​Welcome to the Continuing Education for Mental Health Professionals podcast. I'm your host, Natasha Moharter, a licensed counselor, OCD specialist, and founder of CEUS.xyz, the continuing education directory for Mental Health Professionals. This podcast is here to inspire and equip mental health professionals who want to share their expertise through continuing education. In our Community Member Spotlight episodes, we sit down with CEUS.xyz members to hear about their personal and professional journeys as CE providers. You'll pick up practical tips and ideas to help you start your own CE journey or enhance the trainings you already offer. Also, if you provide continuing education trainings, you can get listed in our directory by visiting www.CEUS.xyz/join. Today I'm joined by our very special guest, Dr. Jennifer Dozier. She's a licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider with a PhD in psychology, and she's dedicated to helping individuals and families navigate life's challenges with evidence-based care. Dr. Dozier is also an approved CE provider and the founder of Continuing Education at Sea, where she provides continuing education opportunities aboard cruise ships. She designed this innovative experience to give therapists a fresh way to earn their continuing education hours, combining meaningful learning with the benefits of travel, relaxation, and connection. Her workshops cover timely topics like trauma-informed care, ethics, and new advances in therapy, all with a focus on enhancing skills while also supporting clinician wellbeing. Through her work in advocacy, research and community outreach, Dr. Dozier continues to equip both clients and professionals with the tools to foster emotional health and lasting growth. Welcome Dr. Dozier. It's such a pleasure to have you here today.

Thank you for having me. That, um, makes me sound amazing.

You are amazing such an honor to have you. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what got you started in the continuing education world?

So you know, we have to have hours to keep our license. And about two years ago I was sitting in this conference room, there was 500 people in there and I watched Netflix the entire time because I was bored outta my brain. And I started to look around the room and I was like. Nobody is paying attention, like nobody was paying attention. And so it made me really, really sad. Now, the speaker was great. There was nothing wrong with the speaker, but it was a topic, we as clinicians, if we've been in the field for an extended period of time, we had learned about it. We've talked about it at least 900 times. And so people just kind of zoned out. And I thought, Hmm, I'm away from my practice. I'm away from my family. I'm in this conference room. I'm not paying attention, I'm not making connections. Hmm, I'm really here just for the hours. And then it kind of hit me, this is not good. We need to do something else. So at that point, I started coming up with the idea where could we do this? How could we do this how can we connect on a different level? Because we need to be with like-minded people. We have to be with other clinicians. We are only one brain. When you go and you talk to somebody else, you're like, oh, I didn't think about that that way. That's huge. And so that's kind of where the baby came and that's how kind of where it started.

Our time is valuable.

And we as clinicians, a lot of us, when we're away from the office, we don't get paid.

Yes.

So if we're gonna be away from the office, let's do it a place where we can make a memory.

Absolutely. So that's what inspired you to create Continuing Education at Sea, your continuing education business. And offering CEUs on a cruise is such a unique concept.

Mm-hmm.

What made you decide to say, what about a cruise?

So remember in the olden days when people were sick, they sent them to the sea to heal. So they sent 'em to the water. If you're an ocean person, when you go to the ocean, you're like, there's just something magical about that. The waves and the sand and the air and the salt and the clouds and the palm trees. You're just like, okay, I can do this. I could live here.

I wanna be there now.

Absolutely. And so I thought, okay, I could rent a big house. And then I thought, well wait, I rent this big house. Then just the clinicians come, they're still away from their family and basically we're doing it in a big house with a pretty scene. Like, I get to look at pretty things, but I'm still away from my family. So then I thought, Hmm, okay, how about I rent a boutique hotel so they could bring their families? Then I thought, Hmm, then I'm gonna have to staff that. How am I gonna do that? And then I was like, you know, where do we like to go to make memories? Cruising. I have my chef, I have my concierge, I have my housekeeping, I have my entertainment, I have my conference rooms. We encourage people to bring their families. We want you to come have respite, make a memory with your family. Go, and we did Greece last year. Go into Greece and see all the stuff you wanna see. And then we would eat dinner at night and we'd do our conferences on the days at sea. And it was amazing. Amazing.

I was so curious about how you planned that. You said they are, uh, days at sea.

Mm-hmm.

And that's when the, when the training typically happens, it sounds like.

Mm-hmm. Because we don't wanna disrupt your time in port. If you're traveling and you're paying to go on this cruise to go see Greece in this example, you know, I want you to spend every minute you have in port. And when you go to Europe, you get to go a few days early to acclimate. So you, it's almost like a vacation in a vacation because you get to go a few days early to see wherever the the port is, you know? When we went to Greece, we went 10 days early, and a lot of people went 10 days early. Some people saw people telehealth during those first 10 days. They just budgeted the timeframe. You know, so I saw patients when I was over there. Obviously you need to check your licensure and the state and statutes and all that, make sure you can do that. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to put a hotel in the night before to where we can do a meet and greet before we even get on the boat.

That is cool. So when you offer the cruises and they leave from Europe, people will fly out to Europe and meet you all there. And maybe even have some time ahead of time to get acclimated. And also, uh, if you're a business owner, this could become a tax write off as well.

It's absolutely a tax write off. You know, a lot of employers pay for continuing education. So if your employer's going to pay for your continuing education and you get to go pick anywhere you wanna go, or they give you a set amount, you can use it on this.

Absolutely.

I've had a lot of people that do that. I have a group practice that wants to send their entire group practice for the week. They're just gonna shut the office down for the week. I'm like, that's a really smart idea. They're using it as incentives. I thought that was a great idea cause I you know, being a, a sole practitioner, I didn't know big companies pay for continuing education, but big companies do and they pay big money. So if a company's gonna give you a thousand dollars a year for your CE credits, why would you not do it on a cruise ship?

I love the business aspect of this. When we put on live events, we do have to think about the staff and the overhead, but I could see where this kind of streamlines and systematizes some stuff for you as well.

It is amazing. So how we do it typically is we find intentional cruises that have a few days at sea. That's important. They have conference rooms with all the AV equipment and everything we need. The first night we go down to the conference room and kind of do a meet and greet and get to know each other. Typically we get ethics outta the way 'cause you know, that's not fun. And then we disperse and we go back to our families and we have dinner and do the fun stuff on the ship. And we might be in ports the next couple of days. Just depends how it falls out. You have breakfast with your family. You do morning workshop, break, morning workshop, lunch with your family or whomever, workshop, workshop, dinner with your family. So you know how they do the Newlywed Game where, you know, the couples go up there, it's the old school and they ask you questions and they see how well you know your spouse and they pick someone that's like maybe newly married, go down the line 50 years and all the way back to honeymoon. And so we had talked in a workshop that day about different communication styles. And so that happened to be on the agenda that night. So we went as a group to watch it, to see the different communication. And then we went back down to the conference room and discussed the different things.

That is so neat.

So much fun.

Not Netflix.

It was so much fun. So that was, that was a neat one. We had another night we just ran into everybody at karaoke. So you see people on the ship. Some people buy the drink package. Some people don't wanna buy the drink package. Some people buy every excursion known to man. Some people are like, Nope, I just wanna wander around in the cities and get a cab and I want you to have those memories. It's so much more than checking a box, but it's fun because, so now we're walking around the ship. And we're like, Hey, what did you guys do today in Port? Did you have fun? Oh, I'll see you later at whatever. You know? So it's not like you're just a family of four walking around the ship. You are a community walking around the ship.

How neat. That sense of belonging, that sense of like, okay, there's a lot of people here, but there's some familiar faces. And that camaraderie that can come with that. Yeah, my guess is it takes some courage to say, this is a new idea. I'm gonna go do this. What was the process like to kind of figure this out?

So we have to be credentialed, to be able to offer these hours you have to go through the different governing bodies. So we're currently approved by NBCC, which covers Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, Licensed Pastoral Counselors. But it also covers LCSWs in, in several states. We have that list on the website, but we also are ASWB for all the social workers. It's a lot of legwork and they have to approve everything, and they have to approve you and they approve all your speakers, and you have to be up on the topics.

How do you pick your speakers and the topics that they present on?

So that comes from the feedback. A lot of people wanna know about ADHD, and a lot of people wanna know about different assessment writing. Maybe they need to know more about grief.

So, coming back to kinda how you structure your trainings on board.

Mm-hmm.

Cruises can be both relaxing and full of activity. How do you design the CE experience to fit into that environment while you're still meeting those professional standards?

So we have to meet the time requirements governed by the boards. The NBCC, ASWB. The first night we tried to get ethics, like I said, out of the way. If we can fit it in. We do morning and afternoon workshops on days at sea. And then we also have a day in there kind of as a backup plan, just in case we need it. And then we do the surveys, give out the certificates. You have to write when you come in and clock when you leave 'cause we have to do it by the boards. We always do three hours of ethics because everybody has to have that. Yeah, Cultural diversity. ADHD is a big topic right now. So we have a lot of speakers coming and talking about ADHD. Couples are a big topic. So we have different speakers coming and talking about different assessments you could use with couples or well, have you tried this modality with a couple? Maybe you need to learn an assessment you can use with a couple that maybe you've never used before. So we can train you on an assessment. Maybe you're working with some trauma and you've never thought about a PTSD assessment. Maybe you don't ever use inventories, you know, but when you leave our workshops, I want you to go, I can do that in my practice the moment I get back, not I got a certificate.

I think that's so important when we're creating continuing education trainings to say like, what is it that we want them to walk away with and be able to implement immediately? If they had a client right after this what would they be able to use?

You know, the logistics beforehand is a lot because we have to make sure we have the speakers that are experts in their field. They're in good standing with their license. Maybe they've never presented on a cruise ship, but they presented somewhere. That they know their material. You know, that they bring something to the table.

So you really are vetting the speakers, you're vetting the material. And so when these people sign up for the cruises that you offer it really is useful, time with their family, tax write offs, all kinds of cool benefits.

That, I mean, that's enough for me right there. Time with my family and a tax write off and I'm on a boat in an ocean. I'm done. We're about to launch our 2026 conference, which is gonna be in Spain next year. And I tried to explain to the travel agents that are booking I said, what we do is we are looking for something like at 11 o'clock at night, midnight, one o'clock in the morning, and for me to go, oh, I can do a continuing education in Spain on a cruise ship and bring my family. I just want the clinicians to go book. Done. I don't want them to have to fill out a form and wait for a call back and do this and do all those things. That's very much the old way we used to do things. So Spain is gonna be a new platform to where literally you can click book, it's one price never changes. And you can pay on it on monthly installments.

I think this is something that isn't talked about a lot when we're talking about continuing education. We're talking about the content and things like that, but that pay me now button and the ease of the checkout process is huge for any sort of thing that we're selling. But you make it easy. They've already made the decision. Maybe they're kind of on the fence, but like, now you're gonna make me use a lot of executive functioning to find what, and to tell you what, or to upload what. Yeah, no, I'm done. I had good intentions. I probably still wanna go on the cruise.

Absolutely. The streamlining of that and for me to be able to go, oh, it's automated. I don't have to think about it. Cause I'm like, I, I'm not doing it the old fashioned way anymore, not doing it. We listen to trauma often, sometimes eight hours a day. And so lots of times when we are decompressing, it might be scrolling through our phone, looking for a continuing ed, looking where for where they're going. Oh, I can go to Spain and I can take my kids and I take my parents. I can take my parents. They're not gonna go to the workshops, but I get to go to Spain with them. Yeah. So they have to book, you have to book through us, because we have to have the group space. But like my parents book through us and you just put they're not going to the conference. And then it's just the ease of that at one o'clock in the morning going boom, done.

There's a book that's called Clockwork by uh, Mike Michalowicz. And he talks so much about the importance of finding what he calls the Queen Bee Role, which is, you know, what is it that you do? And finding how to protect the Queen Bee Role. But us as owners and founders aren't always the queen bee, right? We're not.

Mm-hmm.

We serve it, but how do we then, like if we wanted to take a vacation and not touch our business, what processes would have to be in place for that? How would people be able to sign up without you having to ever touch it?

Mm-hmm.

You know, outside of setting up the platform and the systems ahead of time.

Mm-hmm.

And I love that concept because I think it allows us to then free up our resource, our time, our energy, right. To be back in that design

Yes.

and development place rather than like data entry and like trying to fix things. It leads me to another question what do you wish that you knew before you became a continued education provider?

To become a provider I did not realize how difficult it really was. We want it regulated and we want those boundaries and those laws in place and that, but I was like. Okay, I can do this. Because we, we know as clinicians, we're ethical. We know as clinicians, we have integrity. We know as clinicians, we're gonna follow the rules. Okay. But they don't know us. So it's like, okay, I have to explain this concept again, this way. Explain it, the concept again, this way, and and it's worth it, but it is tedious. You know, like I would, if somebody was upset with something I did, I would fix it, you know? But they don't know me, they don't know my character. So they're like, well, what's your grievance policy? And I'm like. Fix it. Now put that on a piece of paper.

Making sure everything is covered beforehand. How do you navigate the networking and relationships when you're onboard?

So I always say we're the loud family, probably by the buffet. If you ever wanna know where my family's at, we'll be the ones laughing by the food.

I love it.

I want to include people, you know, so if they see my family sitting there and they want to come sit with us, come on, you're welcome to join us. That's fine. We have tables together to sit for dinner. You don't have to sit with us at dinner. You can go to any dining you want to go to, but the table is there. Mm-hmm. So, and also, okay, so you bring your kids. My kids are adults, but some clinicians have little kids, you know, and they're like, well, what are we gonna do with our kids? There were so many fun things for those kids to do. We don't wanna be just parenting in another city. Because when you have kids, sometimes when you're on vacation, you're just parenting at the beach. You're just parenting in another city. The kids have activities. You could, if you gamble, you could go to the casino. If you want to go line dancing, if they wanna stay in and do face painting, they could do that. There's, you know, age groups on there. So you have the younger kids, the middle kids, the older kids, they could come with you to the Broadway plays. I can actually relax. I can actually shut down my brain and not worry about all my patients over here, or is all the laundry done over here, or, you know, whatever the case may be. And I can go, I'm just gonna look at what buffet I am going to.

That's an important aspect that parents are gonna be thinking about. So I think even the thoughtfulness that you've put into what cruise liner you're choosing, right?

Mm-hmm.

What are the destinations, what are the things that they can do that does create this whole experience.

And the reason we're choosing next summer is 'cause kids are outta school. I was riding go-karts in the middle of Alaska, in the middle of the ocean. I was like, wow, there's icebergs around me. This is cool, you know? And it's amazing. And Greece, you know, you're looking over the ship and I'm looking at the whole side of Turkey going. I never thought in my life I'd ever get to Turkey.

How do you pick the destinations for the cruises?

I listen to what people say, what other clinicians say, and so that's a part of the reason why we're going to Spain and Italy is because people said, I want to go there.

It sounds like you're an adventurer.

I am. I am. We have one shot at this life and I wanna make the memories and I want to make 'em with my family, and I want to enjoy life. To be there and to be like, I've only seen the white buildings with the blue tops on movies. To see the ruins or to see the Parthenon or to see Split, Croatia. I am a cancer survivor 19 years ago, and they were doing a run that day through Split. It's just, those memories are huge. I would encourage you, bring your family, bring your parents, if you like your parents. I bring my parents and my kids and I bring a lot of people.

You're making it work for you, something that's important to you. Gotta bring in income, right? Resource helps everything keep going. Mm-hmm. But you're doing it in a very creative, fun way and I just hear your values come through.

Mm-hmm.

And that you're providing that experience for others as well, right?

Think about it. If we don't have our hours

Mm-hmm

we're not growing as clinicians. You can get these, you can get hours free. You can go on whatever site and get 'em for, you know, $99 a year. You don't have to do something elaborate like this. But that work-life balance and that self-care and that respite and those memories that you'll make with your children, and you get to write it off. Do you know the average American only gets 4,100 weekends in their life. You know, so I'd spend every one of mine on a cruise ship.

How did you start getting the word out about Continuing Education at Sea?

Talking to other clinicians.

Yeah.

And you know, I'm in Tennessee, so talking to other clinicians in Tennessee. And then you, your group. That's an amazing Facebook group.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, that's huge. But really talking to other clinicians, going to speaking at other events, making sure people know about it.

What kind of feedback have you heard from participants and in what ways has that influenced how you shape or evolve this experience?

So the very first one we did, the feedback was that we did not navigate the port days well. They were like, we're coming back too early from port. So if Port says we have to be at the boat at six, there's nothing happening before six. That was a huge one 'cause I was like, oh man, you know, I didn't think of that. Um, you know and all the other feedback we have gotten is, this is amazing. I love it. I love that I get to bring my family, speakers are amazing. I love the experiential. So in the Europe one that's coming up in 2026, we have a New York bestselling author that's gonna be on there that happens to be a psychologist and LPC. And so he's going to actually do a comedy night just for us.

That sounds so fun.

Yeah. So that's exciting. Mm-hmm.

And comedy helps us remember things.

Absolutely. And we have sponsors on that. It's just fun. We need to be mindful that this whole time we're telling other people how to reduce anxiety and reduce depression. But we need to also sit and relax and calm our spirit too.

And it brings people back.

We have repeat attendees happening this year. And I'm like, that made me so happy.

That's so amazing. That is so cool.

And some of our attendees from last year are gonna be presenters coming up.

So building a community as well.

Yes.

That is so cool. And repeat customers. It's such an honor.

That's very flattering to me. Like, oh, I did something right. You know? I'm thankful for my speakers. I could not do this without the speakers. You know, I'm only an expert in this small window.

It sounds like you have a team with you.

We do. The speakers often help. My adult children always help. We want you to feel special. You know, traveling is expensive. That's why streamlining and automating that payment plan is huge. But on top of all that, making sure you feel special and honored and valued and loved and cared for while you're there and you're learning something and you're making memories with your family. And that's all that's important.

Jennifer, I so appreciate you sharing just all of this information with us today. So if people are listening where can they find you?

You can find us at ContinuingEducation atSea.com. If anybody ever wants to present, I would love to talk to 'em. If anybody wants to attend, I would love to have them. I just want people to come and learn and enjoy and realize that they deserve some work-life balance too. Our time with our children is so short. So could you imagine? My kids are always gonna remember going to Alaska. They're always gonna remember going to Greece. They're always gonna remember going to Venice. You can go and get your CE hours for free here, there, wherever, throughout the year. And you might be half asleep, zone out to 'em, or you might pay attention to 'em and really do your due diligence, you know? But being on a cruise ship, taking a holiday with your family, making memories, priceless. And you get your CE hours? And you learn something? And you get to bring it back to your practice. That's just win-win, win all over the place. I hope one day we can sell out the entire ship. Could you imagine the whole ship? That would be so much fun.

You are dreaming big. And what an incredible way to make this work for you. I just so appreciate all the wisdom and tips that you've shared today. I am sure that so many listeners are going to say, wait, I can do something that's new and fresh and something that I care about, or I can go on a cruise and bring family and also get my CEs taken care of. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I just hope that you continue to have so much success. I look forward to continuing to stay updated with you and the work that you're doing and just see as this expands, you know, again, I think that when we take care of the customers and the people that are coming to us and trusting us, it shows, it matters. And I can absolutely hear, even in our conversation, just how you show up and what, how those values come in into play. So it's just an honor to have you here today.

Thank you for having me. You make me feel like a million bucks.