BEFORE THE BEGINNINGMeet the
Women
Behind
Rooted & Rising
Rooted & Rising was founded by Lina Rodas Hurtado and Lisette Duarte, bringing clinical care and community advocacy together in one practice.
Our earliest work took place inside institutions: hospital-affiliated programs, community-based organizations, and systems designed to serve populations they did not always understand.
Where We Began
What We Learned
What We Carried
Systems of Change
Facilitating learning on neurodiversity and disability inclusion taught us how identity, culture, and access shape whether a person is met with dignity — or simply processed by a system.
Education
Direct clinical practice in crisis intervention, trauma-informed care, and family therapy has shown us what becomes possible when support is culturally grounded, rather than symptom-focused alone.
Behavioral Health
Serving as clinical directors, program developers, and supervisors within behavioral health and disability systems, we came to understand leadership as a sustained relationship with responsibility, judgment, and the people a system is meant to serve.
Leadership
What We Practiced
Grassroots
Organizations
Where We Rooted
Years of community-based partnership work — organizing, advocacy, and bilingual programming developed alongside families rather than for them — confirmed what clinical practice alone could not: that healing and access are collective conditions, not individual outcomes.
Where It Led
Everything since has been built on one idea: a person can't be helped by a system that doesn't first see them clearly.
Rooted & Rising
What led us here
Before Rooted & Rising had a name, it had a history — one built
across classrooms, clinics, community organizations, and leadership rooms.
Co-Founder | Executive Director
Lisette DuArte
Lisette Duarte is a respected community advocate and leader with extensive experience building partnerships, organizing community initiatives, and advancing equity for individuals with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). She has led both small- and large-scale community events, developed and facilitated educational workshops on neurodiversity and disability inclusion, and has been a trusted voice for families navigating complex service systems.
Her work includes years of collaboration with community-based organizations, including Special Needs Network, where she has supported advocacy, education, and resource development for underserved communities. Lisette has also engaged in systems-level advocacy at the local, district, and state levels, working alongside families, community leaders, and policymakers to improve access to services and promote inclusive practices.
She is recognized for her ability to bring together families, community organizations, public agencies, and advocates to create collaborative solutions that strengthen community capacity and improve access to resources.
Through Rooted & Rising, Lisette leads community engagement and partnership development, fostering meaningful collaborations that ensure programming is responsive to community priorities, culturally relevant, and grounded in the lived experiences of the individuals and families it serves.
Co-Founder | Clinical Director
LINA RODAS
Lina Rodas Hurtado is a bilingual Licensed Clinical Social Worker, behavioral health executive, clinical supervisor, community educator, and trauma-informed leader. She has worked in behavioral health since 2013, supporting children, adolescents, adults, and families across hospital-affiliated, community-based, developmental-disability, educational, and private-practice settings.
Lina earned her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her Master of Social Work from California State University, Los Angeles in 2017. She is licensed as a Clinical Social Worker by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.
A significant part of her clinical work has centered on supporting women — particularly Black and Brown women — through the personal work of separating identity from shame, reconnecting with their needs and values, and strengthening their voice and leadership within their families, professions, and communities.
Her professional experience includes Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the USC University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development, and organizations supporting autistic and developmentally disabled children and families. Her areas of expertise include adolescent mental health, autism and ADHD, trauma, suicide prevention and intervention, family support, gender-affirming care, clinical supervision, program development, and special education and disability-system advocacy.
Through Rooted & Rising, Lina leads clinical strategy, program development, leadership coaching, and trauma-informed community initiatives — helping women build leadership identities rooted in their values, not in perfectionism or self-sacrifice.
“What we hoped for, when we needed it most, was quieter than a mission statement: support that met us where we already stood, without requiring us to translate ourselves into someone easier to help.”