Explore how unresolved trauma ripples through families and communities across generations, and discover practical approaches to breaking the cycle and creating healing for future generations.
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Influential Woman · Law Enforcement and Mental Health Professional
Deneisha Leggett, MSW
MSW
Law Enforcement Officer, pending Registered Clinical Social Work Intern, Deneisha Leggett
Port St Lucie, FL 34987
14Years experience
1Article published
3Awards received
“
Trust is reciprocal, credibility is built on repetition and responsibility, and I never gatekeep knowledge from the next generation.
Deneisha Leggett, MSW · In Her Own Words
Her Story
About Deneisha
Deneisha Leggett, MSW, is a law enforcement professional and clinical social worker with 13 years of experience at the intersection of public safety and mental health. She specializes in crisis intervention, de-escalation, and trauma-informed care, with experience across law enforcement, dispatch, community support within correctional facilities, schools, and community mental health settings. In her early twenties, Deneisha founded Let’s Talk Teen as a nonprofit focused on supporting young people. Years later, her experiences in law enforcement and clinical practice led her to recognize the profound impact of intergenerational trauma and inspired her to rebrand Let’s Talk Teen with a broader mission: helping adults heal stories shaped during adolescence while guiding today’s youth toward healthier futures.
Deneisha remains committed to community engagement and has served as a liaison between law enforcement and juvenile programs since 2011. She also volunteered with Crisis Text Line and recently served as a presenter on a virtual panel focused on recruiting student interns and building partnerships with universities for Crisis Text Line, helping connect future professionals with opportunities in the mental health field. Throughout her career, Deneisha has been recognized by both her agency and the community, including being named Deputy of the Month on multiple occasions, receiving recognition from citizens for her service, and being featured in her agency’s Women in Law Enforcement series. She was also honored through a community partnership campaign recognizing first responders serving individuals and families in need.
Deneisha is preparing to transition into crisis response work through a co-response model that partners law enforcement and behavioral health professionals to support individuals experiencing mental health crises and connect them with appropriate resources and services.
She recently earned her Master of Social Work and is pursuing clinical licensure. Her long-term goals include advancing as a leader within her law enforcement agency and building a sustainable, impactful clinical practice focused on healing intergenerational trauma. Through every role she holds, Deneisha is committed to creating meaningful community impact, interrupting cycles of trauma, and helping individuals and families build healthier legacies for future generations.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Deneisha
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success first and foremost to my faith, my resilience, and the people who helped shape me from a very young age. My mother taught me how to persevere through obstacles, and my older brother has always been a mentor who showed me the importance of discipline, vision, and leadership. I also credit my spouse. Watching him work hard, stay committed, and move through challenges without complaining has been a powerful example to me. It reinforces the importance of consistency, discipline, and perseverance and reminds me that success is often less about talent and more about showing up every day and doing the work. Lastly, I've always been intentional about who I surround myself with and how I continue to grow. I'm a lifelong student. I'm constantly listening to podcasts, reading, learning, and exposing myself to new ideas. I seek mentors, visionaries, and people who challenge me to think bigger. For me, success is about remaining teachable, continuing to evolve, and using what I've learned to positively impact others.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
A captain I worked for once told me there's a difference between mistakes of the heart and mistakes of the mind. That advice taught me to give myself grace when my intentions are good while also being intentional in my decisions. It reminded me that mistakes are part of growth, but self-awareness and accountability determine what we learn from them. That lesson has guided me throughout my career and personal life.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Don't allow stereotypes, expectations, or gender roles to limit what you believe is possible for yourself. Never underestimate the value of your voice and your perspective. There will always be people with more experience or credentials, but no one has your unique story or lived experiences. Invest in your growth, seek mentors, remain teachable, and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Most importantly, don't wait for a title to become a leader. Leadership is about influence, service, and having the courage to use your voice.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I believe one of the greatest opportunities is helping people better understand the impact of intergenerational trauma. Through both law enforcement and mental health, I've seen how unresolved trauma can affect individuals, families, and communities across generations. I've seen it show up in crisis calls, family dynamics, and the challenges people carry into adulthood. The opportunity lies in education, awareness, and early intervention. By helping people understand their stories, heal from past experiences, and break unhealthy cycles, we can create healthier families, stronger communities, and a better future for generations to come.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity, compassion, accountability, and impact. Integrity means doing the right thing even when no one is watching. Compassion means leading with empathy and recognizing the humanity in others. Accountability means holding myself to the same standard I expect from others.
Impact is what drives me. There are many wealthy people whose names we may never know, but history remembers those who changed lives, influenced communities, and left something meaningful behind. I don't aspire to build a legacy based solely on financial success. I aspire to be impactful, to be a pioneer in the spaces I occupy, and to leave people, families, and communities better than I found them.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Deneisha
When Trauma Becomes a Story We Inherit
Breaking the Cycle of Intergenerational Trauma Through Mental Health, Self Awareness, and the Courage to Rewrite the Stories We Carry
Breaking the Cycle: Understanding Intergenerational Trauma
Throughout my career in both law enforcement and mental health, I have begun to recognize how unresolved trauma can impact individuals, families, and communities across generations. What I have witnessed has changed the way I understand individual behavior, how people interact within society, and how unresolved trauma can shape and damage relationships.
Intergenerational trauma is not simply about what happened to us. It is also about what happened before us and what was never given the opportunity to be processed, understood, or healed.
Trauma can become a language families speak without realizing they are speaking it. It can appear in how a parent communicates with a child, how someone responds to conflict, how love is expressed, how emotions are suppressed, or how survival becomes mistaken for strength.
When pain remains unresolved, it can become someone else's starting point.
The Adult Behind the Behavior
My work in law enforcement and mental health has allowed me to see people through the lens of crisis and public safety, as well as through the lenses of mental health, trauma, and healing. In both settings, I have encountered adults navigating wounds that did not necessarily begin in adulthood. Their reactions may be happening in the present, but the story behind those reactions may have started decades earlier.
This is why I believe we have to become more intentional about asking, "What happened to you?" rather than simply asking, "What is wrong with you?"
Looking beyond behavior allows us to begin understanding the story underneath it.
For me, this is personal. My passion for addressing intergenerational trauma is connected to my lived experiences. Through my personal experiences and professional work, I have developed a deeper understanding of how trauma can influence the way people see themselves, interact with others, raise their children, and build relationships.
I believe people deserve the opportunity to understand the stories shaping them.
We cannot always change what happened to us, but we can change what happens next.
You Can Restructure a Thought Without Rewriting the Story
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has taught us the importance of recognizing how our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviors. Challenging unhealthy thoughts is an important part of healing, but I believe we must also ask a deeper question:
What happens when you restructure the thought but never examine the story?
You can teach someone to challenge the thought, "I am not good enough," but where did that belief come from? Who taught them that? What experiences reinforced it? How long have they been carrying a story that may have never truly belonged to them?
This is where Narrative Therapy becomes meaningful. Narrative Therapy allows us to examine the stories we have developed about ourselves and recognize that we are not the sum of our experiences.
Existential therapy can then help us explore meaning, identity, freedom, responsibility, and the person we choose to become despite what we have experienced.
CBT can help us challenge the thought. Narrative Therapy can help us examine the story. It allows us to separate the person from the problem and begin exploring alternative narratives. Existential therapy can help us explore what comes next.
Together, these approaches remind us that healing is not simply about thinking differently. Sometimes, healing requires understanding differently.
Trauma Does Not Change Just Because Times Change
We are living through tremendous change. Technology, families, communities, and the way we understand mental health continue to evolve. Yet trauma does not automatically disappear because society changes.
The circumstances may look different, but unresolved pain can continue influencing how people respond to themselves and others.
A parent who learned vulnerability was dangerous may raise a child who learns to suppress emotion. Someone who grew up believing survival meant never asking for help may become an adult who refuses support. A person who experienced instability may remain hypervigilant even after entering a safe environment.
The environment may have changed. The nervous system may still remember.
Unresolved trauma can also affect relationships. It can make trust, communication, vulnerability, boundaries, and emotional connection difficult. Sometimes people respond to those closest to them from an old wound rather than the reality of the present moment.
Without understanding the wound, relationships can become places where old pain is repeatedly reenacted instead of healed.
The Community Impact
Intergenerational trauma does not remain inside the walls of a home. It can influence schools, workplaces, relationships, neighborhoods, and communities.
When unresolved trauma becomes normalized, unhealthy patterns can begin to feel ordinary. Generational distrust can become community distrust. Generational silence can become emotional isolation.
When enough individuals within a community carry unresolved trauma, the impact becomes collective. This is why mental health cannot only be an individual conversation. We must also talk about families, communities, and the stories repeated across generations.
Addressing intergenerational trauma does not mean blaming previous generations. It means developing compassion for those who came before us while recognizing our responsibility for what we pass forward.
We can honor where we came from without remaining bound to it.
We Are Not Powerless Over the Story
One of the most powerful principles I find in biblical Scripture is found in Romans 12:2, which speaks about transformation through the renewing of the mind.
To me, renewal represents more than positive thinking. It represents transformation—the willingness to examine what we believe, where those beliefs came from, and whether they still serve who we are becoming.
We can inherit a story without being required to continue it.
That is why addressing intergenerational trauma matters so deeply to me. We have an opportunity to help adolescents understand their experiences before unhealthy patterns become their identity, while also helping adults recognize the stories they have carried for years.
Sometimes, healing begins with a simple question:
"Is this my story, or is this a story I inherited?"
We may not be able to rewrite the first chapters, but we can become intentional about the chapters that come next.
Perhaps the greatest measure of healing is not simply feeling better. Perhaps it is creating a future where the generation after us has less to heal from.
That is the work.
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