Precious Brown

I would definitely say my baby, my daughter. She motivates me to keep going, to work hard. And just the effects that I've had on people throughout my life that I've encountered - they've always let me know how helpful and how supportive I was, and I'm like, I want to be that person for people. As a single mom who left a domestic violence relationship, I would say my most notable achievement is just my resiliency and not giving up. I work hard, I love what I do, and my daughter gives me that motivation to keep pushing forward.

The best career advice I ever received was basically about betting on yourself - taking control of my career, knowing my value, and being my own biggest advocate. This advice helped me so much because when I learned to advocate for myself, I became able to advocate for my callers. It's about understanding your worth and not being afraid to stand up for it, which translates directly into the work I do helping others find their voice and strength.

I would say to anyone entering this field: focus on building the skills that will make you valuable anywhere and everywhere. The crisis world is so small, but you make all of these wonderful connections all over the world. It's about developing those core competencies that translate across different settings and situations, and being open to the networking opportunities that come with this work. The connections you build in this field are truly special and can open doors globally.

I would definitely say the biggest challenges would be not bringing it home with you, which is ironically funny because I work from home. So that's one thing - maintaining that boundary between work and personal life when your office is in your house. And knowing that you unfortunately cannot save everyone, you know, the people that call the lines. But more so, just do your best to hope that they can make it another day. It's about accepting that limitation while still giving everything you have to support each caller.

I would definitely say having that integrity is most important to me. Working in the crisis field, you morally have to be morally sound. You know, just coming in with a non-judgmental attitude towards each of our callers, because again, we're not there to sit there and judge them - we're just really there to support them. So I would definitely say just having that integrity, and definitely the empathy. Those two values guide everything I do, both professionally and personally.