About

David’s story started right here in Orlando. Growing up as a first-generation Hispanic-American, David struggled with feeling settled. Internally, he searched to find the balance between two very different cultures. Externally, his home life was constantly in limbo, as he moved from home to home due to financial hardships. Through these difficult seasons he learned how to empathize with those who are in uncertain and challenging seasons as he was. He also realized the importance of learning resiliency and how it shaped his view of becoming more than his past and circumstances. Psychologist Carl Jung once said, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” With that in mind, the hope and plan is to move towards one’s ideal, true self; moving from feeling stuck to feeling empowered. After earning his bachelor’s degree, David started down the path of becoming a pastor. However, in his time serving with young adults and youth ministry at a local church, David discovered he enjoyed the care aspects of pastoring much more than teaching. He left his role at the church to start working as a social worker at a local homeless shelter downtown. There, he worked alongside families to help navigate them through the difficult season of homelessness and to help reintroduce them to society as a professional and secure stable housing for them. He has also worked at a psychiatry office in Winter Park, where he gained insight from psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health counselors into different types of treatment modalities, theoretical orientations, and options of care for clients. David is a male bilingual, first-generation Hispanic-American counselor. David enjoys cycling on his road bicycle, trail and road running, reading both fiction and non-fiction books, going to the Disney parks with his wife, exploring nature in local and state parks, and having game nights with friends.