Nkem Ndefo, MSN, CNM, RN (she/they), is the founder of Lumos Transforms and creator of The Resilience Toolkit, a model that fosters embodied self-awareness, supports stabilization from the impacts of personal and collective trauma, and nurtures adaptive capacity in the face of stress—all within an ecologically sensitive and social justice-oriented framework. She brings extensive experience as a clinician, educator, researcher, and community strategist to innovative programs that address trauma and inequity, build resilience, and catalyze liberatory change for individuals and organizations across the U.S. and globally. She is known for her unique ability to connect with people of all types by holding powerful liberatory spaces, weaving complex concepts into accessible narratives, and creating synergistic and collaborative learning communities that nourish people’s innate capacity for healing, wellness, and connection. Nkem is especially committed to working in solidarity with people most impacted by violence and marginalization.
Her career began in the late 1980’s, providing community health education to distressed populations including injection drug users and youth in foster care. She witnessed intense suffering in these communities; her desire to relieve this suffering spurred her pursuit for the knowledge, understanding, and skills necessary to bring healing at its deepest level to all age groups.
Licensed as a Registered Nurse and Nurse Midwife, Nkem holds a Master’s degree in Nursing from Frontier Nursing University. She has extensive post-graduate training in integrative health modalities, emotional therapies, and systems change approaches, including Living Collective Wisdom, Level 1 training in Internal Family Systems, Level 3 certification in Tension/Trauma Release Exercises, and Level 5 certification in Emotional Transformation Therapy.
As a clinician, Nkem has worked in settings ranging from large volume hospitals to mobile community clinics. She founded and operated a full scope midwifery and homebirth practice from 2000 to 2007 and she has maintained a small holistic private practice in Los Angeles since 2007. Additionally, she worked for the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative researching maternal death outcomes and currently serves on the California Maternal Health Taskforce.
Nkem’s own experience of complex chronic illness and energy-limiting disability has been one of the defining influences on the evolution of her work and The Resilience Toolkit. This lived experience continues to shape the questions she asks, the assumptions she challenges, and the life-affirming futures she works to build.
Nkem has lent her expertise in the embodied trauma-informed and resilience-oriented (eTIRO) approach, embodied anti-oppression, and healing justice to a wide range of initiatives. Her work has included serving on the Los Angeles County Trauma- and Resilience-Informed Systems Change Initiative Workgroup, leading an embodied diversity, inclusion, and antiracism initiative for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, developing a trauma-informed program for Palestinian students at An-Najah National University in Gaza and the West Bank, and supporting a global participatory youth-led grantmaking learning collaborative with Children’s Rights Innovation Fund. She has also contributed to international future-building initiatives and pro-democracy organizing efforts, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Pathfinders work in the UK and the U.S.-based Outer Work Project: Mobilizing Personal Healing for Social Change. Nkem currently leads the Wellbeing and Solidarity Infrastructure (WaSI) Migration Project, a UK-based initiative building networks of community-rooted facilitators to strengthen solidarity and long-term power building across refugee and migrant justice organizations. She also directs several educational programs, including Embody Lab’s Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certification and Embodied Activism programs, as well as Lumos Transforms’ Resilience Toolkit Facilitator Certification and Tender Love Doula eTIRO Learning Community.
She is a regularly invited speaker and has delivered keynotes and interactive presentations to organizations and collaboratives in her home country (US) and internationally, including Delta Center California, Médecins Sans Frontières Italy, Healing Justice London, and the Center on Trauma and Adversity at Case Western Reserve University. She’s an esteemed podcast guest and has appeared on episodes of For the Wild and Hurry Slowly, among many others. She is a contributing author in Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing and Systems Change (North Atlantic, 2024).
Work with Nkem:
Nkem welcomes new speaking engagements and community and organizational collaboration. To inquire, please email info@lumostransforms.com.
Nkem Ndefo is currently accepting a limited number of new individual clients. If you are interested in becoming a client, please email info@lumostransforms.com. Existing clients may schedule sessions below.
Modalities:
- The Resilience Toolkit
- Emotional Transformation Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
Individual Pricing:
- Individual Full Session | 55 minutes | $275
- Individual Brief Session | 30 minutes | $150
Mentorship & Supervision
- Personal Certified Trainer Certification Mentorship | 60 minutes | $175
- 1:1 Certified Trainer Certification Mentorship | 90 minutes | Pre-paid
- Group Certified Trainer Certification Mentorship | 120 minutes | Pre-paid