Leina has been in the field for 17 years. She is a licensed Marriage and Family therapist and her native language is Spanish.

Leina was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. Afterwards, Leina moved to New Jersey and began working at YAI/National Institute for People with Disabilities as a job counselor for people with high functioning developmental disabilities. She went on to study for her Masters Degree in Counseling at New Jersey City University. As part of her program, she did an internship at Casa De Pedro, where she provided counseling to a wide range of clients in the Hispanic community of Newark. After she finished her Masters Degree, Leina was not done with her education and entered the Professional Diploma program at Kean University, specializing in Marriage and Family therapy. Leina did another year and half internship at Family Service League in Montclair, NJ. She worked with clients who suffered from depression, anxiety, couples, families, domestic violence victims as well as those who were court-ordered to do therapy after being charged with committing domestic violence.

Once she graduated, she moved to Brooklyn and joined New York Foundling where she worked as a Functional Family Therapist, doing in-home therapy for families with an at-risk youth. Some of the behaviors covered were truancy, substance use, verbal/physical aggression, gang involvement, criminal behavior, breaking curfew, AWOL behavior, and others. While working with families, Leina had the opportunity to work with a range of concerns/issues including depression, anxiety, manic depressive disorder, trauma related issues, past sexual assault, to name a few. At New York Foundling, her experience continued to grow and was eventually promoted to Functional Family Therapy Supervisor.

Leina prides herself on being very supportive and understanding of her clients. Trust is very important and essential in the relationship between therapist and client and Leina works very hard in building that right away with all of her clients. Self-care is very important to her and when not at work, Leina spends a lot of time watching movies. The Oscars is her version of the Super Bowl. She is also a big fan of Real Madrid, one of the most popular teams in international football.