Aisha T. McDonald, LMHC

Aisha T. McDonald is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Certified Trauma Expert who has worked with marginalized populations within South Florida specifically those with severe and persistent mental illness, forensic population, individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, youth in the welfare system, and individuals who are involuntarily hospitalized. She is currently the Director of Training Initiatives and primary facilitator for the Mental Health First Aid program in her community, where she facilitates an 8-hour course on mental illness and crisis de-escalation and intervention and has trained over 3000 individuals since January 2019 to present. Additionally, she oversees the Crisis Intervention Team training program for the local sheriff’s department and municipal police agencies as well as community wide behavioral health education trainings for service providers. Aisha is also a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging consultant and does DEI work that is focused on eliminating systemic barriers to equity in our society. She provides professional development training to community organizations and universities and has presented workshops and sat as an expert on panel discussions nationwide. In addition, she also serves on her agency’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti- Racism Committee as well as the council’s Creative Content Committee that aims at developing DEI materials and social media content to promote cultural awareness, education, and equity. Aisha was also selected as an expert to serve on a multi-agency cadre of race experts and organizational development consultants. Most importantly, the intersectionality of her identity as a Black Immigrant Caribbean woman who has lived with mental health concerns has been important for her to promote awareness of the reality of mental illness and how it is impacted by generational trauma, personal experiences, and societal factors. She has worked in promoting awareness of Black mental health through a documentary created by her agency called “Faded Conversations: Bringing Black Mental Health to the Forefront.” The documentary served as a great tool to guide honest conversations about the role of masculinity, culture, and race in mental health, and specifically how members of the Black community access treatment. The documentary afforded her the opportunity to organize and facilitate screenings and host discussions with Black barbershops in the community as well as at community agencies that serve the Black and Brown communities in order to reduce cultural stigma and spread awareness and education. She has organized and performed in Slam Poetry events throughout the community addressing issues of violence, trauma, and self-awareness within the Black and Caribbean community. In addition, she also served on the Broward County’s 2020 Census Committee where she served as the Chair for the Caribbean subcommittee and assisted in developing and dispersing Census materials focused on garnering participation from the Caribbean diaspora within the county.