We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LaTasha Walker-Hall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LaTasha below.

Hi LaTasha, thanks for joining us today. Over the course of your career, have you seen or experienced your field completely flip-flop or change course on something?

In the beginning of my career as a substance abuse counselor I had no clue that I would still be in this field years later. I honestly thought this was just another job that would lead me to the next paycheck. I never would have imagined that me, the little angry girl who was still trapped in an adult body, the one who came into the profession with so much baggage and damage, the one who had so much doubt within self that I was self-sabotaging everything that was good for me would ultimately be the one that could and would be the saving grace for someone else who was incapable of saving themselves. I would discover that this was a part of the growth lying and waiting within me. I would have to say that this was a much-needed time of change for myself as well. I went into this profession as a pitstop and had no intentions of looking back and saying while I’m still here. I believe I was about a year and a half into my career as a substance abuse counselor at Blakley PDC, and I felt that nothing I was doing was worth the time I was wasting so I began to rethink my future and where I was going to plant my feet so that the roots I had would fall on good soil. I then made a phone call to speak with my mentor because I needed to make a change or else this would be the chapter of my life I would be stuck in and going nowhere. This was where life, as I once knew it, was changed for the better. I finally had grown into a real substance abuse counselor because I finally got it. That ahh ha moment turned on within my mind and heart. I realized it was never about me or my feelings, but it was about giving the gift of a second chance to someone who society deemed they didn’t deserve. I was placed in this position to help guild the individuals who had gotten lost along the way. This season would be called the recovery season for those who were ready for the ultimate challenge of change in life.

LaTasha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born LaTasha Walker in Akron, Ohio in 1979. Life didn’t start as smoothly for me as it did for a lot of other people. I would be the oldest child of both parents and I would learn later in life that my personality would be fit for the title of big sister. I would have to make decisions about my life that would make me doubt my identity and worth for years to come. I was well liked in school and would graduate in the top 10 of the class of 1998 of Buchtel High School. I would end up with four different scholarships to go to college and do something with my life or the lack there of. Off to college I would go but, I didn’t take it seriously, because I had already become a mother of two boys before graduating high school. I was already fitting into the stereotype of society as a teenage African American unwedded mother. I already was able to relate to those who would be in my inner circle for life. I would already be so comfortable with how life was going that I didn’t need anything else to satisfy me. Then life happened, domestic violence would be knocking at my front door because I was living in fear of things getting worse. Which they would quickly. When I went through that hardship of domestic violence, it changed my mind frame. I knew that my life would only change if I made the necessary changes in it, so I signed up for college at The University of Akron, I went into the education department. I would later withdraw from the University of Akron because I was allowing all the negative thoughts I had picked up from childhood and early adulthood to be attached to me as if they applied to the life I was set to live. These negative feelings and emotions would start working on my confidence and the ability to do a great thing in school. I felt that I didn’t belong in school. I would settle for a job instead of a career. I would accept working “dead end” jobs that was leading me nowhere but to the next paycheck, and it was spent before it ever hit the bank account. By 2000 I wanted to experience something different in life, something that would mean something to me and anyone who I would be serving. I would sign up for college, but this time it was a two-year community college that would open my eyes to a different way of life. I blinked and I was graduating with an associate degree in criminal justice and later moved to Macon, Georgia with my 4 sons to start a new life. After graduating from college with a two-year degree in criminal justice, I wanted to pursue a different career path that would give me some type of purpose in life other than being a mother. I began looking for employment in different fields outside of the fast-food industry. I looked for months to find something that would speak to me and allow me to show the skills that I had learned while in school. It seemed like the more I looked for the right/perfect job the more removed that I felt about really finding something I loved. I can remember looking in the newspaper and answering an ad that said help needed in the local prison. I felt why not and completed the application with very little hope that the department of corrections would even respond to me and my application. To my surprise I would get selected to complete the testing phase of the application which I was successful in completing and passing with a good score, which moved me right into the interview status and landing the gig of a correctional officer. I would spend the next 8 years working in an all-male prison facility as a correctional officer. I still would feel unfulfilled and began looking for other ways to serve in the social services profession. I would start working part time in a group home for underprivileged children in the custody of Georgia department of family and children services. At these different levels of confinement, I would get the chance to see how dysfunctional homes lead to children who learn to survive off survival and not love. These same children who were angry, abused, mistreated would grow up to be the same males and females who would walk the halls of the Georgia department of corrections.
Then one day it would hit me like a ton of bricks, while standing on the walkway leading to the chow hall an epiphany would play in my mind that what I was doing wasn’t helping the lost souls that would cross paths with me. I felt that I could’ve been doing something more than telling other grown individuals what to do during a 12-hour shift. I realized that day that I had a gift of listening and showing empathy to those who society thinks isn’t worth forgiveness or a second chance. I realized that I could build a connection with anyone no matter the background upbringing. I had the gift of meeting them where they were and then challenging them to do better. I went back to school, and I would get another degree in criminal justice that led to me being a counselor in the prison system. I was able to give these individuals a voice when they didn’t have one because of poor choices, impulsive decisions, and sheer ignorance.
I would work as a counselor for about 2 years then I felt another calling for my life which was to work with the children full time so that I could catch them before their lives were negatively impacted by the absences of parents, negative peers, the neighborhood gang, or anyone who didn’t have their best interest at hand. I felt that I could give them the chance to express their feelings and talk about things they couldn’t tell, just anyone. I stepped away from the corrections part of public service to start working and giving back to the children who didn’t have a mom nor dad in their home. I would remain working in the group homes with the children but again I felt that my purpose was still not being met. I felt that there was a missing link in the chain of the African American families in Macon, Georgia. I would answer an Indeed post about being a counselor in a prison setting working with individuals who had drug addiction problems. From there you now see the history of where it started, how it’s going, and how things will end up being planned out as we speak.
I am currently the program director of a treatment facility and working on my master’s degree in non-profit management at Wesleyan College so that I can gain all the knowledge of how to run a successful business that will be a pillar in the community. The services that we offer at the clinic now are one on one counseling sessions, methadone and buprenorphine treatment for our clients, connection with community resources in a variety of areas, Narcan for clients and its free, an unbeatable professional atmosphere, and individualized treatment plans. The clients feel comfortable speaking with staff and expressing their needs as well as not feeling judged for the choices that they have made.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

As for growing the clientele at the clinic, I’ve had the most success by reaching out to other partners in the community who would need the services provided. Those community partners are the local hospital ER rooms, the med stop offices, urgent care facilities, police departments, the judges, and prosecutors in the local court systems, as well as the department of family and children services. All these entities are places where the clientele who need the services of medication assistance treatment (MAT) would have a linkage capability. We have also chosen not to charge the clients for the intake process or to transfer in or out our services.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lessons that I had to unlearn was that I’m irreparably damaged by my past and working hard leads to success. I do understand that there will be painful events that will leave scars, true, but it turns out these painful events are largely erasable. I realized over the years that I tend to pursue happiness as if it’s something attainable, something I should be aiming to achieve. I have been chasing after “Being happy” since being an adult and I have yet to capture that whole fuzzy, good emotional feeling. In fact, it is about feeling good more so than feeling happy. I have even researched the meaning of happiness verses the meaning of having meaning in life. Meaning is derived from contributing to others or to society in a bigger way. The very thing I learned as a child is the mere thing that has caused me to change the way I think, feel, interpret, and respond to other people’s behaviors. When I look at the times, I felt the warm fuzzy feeling and associated it with “happiness” I was doing something that I liked or being with someone that I like. So, I now spend my time on living in the moment with the ones that make me smile and laugh and that is what I believe to be my happiness. The backstory is that due to childhood traumas and abandonment I was very comfortable with placing my so called happiness in everyone else hands, then expected them to make me feel something that they could never do because they didn’t know how to achieve my happiness. I had high expectations for those in my life and when they failed, I was “broken.” Today I no longer allow others to hold the pen to write in my journal of life. Only I have the authority to make changes and I will be happy on my own terms. I realized everybody’s expectations of happiness is different.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: hardbeingtashamac_2
• Facebook: LaTasha Hall
• Linkedin: LaTasha Walker-Hall