Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Relationship Researcher | Retention Specialist
is the founder of Present Well-Being LLC and the creator of The Light You CastTM Curriculum, and the Present Teacher Restoration Project.
Jen received her BA in Elementary Education from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and her MA in Socio-Cultural Foundations and Educational Thought from Western Michigan University.
Jen received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota College of Education + Human Development where she focused on discovering and exploring the salutogentic, asset-based origins of human-service professional mental, emotional, soul, and relationship health while they were in service to others.
Dr. Jen's research on preventative and healing practices to heal from and stave off burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury in care-based professions is innovative and integrative.
Jen is currently the program administrator for the Minnesota Grow Your Own Teachers (MNGOT) program at the University of Minnesota's College of Education + Human Development. Jen also teaches courses on new teacher social-emotional health at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Jen
Mama Jen
Healing from burnout and postpartum depression was a slow, deliberate, and deeply transformative process.
As I began repairing my relationship with myself, honoring my limits, energy, and emotions, I felt small but immediate shifts: a little more lightness, less anxiety, and a return of confidence. I started an online community about mindful mothering to share the simple, research-based mind–body practices that were helping me regain my energy amid the nonstop demands of caring for young children. In community, we discovered something powerful: daily, accessible practices could help us care for our families without losing ourselves in the process.
When my daughters entered school, I brought this work back to the profession where my story began—teaching. I created an 8-week curriculum to heal and prevent teacher burnout and compassion fatigue and studied its impact through my doctoral research at the University of Minnesota. The results were astounding.
What I learned changed everything: burnout is not just a workplace issue—it arises in people who care deeply and who need, and deserve, compassionate support. Burnout was not a sign of personal failure. It was protective. These symptoms were sophisticated signals from my nervous system pointing to exactly where my inner resources needed care and restoration. When I learned to respond to these signals the way I would respond to my own children, everything shifted.
I also discovered something unexpected: the same stress that once created overwhelm and self-separation could be metabolized into strength. With the right conditions and the right practices, the pain of stress could become power—fueling self-awareness, self-agency, and a renewed sense of purpose
Research Expertise
As a trained phenomenologist, Dr. Jen researches and studies how human-beings connect to, engage with, and relate to themselves, their world, their work, and their relationships. She assists caregivers in "seeing what frames their seeing" and invites them to explore their invisible relationship patterns of engagement-- personally and professionally.
She guides educators, leaders, youth workers, and public health professionals on a path of self-discovery to explore how their ways of perceiving, behaving, and being can become more aligned with their integrity, personal truth, and soul's core character.
Jen uses design-based research to intersect theory, research, practice, and body-based healing methods to create evidence-based curriculum designed to scientifically and systematically stoke human-service caregiver mental health, relationship resilience, social and emotional intelligence, and soul well-being.
Dr. Clifden’s keynotes, trainings, courses, and yoga retreats focus on research-based preventative and restorative practices that treat and heal burnout, compassion fatigue, moral injury, and sacrifice syndrome -while cultivating greater social and emotional intelligence, compassion, and empathy in one’s care-based work.
Jen is a 200 hour certified yoga teacher and has advanced training as a mindfulness teacher. She integrates restorative mindbodysoul practices in all her engagements with caregivers.
Dr. Clifden has experience teaching mindfulness trainings and courses for the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota, Lifetime Fitness, the University of Minnesota College of Education + Human Development - Carlson School of Management, and Target Corporation. She has worked with over 30 school districts in Minnesota as well as the Minnesota Department of Health and local public health agencies to help raise burnout prevention and healing awareness to human-service professionals over the past 8 years.
Dr. Jen connects with individuals, teams, and leaders in systems of care on how to examine contextual factors that exacerbate toxic and traumatic stress responses while also equipping them with information, practices, knowledge, and support that allow them to re-claim their innate capacity to engage core social and emotional learning competencies that protect the self from experiencing mental dis-ease while strengthening practices that actualize healing and contribute to personal, community, and societal well-being.
Core to her training and teaching is raising awareness about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Complex PTSD and the ways that adult survivors of ACEs cope with the relationship stress triggers of care-based callings.
She lives in the Twin Cities area where she is enjoys spending time with her three teenage daughters before they head off to college and traveling as much as possible to the west coast of Ireland.
