About The Holding Frames
We're two people who know what it means to carry grief with no obvious place to put it—and we've built an organization to help communities find that place.
Meet the FoundersThe Story Behind the Work
The Holding Frames was founded by two people who know what it means to carry grief with no obvious place to put it.
Joshua Garcia
Co-Founder & Board Chair
Joshua Garcia fell into healing art after his community in Orlando, Florida was forever changed by the Pulse nightclub shooting in June 2016. As Director of Operations for the restaurant and entertainment group impacted by the attack, Josh watched his team and community struggle to find ways to process what happened. He discovered that art gave people a language when words weren't enough—a way to heal together instead of alone.
Caitlin Leavey
Co-Founder & Board Vice Chair
Caitlin Leavey was ten years old when she lost her father, FDNY Lieutenant Joseph Leavey, on September 11, 2001. In the years that followed, she dedicated herself to understanding trauma and recovery—first as a way to make sense of her own grief, then as a calling to help others. She became a licensed mental health counselor specializing in trauma, trained in EMDR and multiple trauma modalities, with over a decade of experience supporting children, adolescents, and adults navigating loss and adversity.
Josh and Cait met during a community art engagement project years later. They quickly realized they were seeing the same gap from different angles: the space between emergency response and long-term healing, where communities are left to carry their grief alone.
Together, they founded The Holding Frames to fill that gap.
Who We Are
Joshua Garcia
Josh brings operational expertise, lived experience as both a survivor and a community leader in the aftermath of mass violence, and a deep understanding of how systems work—and where they fail.
- Nonprofit leadership certificate
- Trained in Psychological First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid
- Served on the City of Orlando Pulse Memorial Committee
- Founding Board member, STOP (Survivors of Tragedy Outreach Program)
- TTAC Consultant for the Office for Victims of Crime
- Steering committee member, SAMHSA's Disaster Distress Helpline
- Co-founder, Aftermath Solutions (disaster recovery consulting)
Caitlin Leavey
Cait brings clinical expertise, a trauma-informed therapeutic lens, and firsthand knowledge of what children and families need when healing from collective loss.
- Licensed Mental Health Counselor
- Master's degrees in Counseling (NYU) and Urban Education & Leadership (Loyola Marymount)
- Trained in EMDR and multiple trauma modalities
- Clinical Affiliate, Integrative Trauma Program, National Institute of Psychotherapy
- 10+ years supporting children, adolescents, and adults navigating trauma and loss
- Featured on NBC, CNN, ABC, Huffington Post, and National September 11 Memorial and Museum
Together, they've responded to over 280 communities affected by disaster, violence, and crisis—learning what works, what doesn't, and what communities actually need when the cameras leave.
A note on structure: Josh and Cait serve as Board Chair and Vice Chair, but as a startup nonprofit, they're also the ones doing the work—facilitating gatherings, managing partnerships, building infrastructure, and responding when communities need support. As THF grows, they're building the team and systems to scale this work sustainably.
Why We Do This Work
We know what it's like to sit in a room full of people carrying the same grief and feel completely alone.
We know what it's like to return to "normal" when nothing feels normal.
We know what it's like to need something—anything—that helps you feel less stuck, less silent, less invisible.
Art gave us that. Not because it "fixed" anything, but because it gave us a way to process, to connect, and to turn our pain into something that might help someone else walking the same path.
That's what The Holding Frames does. We create spaces where people can gather, make something with their hands, and know they're not healing alone. We help communities hold space for each other—and we hold space for them.
Our Approach
The work is grounded in the FRAME Method (Finding Resilience After Major Events)—four evidence-based pathways Josh and Cait developed by combining clinical research, lived experience, and lessons from hundreds of community deployments:
PRESENCE
Creative action regulates the nervous system and helps people stay grounded in the present moment
PROXIMITY
Side-by-side art-making breaks isolation without requiring verbal disclosure
POWER
Radical choice at every step restores the agency that trauma strips away
PURPOSE
Creating messages for other communities in crisis turns pain into service
We're not therapists showing up with clipboards. We're not emergency responders handing out supplies. We're people who've lived this, studied this, and built a structured approach to help communities do what helped us: make something, together, that holds space for what words can't.
What Drives Us
We do this work to honor the people we've lost—and the people still here, carrying what happened, looking for a place to put it down.
Every frame painted is a reminder: you're not alone. You haven't been forgotten. And your grief deserves space.
Join Us
Whether you want to support this work, bring it to your community, or explore partnership—we'd love to hear from you.