Michelle M. Morton

My journey into mental health counseling began when I was studying journalism and mass communication at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. I had the opportunity to intern in Washington, D.C. with Comcast Newsmakers and Roll Call TV, and while I was there, I learned that my passion was to help young girls and women. When I got back to Fort Myers, I decided to go work at a human trafficking agency, and from there, I decided that I wanted to go into mental health counseling. So I went back to school after my bachelor's degree to get my master's as a licensed mental health counselor. I worked in the jail system, I worked in the school system, and then I came back to Tampa and worked in several nonprofits and in the school system with young girls. In 2018, I founded my own company called As She Speaks Coaching, where I started the only all-women's open mic in Tampa, Florida, and began doing workshops and presentations and events through using mental health and poetry together. I still do a workshop called Poetry Meets Mental Health, which is a therapeutic group, online therapy that I do once a month for women in the community. It was founded in 2019 during COVID. I also do my annual slam for women only poets that incorporates mental health, and I bring out different organizations and platforms that use mental health. Currently, I work at the University of South Florida as the embedded therapist at the College of Engineering and also at the Counseling Center, and I'm the outreach coordinator for suicide prevention. My focus is really on awareness, advocacy, and giving women services for mental health, helping them to find their call, their purpose, and helping them heal and become whole.