Professional Life

Habeebah Rasheed Grimes is a visionary, heart-centered leader and advocate for healing and justice. She draws upon a rich tapestry of personal experiences and professional expertise to champion empathy, equity, and liberation for marginalized youth and families. As the founder and principal consultant of Habeebah Rasheed Grimes LLC, she partners with individuals and organizations to implement trauma-informed, healing-centered, and liberatory practices that improve outcomes for young people and communities.

With over 25 years of experience in mental health and education, Habeebah is a nationally recognized voice on trauma-informed care and culturally responsive leadership. As CEO of Positive Education Program (PEP), one of Northeast Ohio’s largest mental health agencies for children, she led a staff of 400 and significantly expanded the organization’s capacity to provide community-based services to youth with complex needs. Her leadership helped center equity, staff wellness, and innovation as essential drivers of positive organizational change.

Habeebah recognizes that trauma is a collective and embodied experience—and that all healing is relational. She grounds her work in the wellness of minoritized women and children with the understanding that their wellbeing is essential if humanity is to thrive. Believing that personal stories have healing power, she created No Crystal Stair Podcast, a storytelling platform that centers the lived experiences of Black mothers raising sons, to amplify the power of narrative as a tool for connection, restoration, and resistance.

Training

Habeebah holds a master’s degree in clinical/counseling psychology and a specialist degree in school psychology from Cleveland State University. She is trained in the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics and has completed training in Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism.

Civic Engagement

Habeebah is an appointee to the board of Prevent Child Abuse America and is a trustee of The Woodruff Foundation, which provides philanthropic support to nonprofit organizations addressing behavioral health needs in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. She is chair of Cuyahoga County’s Advisory Council on Equity and past chair of the Mental Health and Addiction Advocacy Coalition’s Northeast Ohio Steering Committee. Other engagements have included serving on the State of Ohio’s Children’s Behavioral Health Prevention Stakeholder Group, the OhioRISE (Resilience through Integrated Systems and Excellence) Advisory Council, and Cleveland’s 19 News advisory council for its The Next 400 series.

Accomplishments

Habeebah’s work and leadership have earned widespread recognition. She is a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Ladder to Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders fellowship and an alumna of Leadership Cleveland’s Class of 2020. She was named a Crain’s Cleveland Business 40 Under 40 honoree in 2015 and a Woman of Note in 2022. Her alma mater, Cleveland State University, awarded her its Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019. In 2022, she was inducted into the Cleveland Heights High School Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. Most recently, she received the Urban League of Greater Cleveland Education Champion Award (2023), the Bruce D. Perry Spirit of the Child Award from the University of California, Davis’s Napa Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship (2024), and the prestigious NAACP Cleveland Community Leadership Award (2025).

Personal Life

Habeebah grew up witnessing her brother, Hashim, struggle with severe childhood and adult mental health challenges. She sees her work and service as a tribute to his memory and her mother’s determined spirit. She resides in Cleveland, Ohio with her husband, John, and their two young sons.

Speaking Events

Habeebah is a sought after presenter, trainer and panelist. She has been an invited speaker at numerous live and virtual events.

• Panelist, A Response from Cleveland: A Special Film Screening & Discussion on Mental Health, Peel Dem Layers Back, November 27, 2021

• Invited Guest, Our Constellation of Care, Education Suspended Podcast, October 25, 2021

• Invited Presenter, Creating A Culture of Healing, College Now Greater Cleveland, August 26, 2021

• Invited Presenter, Adolescent Brain Development & Developmental Trauma, College Now Greater Cleveland, August 19, 2021

• Invited Presenter, Lessons in Healing & Resilience: Reflections on Trauma-Informed Care and Organizational Change, Rising Tide Conference, June 17, 2021

• Invited Presenter, Reckoning with Racism in the Age of Trauma-Informed Care: Addressing Institutional and Structural Racism in Mental Health Care, Napa Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship, The University of California, Davis, June 12, 2021

• Invited Presenter, More Than Their Trauma: Moving Beyond the ACEs Study to Support Youth Healing, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, May 15, 2021

• Invited Presenter, The Urgency of Now: Why Anti-Racism is Essential to the Practice of Trauma-Informed Care, School Social Workers Conference, The University of Texas at Austin, February 25, 2021

• Invited Presenter, Pursuing Healing in the Absence of Justice, Virtual Montessori Experience, American Montessori International, February 14, 2021

• Keynote Speaker, The Urgency of Now: Why Anti-Racism is Essential to the Practice of Trauma-Informed Care, Ohio Department of Education, Trauma Informed Care Conference, November 7, 2020

• Panelist, Caring for Educators in the Trauma-Informed Environment, The City Club of Cleveland, Oct. 9, 2020

• Panelist, Racism, Inequity, and Public Health: Cuyahoga County's Response, Part II, The City Club of Cleveland, January 14, 2021

• Panelist, Racism: A Public Mental Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, December 2, 2020

• Panelist, Faith Friday: Ask the Experts, Ohio Governor’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, September 25, 2020

• Invited Guest, Aspire, WOVU 95.9, Aired on August 21, 2020

• Panelist, Freedom After Juneteenth: Policing and Trauma, Karamu House Inc., August 20, 2020

• Invited Presenter, Reckoning with Racism in the Age of Trauma Informed Care, University of California-Davis, Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellows, August 7, 2020

• Panelist, Caring for Children and Families through COVID-19, Shaker Heights City Schools, June 24, 2020

• Panelist, Black Mental Health Matters, The City Club of Cleveland, June 16, 2020

• Invited Presenter, Neurosequential Model Network Office Hours with Dr. Bruce Perry, June 10, 2020

• Panelist, YWCA Greater Cleveland Go LIVE for Equity: Separate and Not Equal: Education in the Face of COVID-19, May 15, 2020

• Invited Presenter, More Than Their Trauma: Moving Beyond the ACEs Study to Support Student Healing & Learning in School Settings, Educational Service Center of Northeast Ohio, December 17, 2020