Nikki Huelsman

Boozhoo, Aniin Nikki, Bangishimod indishinikaz, Ogishkiimanisii indoodem, mikinaak wajiw indoojiba. This is a traditional Ojibwe greeting that includes Nikki’s English name, her Ojibwe name, clan and the land that her spirit is tied to. She uses this greeting in honor of her ancestors. 

Nikki is a multiply-disabled, neurodivergent Occupational Therapist (OT), disability rights advocate and consultant, and Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe woman). She is also a single mother of three neurodivergent teenagers. She has worked in the field of occupational therapy for the past 19 years—beginning as an occupational therapy assistant and, for the past nine years, as a licensed occupational therapist.

Her work has spanned diverse settings, with a primary focus on supporting individuals with complex mental health needs, especially autism. This has been a particular area of professional and personal passion since the beginning of her career. She’s worked with autistic individuals in schools, outpatient clinics, and most recently as a neurodiversity-affirming, community-based OT in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area.

As a 2015–2016 LEND fellow, Nikki deepened her commitment to self-advocacy, self-determination, and person-centered systems. She is especially skilled in verbal de-escalation, co-regulation, and the therapeutic use of self. They are tools she’s refined over two decades in practice.

Nikki’s work is deeply informed by her lived experience as a mixed-race, Indigenous, first-generation college graduate who grew up in extreme poverty while navigating undiagnosed disabilities and systemic racism. She understands the intersecting challenges faced by those living at the margins because she has lived them too.

What excites Nikki most about her work as an Inclusion Consultant is the opportunity to co-create meaningful systems change. She’s spent years working in disabled people's homes and communities, witnessing firsthand the harm caused by systemic failures. These experiences fuel her advocacy and consulting work.

In her free time, she enjoys writing, hiking, kayaking, dancing, concerts, roller skating, furiously loom-knitting little turtles, and doing just about anything with her kids, bonus kids, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and -nephews—and, come Summer 2025, her first grandchild!