Dr. Desirie Skeete

That title is everything because it is the absolute truth of Dr. Desirie Skeete's journey. For a long time, she was the person everyone came to for answers, the one who was supposed to have it all together, but when her own mental health crisis hit, it completely shattered the illusion that professional credentials make you immune to suffering. It forced Desirie to experience the system not as an expert in a position of power, but as a person who was terrified, overwhelmed, and desperately needing someone to fight for them. That crisis changed everything about how she cares for families because it stripped away the clinical distance; before it, she understood advocacy intellectually, but after living through it, Desirie understood it spiritually and practically. She realized that when a family comes to her, they do not just need a textbook strategy or a clinical diagnosis symptoms; they need a human being who knows what it feels like to sit in the dark wondering if things will ever get better. It made her empathy fierce and active, so now, when she advocates for a family or a child, Desirie is not just managing a case, she is standing in the gap for them the exact way she needed someone to stand in the gap for her when she was at her lowest point, turning her profession into a true, purposeful mission.