Kelly Billings
Instructor

Kelly Billings is a leader in various advocacy initiatives. He’s led groups and mobilized volunteers in domestic and international crises. Until joining MA Company, Kelly worked as a spiritual counselor for Oregon hospice patients, providing spiritual and emotional support to reduce anxiety and unprocessed distress as they approached the end of their lives. As a chaplain, Kelly worked with veterans in VA Portland Health Care System’s inpatient mental health unit and its long-term care facility. Kelly previously worked for several years in the Middle East, where he provided relief and emotional and spiritual support to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Palestine.

After his initial experiences in crisis situations, Kelly sought a professional path to focus on mental health care. From an early age, Kelly was affected by generational mental-emotional health issues that  his family experienced yet did not discuss. Over time, Kelly grasped the damage that could come from silence and a lack of care options and realized that in-patient care often is the first step not only for an individual in distress but also for those who care about the individual.    

Kelly holds a bachelor’s degree in management and ethics from John Wesley College in North Carolina and a master’s degree in applied theology from the University of Bristol, England. He has undergone training in energy work and Reiki, a Japanese form of alternative medicine. He’s engaged in clinical pastoral education at VA Portland. Kelly has completed work in Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation’s Living School, the United Nations' Disaster\Ready humanitarian aid courses and Harvard University’s Building a Better Response course. Before moving to Oregon, he also worked with unhoused neighbors in North Carolina.