apply at work or at home.
A simple, yet effective, trauma-responsive exercise that strengthens the parasympathetic nervous system's relaxation response, soothes a busy mind, and reconnects your staff with their body's intelligence.
Beautifully illustrated Put Into Practice handouts that outline detailed integration practices they can immediately apply to their professional and personal lives to extend and deepen the keynote conversation.
Engagement and interaction! Every keynote will get your staff connecting to themselves, each other, and to the collective mission that drives their work.
"Your keynote today was fantastic!!
It was just what I needed. I honestly felt like you were talking specifically to me.
I love your style of presenting; you are a lovely teacher and human."
Special Education Teacher
FEATURE KEYNOTE
You Are A Force
The Turnaround Teacher Impact
As an educator, your Presence—your energy, your way of being—is not just a personal asset. It is the invisible yet palpable force in your classroom and the medium through which learning, belonging, and hope are transmitted. Long before curriculum lands, you land. Your Presence shapes how students feel, how safe they are to take risks, and how ready they are to learn.
Your Presence is the source of the calm, care, and compassion that define effective teaching. It is the the quiet power that helps students feel seen, regulated, and capable, especially in moments when learning feels hardest. This is the essence of the Turnaround Teacher: an educator whose grounded Presence shifts classroom climate and student outcomes, even in the face of challenge.
In this inspiring keynote, teachers are invited to reconnect with a vital truth: protecting your mental health and well-being is not a luxury; it is essential to one's Turnaround Teacher impact.
Through story, science, and reflection, this highly engaging keynote illuminates how burnout gradually drains the very energy that once made teaching feel like a calling and how intentionally tending to mental health and nervous system regulation restores clarity, compassion, and purpose.
Teachers leave with a renewed understanding that they are not just delivering instruction; they are the SEL intervention, and their Presence is a powerful lever for change.
You Are a Force honors the complexity of teaching and calls educators back to the source of their greatest impact. By tending to the force that fuels their care, teachers are reminded that sustaining students begins with sustaining themselves so showing up once again feels like purpose, not effort, and teaching becomes a place where both educators and students can thrive.
Additional
Hot Topics
Sustaining Teacher Energy through the Attitudinal Phases of Teaching
with The Science of Hope
“Hope is the single best predictor of well-being.”
(Hope Rising, 2022)
In teaching, hope is not a personality trait. It is a necessary psychological strength that can be intentionally cultivated, especially during the most demanding seasons of the school year. When stress inevitably rises, hope plays a critical role in helping educators remain grounded, flexible, and engaged, rather than becoming stuck in survival responses that drain energy and joy from the work.
This inspiring keynote explores the science of hope as a powerful protective factor for teacher mental health, emotional vitality, and professional sustainability.
Grounded in research on the attitudinal phases of teaching, this keynote highlights how the science of hope helps educators move fluidly through the emotional cycles of the profession—from early idealism, through periods of disillusionment, and into renewal. Through science, story, and reflection, teachers learn how hope strengthens self-efficacy and agency, allowing them to stay regulated, adaptive, and engaged rather than stuck in disillusionment.
Participants are introduced to the four core components of hope and explore how hope strengthens the two foundational states that protect against burnout: self-efficacy (the belief that “I can”) and self-agency (the belief that “my actions matter”). Together, these capacities help educators navigate stress with clarity and confidence rather than depletion.
As educators cultivate hope, they also cultivate Presence. Hopeful teachers are better able to stay regulated, adaptive, and relational under pressure and this state of being naturally transfers to students. When educators feel hopeful, their Presence carries energy, calm, and possibility, creating classroom environments where students feel safer, more engaged, and more ready to learn.
Slow Burning
Sustaining Purpose without Sacrifice
The Science of Slow Burning is about learning to respond from alignment rather than urgency. Teaching is a calling rooted in care, purpose, and deep relational work—yet without the right supports, that same care can quietly slide into over-functioning, depletion, and burnout.
In this inspiring keynote, educators and school staff are invited to reconnect with the core features of their calling while learning how sustainable impact is created not through constant acceleration, but through grounded, aligned action.
Participants explore the essential difference between slow burn and burnout, discovering how alignment fuels steady energy, clarity, and motivation over time, rather than exhaustion.
By learning how to regulate stress, honor limits, and intentionally return to alignment, participants cultivate the capacity to heal, adapt, and remain connected to the work they love, without losing themselves in the process. This keynote reframes sustainability not as doing less, but as doing what matters most, on purpose.
Let's Connect!
Book a Free (and enjoyable) Consultation
I would love to chat.
We can schedule a 15 - 45 minute discovery conversation to discuss your needs and wants for your staff.
This is a no obligation, no risk discovery conversation to see if my message aligns with your desires for an engaging and informative keynote.
