Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Destiny Huff, Lpc. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Dr. Destiny, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I’ve been in the mental health field for over 15 years now. I am a licensed professional counselor and certified trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapist for children. So, working with children, adolescents, and their families has always been my passion. So that is why I started HRG Counseling & Supervision, LLC. The business I’m going to talk about today is Destiny Huff Consulting, LLC. Destiny Huff Consulting, LLC started because of my sons.

In 2021 our oldest son entered Kindergarten in Louisiana, a predominately white area due to my husband being stationed there as an officer in the United States Army. While our son’s teacher was amazing, communicating and collaborating, the administration put us off and downplayed the support our son possibly needed. He had some perfectionistic tendencies, black-or-white thinking, and anxiety which I had disclosed to the school, but he had no diagnosis. He also had night terrors which impacted his sleep. Upon entering kindergarten, we immediately began getting messages and phone calls regarding “behavior”. He wasn’t hurting himself or anyone else, but his behavior was becoming increasingly more concerning to us as parents. Eventually, our son returned from winter break and was suspended 3x in two weeks. Each time he returned to school he was suspended. Both my mother and my sister are educators, and they said, “They aren’t doing right by him”. I have friends who are educators, social workers, and administrators in the school system, and they say, “They aren’t doing right by him”. This is when I contacted a black clinical psychologist and educational psychologist, while crying, asking for help because I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew my son wasn’t getting the help he deserved. My husband at this time reached out to the Superintendent because of his words, “Y’all are trying to kick my 5-year-old son out of school without helping him and I’m not going to let that happen”. After many tears and panic attacks, we finally got an answer, our son was Autistic. Being a mental health professional, I didn’t know how I missed it. Working with kids I didn’t know how I missed it. I would later find out it’s because I’m autistic and ADHD too and we didn’t see it because he and I are just alike.

After getting his diagnosis and getting higher-ups involved, we were finally able to get a special education evaluation. That was a battle too though. The evaluator didn’t want to communicate with our son’s psychologist. Everything was punitive and didn’t focus on helping him and instead focused on punishing him. Finally, we aquesed and said just write the IEP. Our son’s teacher quit because the district was horrible towards her and then he got another teacher who quit before the school year ended as well, same reason. We had an opportunity for our son to finish school a week earlier and we took it to avoid any more trauma. During this time, we had an advocate assist us, who was family support with EFMP, she informed me that I had what it took to take on this battle and that I had what it took to advocate for my son. As a mental health professional, I can tell you that myself, my husband, and our son could have qualified for a PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder, diagnosis. That is how I became a non-attorney special education advocate.

After we moved to our new duty station in Georgia, we spent the first half of his 1st-grade year working with his new IEP team to create a safe environment for him at school. Thankfully we had an amazing IEP team, and I’ll never forget what the School Psychologist said, “he needs to know that school is a safe place, he needs to know that we want him here”. Eventually, he did and we were able to have him in a comfortable place where he wanted to go to school and felt they wanted him there. Also, during this time I sought out my diagnosis and realized that a lot of my struggles aside from being a parent that caused that period in our lives to be so stressful was that I was also Autistic and ADHD and didn’t know it. I had been accommodating my whole life.
During that time, I also sought out all the trainings and organizations that I could. I found the Master IEP Coach program and completed that. This helped me feel comfortable enough to start Destiny Huff Consulting, LLC to prevent families from going through what my family went through.

I found Autism in Black and the Black Collective Advocacy Network and sought to train at the conferences. I found Your IEP Source with Dr. Brandy Tanner and joined her community to access resources. I eventually came across Partners in PROMISE, the only nonprofit special education organization that supports military children and their families and was asked to join their staff to support military families. Eventually, this led me to COPAA – Council of Parents Advocates and Attorneys and I completed their Seat 1.0 Training.
After providing trainings for years on mental health services I became comfortable with providing trainings on special education topics specifically on how to be neuroaffirming and how to support neurodivergent learners’ mental health in school settings. What has given me a unique perspective on the families I support is that I am a parent of neurodivergent children. I am a mental health professional. I also am late diagnosed Autistic and ADHD myself. All of that experience has helped me support my families and understand what they are going through in the process.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I stated this in my previous question but I became a non-attorney special education advocate after my oldest son entered into the public school system undiagnosed and we had to fight to get him the support he needed. I support parents of neurodivergent learners at the IEP table by either conducting a document review (IEP Review, Special Education Evaluation, FBA, & BIP) and providing feedback for them to take back to their IEP Team or via my Advocacy and Consultation Package where I review all the documents and write parent input statements and parent concern letters for them to send to the school, lastly, I do attend IEP meetings virtually. I do support families in all 50 states. I also provide training to schools, organizations, and parents on IEP/504 Advocacy, supporting learners’ mental health in the school setting, and neurodivergent and neuroaffirming practices.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A family came to me seeking support for their learner. The district was predetermining (where they have an unwritten policy or rule that they implement) the learner’s placement which would be an alternative school. The learner had worked really hard to attend a typical high school with their peers and was very resistant to this, as were the parents. I had not tackled a situation like this before, which I was upfront about, but I was confident via meetings and documentation we could get the learner to the place they wanted to be. After continued documentation on the parent’s behalf, document review and research on my behalf, and several meetings were able to get the learner full-time in the school he wanted with his peers. It taught me resilience because it revolved around constant communication and documentation regarding the states policy and honestly just holding the schools feet to the fire regarding their obligation and responsibility to this learner. I am very proud of how we were able to get that learner what he needed in that specific situation.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Research. It took ALOT of research. What is the current algorithm? What is necessary for engagement? What is the ratio size for a post? How many reels? How often? I recommend one: figuring out your audience. Are you supporting parents, educators, administrators, related service providers, or all? What is your niche? Mine is special education, autism, adhd, anxiety, mental health, and being neuroaffirming so that is what all my content is geared towards. Follow accounts that have similar content or approaches so that you can learn from their approach. That is what I would recommend.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.destinyhuffconsulting.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/destinyhuff_iep_advocate/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086179467473
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/destiny-huff-lpc-cpcs-iep4038034b/