Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Letitia Browne-James
Hi Dr. Letitia , it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I knew from around the age of 12 that I wanted to be a counselor, specifically for children and families, after growing up in a house where there was a lot of resentment, animosity, and arguments between my parents, who remained married until I was a freshman in high school but lived together up until a few months after I went off to college. I knew they loved me, but I often felt torn and caught in the middle of their drama. It was not easy, and I felt alone most of the time. I wanted to help other kids like that through similar experiences. After I went to college at the Great Bethune Cookman College (BCC), now Bethune Cookman University (BCU) in Daytona Beach, FL, and majored in psychology, I knew this was exactly what I wanted to do. I worked at Boys Town of Central Florida after college, where I helped hurting children in the foster care system heal and cope with their traumas. Two years later, I started my master’s program at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where I pursued a master’s in Mental Health Counseling with certificates in Marriage and Family Therapy and Play Therapy and have been a licensed mental health counselor and two times board certified counselor in Florida. I am also a qualified clinical supervisor in Florida, which means the state approves me to supervise counselors through their journey to become licensed in Florida as a mental health counselor and/or marriage and family therapist, which takes them a minimum of 2 years to complete.
As a counselor and leader, I worked in community mental health for many years, DJJ, and child welfare settings. In 2014, I was finally able to pursue my Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision with a specialization in Counseling and Social Change at Walden University. I faced many barriers to achieving that milestone, but I did it. I defended my dissertation titled: “Black Individuals’ Lived Experiences with Racial Microaggressions and Implications in Counseling” in the Fall of 2018. In February 2019, I was hired as a full-time Online Assistant Professor at Adler Graduate School in Minneapolis, MN. I still work there and was promoted to the Coordinator of the Marriage, Couples, and Family Counseling program a few years ago. Last year, I was also promoted to Associate Professor.
Additionally, in 2017, I started my practice, Victorious Living Counseling and Consulting, LLC (VLCC). I only intended to have a small counseling practice serving adults, couples, families, children, adolescents, and families. However, it quickly grew into a group practice where I supervise multiple clinicians, including counseling interns, while they are seeing clients for the first time as a final requirement for their master’s in counseling. I also supervise master’s level counselors seeking licensure and those fully licensed in Florida. At VLCC, we help individuals, groups, families, and couples with outpatient counseling in an ethical and culturally competent way. Two years ago, I founded and became the President of LBJ Behavioral Services, Inc., a nonprofit organization in Orlando, Florida, that provides counseling for people who are uninsured and underinsured, that we are able to fund with donations and contracts, as a 501c3 organization. So basically, at the nonprofit, we do the same thing at VLCC but for those with financial barriers to getting quality mental health care. People often ask me how I balance all of these things, and I say it with lots of prayer, self-care, the love and support of my family, and the help of my amazing teams.
On a personal note, three years ago, my husband, Jonah James, Jr., and I became parents to our two beautiful children that we adopted from DCF’s overloaded foster care system. They were 6 & 7 at the time and are now 10 and 11 and are loved and thriving so well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No, the trauma I endured growing up in my household with my parents, who argued a lot, and being the only child that belonged to both of them because they both had children from previous relationships that were about 10 years older than me. It was and still is quite a challenge, which I will be talking about more publicly in my book. Unfortunately, my beautiful mother died suddenly from a heart attack in 2010, just four months after my wedding, and then my dear father died last July after a long and brutal battle with cancer. My beloved father-in-love also died from a long and grueling battle with cancer one year before my father, as well as two of my closest friends, one of whom I watched take her last breath. I also had my own health struggles; I grew up living with uncontrolled epilepsy. School was always very hard for me because I never had accommodations or any school for epilepsy. I suffered from epilepsy until I had a successful brain surgery in August 2012 after educating myself about better treatment options and taking my care into my own hands. I always tell people that although getting my doctorate was the toughest, it was the easiest time I had in school because it is the only degree I pursued without a brain plagued with seizures. I also had a near-death experience in January of 2020 while I was away in Nashville on business after 20 blood clots formed in my legs and traveled to my lungs, putting a strain on the lungs and my heart and causing me to go into cardiac arrest. I was rushed to a nearby hospital where I had surgery and spent a week in ICU and another week in the cardiac unit before I could come home. I have been under the care of a hematologist ever since. Our infertility journey was also painful, and then our adoption journey was quite the challenge as well. But I persevered above all of it.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Victorious Living Counseling & Consulting, LLC & LBJ Behavioral Services, Inc.?
Victorious Living Counseling & Consulting, LLC’s mission is to help individuals and organizations improve their emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and occupational health using individualized and culturally informed strategies for success.
Our mission is to fill gaps in mental health services for individuals and families in our community by removing financial barriers and delivering culturally competent and ethical care.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
People can contact me at drlbj@letitiabrownejames.com to learn more about helping and supporting my group practice, Victorious Living Counseling and Consulting, LLC. The website is www.letitiabrownejames.comg, and at info@lbjbehavioralservices.org to learn how to volunteer, work for, or donate to the nonprofit LBJ Behavioral Services, Inc. the website is www.lbjbehavioralservices.org.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.letitiabrownejames.com and lbjbehavioralservices.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorious_living_counseling and https://www.instagram.com/lbjbehavioralservices
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictoriousLivingcounselingandcounsulting and https://www.facebook.com/LBJBehavioralServices
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/letitia-browne-james/
