Danesha Ward, a Holistic Integrative Therapist, Creative Wellness Innovator founder of Dream Identity Counseling, where creativity, conversation and coaching are used to make wellness personal and practical.  She works with organizations, schools and communities to lead wellness workshops, speak on emotional intelligence, and facilitate the signature Art-to-Heart experience. Danesha's mission is to help people move from surviving to thriving by giving them the tools to build their Dream Identity,  the healthiest, most aligned version of themselves.

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Danesha graduated from The University of Memphis with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Research and Education. While in undergraduate studies, Danesha served as a peer advisor for incoming and transfer students within the Psychology Department of U of M.  She then continued the need for peer support and began a teen girl's mentoring program at her high school Alma Mater labeled "Strength Matters."

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Danesha Ward, a Holistic Integrative Therapist, Creative Wellness Innovator founder of Dream Identity Counseling, where creativity, conversation and coaching are used to make wellness personal and practical. 

 She works with organizations, schools and communities to lead wellness workshops, speak on emotional intelligence, and facilitate the signature Art-to-Heart experience. Danesha's mission is to help people move from surviving to thriving by giving them the tools to build their Dream Identity,  the healthiest, most aligned version of themselves.

 

Danesha has history in serving various populations within health care such as serving as a Mental Health and Substance Use Counselor Intern assisting dual diagnosis and addiction recovery, a Family Systems Counselor Intern providing counseling services to domestic violence victims, family witnesses and victimizers, recidivism therapy with offenders of abuse navigate society re-entry skills exiting the prison or jail system.  

Danesha used her Child Play Therapy skills trained to serve youth in the Salvation Army housing population to create a Mental Health program and provide psycho-education for teens who participated in the on campus summer camp labeled Dream Memphis at the Historical Black College, LeMoyne Owen College.

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Danesha served as the Lead Adolescent therapist at an Acute Hospitalization Program in Mississippi managing short-term, in-patient crisis clients and later as Lead Adolescent therapist of a Behavioral Health Residential Treatment Facility.  In both job roles, she provided counseling to individuals with severe crisis, suicide ideations and attempts, mental diagnosis cormorbid with alcohol and substance use, extreme behavior management risks and family systems. Along with being the therapist in this role, as lead, she worked along the unit’s nurses, teachers and other staff members  to manage the structure of the staff's unity and collaborate to enhance individualized treatment planning for client care. She then served as a Traveling Therapist Independent Contractor for the Lee County Public School System providing therapy services to inner community children and families. 

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In the height of 2020, as Covid-19 and social injustice took a rapid adjustment for attention and force of change, she was asked to guest speak and share the need for holistic wellness on various community platforms.  The need for community wellness led to Danesha's venture of public speaking and business wellness consulting for health care workers and minority mental health advocacy

 

​During the peak of Covid, Danesha served as a therapist at Lifescape and was the agency's Video Content Creator of virtual content shared on social media to promote creative self-care skills during lockdown stages. Her weekly live virtual segments of Art-to-Heart provided the community with creative and artistic tools to release their stressors, thoughts and feelings through creative expression.  The virtual segment became an in-person art therapy-technique group and is currently available in the SWFL area.  Dream Identity Counseling now offers scholarship programs to teens and families through Art-to-Heart to promote more availability and access to mental health care.

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Danesha continues to bridge the gap of Mental Health awareness through innovating wellness events, programming and teaching future clinicians in the Human Services and   Counseling Department of Hillsborough College.  Her initiatives to help create a well community continues to morph to provide community resources and meet the needs for overall systemic success and wellness.​​