Today we’d like to introduce you to Daija Monroe.
Hi Daija, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Daija Monroe, and I am a Licensed Professional Counselor, entrepreneur, author, trainer, and mental health advocate from Richmond, Virginia. I earned my bachelor’s degree in psychology from Virginia State University and later received my master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Liberty University. I knew that I wanted to build a career centered on helping people, but each stage of my professional journey has helped me better understand what that purpose could look like.
Throughout my career, I have gained experience in school-based mental health services, crisis intervention, community mental health, forensic behavioral health, and outpatient therapy. Working in these different settings has given me the opportunity to support children, adults, and families with a wide range of needs. It has also taught me that people’s behaviors and emotional responses rarely tell their entire story. There is often trauma, grief, family instability, unmet needs, or another life experience beneath what is visible on the surface.
My connection to this work is also personal. I grew up in a single parent, low-income housing in Richmond as the eldest daughter in my family. I had an incarcerated father who was largely absent from my life, and I later lost my only brother to gun violence. These experiences gave me an early understanding of responsibility, family separation, grief, and what it means to miss someone who is no longer present in your everyday life. They also helped shape the compassion and perspective I now bring to my work.
My experiences with grief and separation eventually inspired me to write the interactive children’s book “Always With Me.” The book recognizes that children experience grief in many different ways. It may involve the death of someone they love, but it can also involve an absent or incarcerated parent, a deployed loved one, a family member who has been deported, or a friend who has moved away. I wanted to create an age-appropriate resource that would help children identify and express those emotions while reminding them that love and meaningful connections can remain, even when someone is not physically present. I was honored to discuss the book and its purpose with Jon Burkett during an interview on WTVR CBS 6 News.
As I continued developing professionally, I realized that I wanted to create something of my own that would allow me to combine mental health services, education, advocacy, and community impact. I founded Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting, LLC. I already had a clear vision for the business and earning my LPC shortly afterward allowed me to expand that vision and the services I could provide.
Today, Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting offers mental health services, immigration psychological evaluations, other specialized evaluations, professional workshops, trainings, and professional development opportunities. My work allows me to support people individually while also educating professionals and organizations on topics related to mental health, trauma, behavior, and the experiences people may carry with them.
Looking back, every part of my journey has contributed to where I am today, my upbringing, education, professional experiences, personal losses, motherhood, and continued healing. I have been able to turn many of the experiences that once caused me pain into work that helps other people feel seen, understood, and supported. I am still growing and expanding, but my purpose remains the same: to use both my professional knowledge and lived experience to create meaningful change.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has definitely not been a smooth road, but I was fortunate to be raised by a loving and dedicated single mother who worked hard to care for our family. Although my father was incarcerated and largely absent from my life, my mother remained present. She made sacrifices, provided stability, and modeled the strength and perseverance that I carry with me today. Her example showed me that difficult circumstances do not have to prevent a family from being filled with love, support, and ambition.
At the same time, growing up with limited financial resources meant that I did not always have access to professional networks or a clear blueprint for navigating higher education, licensure, and entrepreneurship. As the eldest daughter, I became accustomed to being responsible, helping others, figuring things out, and remaining strong even when I needed support myself. I had to learn how to enter unfamiliar spaces, ask questions, advocate for myself, and create opportunities that were not always readily available to me.
My educational and professional journey required a great deal of perseverance. I became pregnant my Junior year of undergrad. I completed college during the COVID-19 pandemic, when students were abruptly sent home and expected to finish their degrees while navigating an unprecedented amount of uncertainty. I later pursued graduate school while balancing employment, motherhood, financial responsibilities, and personal challenges. There were many moments when I felt exhausted, overwhelmed, or unsure of how everything would come together, but I remained committed to finishing what I started.
Becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor presented another major obstacle. I did not pass the licensing examination on my first attempts and receiving the same unsuccessful score more than once was extremely discouraging. I had already completed the education, clinical hours, supervision, and other requirements, so having one examination stand between me and my license was difficult emotionally and professionally. However, I continued studying, changed my approach, and took the examination again. Passing it reminded me that a delay is not the same as a denial and that one test result does not determine a person’s ability, knowledge, or purpose.
I have also had to continue growing professionally while navigating grief and healing personally. Losing my brother to gun violence changed my life and grief does not simply disappear because life continues. I have had to learn how to honor what I have experienced without allowing the pain to prevent me from moving forward. Writing “Always With Me” became one of the ways I transformed my personal understanding of grief and separation into something that could support other children and families.
Building Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting, LLC has brought a different set of challenges. Starting a business requires much more than being skilled in your profession. I have had to learn about business development, credentialing, marketing, finances, documentation, compliance, and the many administrative responsibilities that happen behind the scenes. I have often balanced growing my practice with working full-time, serving clients, raising my daughter, and managing everyday life. Entrepreneurship is rewarding, but it can also feel isolating when you are responsible for making nearly every decision and solving each new problem as it arises.
Motherhood remains at the center of everything I do. Balancing my responsibilities as a mother, counselor, employee, author, entrepreneur, and eldest daughter has required sacrifice. There have been times when I questioned whether I was doing enough in each area, but I have learned that balance does not always mean giving everything equal attention at the same time. Sometimes it means being fully present for what requires me most in that particular season.
The road has included grief, disappointment, financial limitations, self-doubt, and moments when giving up would have been easier. It has also included the love and example of a strong mother, the motivation I receive from my daughter, and the faith that has carried me through difficult seasons. My challenges have made me more resourceful, compassionate, and determined. They have taught me that resilience is not about never struggling; it is about continuing to move forward and refusing to allow difficult circumstances to have the final word over your life.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting, LLC?
Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting, LLC is a mental health and consulting practice with a mission to empower people to embrace their stories, overcome adversity, and move forward with purpose because what happened to them is part of their story, not the end of it.
At Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting, we believe that life experiences, mistakes, hardships, trauma, grief, and setbacks do not define a person’s worth or potential. Regardless of where someone has been or what they have endured, we believe healing, growth, and transformation remain possible. This belief serves as the foundation for our mental health services, clinical evaluations, and professional trainings.
I am a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia and am also licensed to provide telehealth services to clients located in South Carolina and Florida. Through secure telehealth, I provide individual counseling for concerns such as anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, life transitions, family-related stress, and emotional exhaustion. I am especially passionate about supporting women, mothers, eldest daughters, high-achieving individuals, and people who have learned to appear strong while privately carrying emotional pain.
The practice also provides comprehensive clinical mental health evaluations for immigration matters, including asylum, VAWA, U visa, T visa, hardship waiver, and cancellation of removal cases. These evaluations provide individuals with a safe, trauma-informed environment in which to share their experiences while documenting how those experiences have affected their mental health, relationships, and daily functioning. My goal is to produce reports that are clinically thorough, compassionate, and useful to the attorneys and legal professionals supporting each case.
Another major area of the practice is professional education. I provide workshops and professional development trainings for schools, agencies, businesses, and community organizations. Topics may include trauma-informed care, mental health awareness, grief, emotional regulation, cultural responsiveness, and understanding behavior as communication. My trainings are designed to be engaging, relatable, and practical so participants leave with strategies they can apply in their professional roles and everyday interactions.
What sets Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting apart is our ability to bring counseling, clinical evaluation, education, and professional development together under one purpose-driven brand. The word “Insight” is intentional because meaningful change often begins when we look beyond a diagnosis, behavior, mistake, or difficult moment and seek to understand the experiences beneath it. My professional background in school-based services, crisis intervention, community mental health, forensic behavioral health, and outpatient counseling allows me to bring multiple perspectives to the work.
I am most proud that Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting has developed into more than a traditional counseling practice. Each service is different, but all of them support the same mission: helping people feel seen beyond what has happened to them and equipping others to respond with greater understanding. Whether someone is receiving counseling, participating in an evaluation, or attending a professional training, I want the experience to be compassionate, culturally responsive, professional, and genuinely useful.
Ultimately, I want readers to know that no person should be reduced to the most difficult chapter of their life. Our stories may include pain, loss, mistakes, and adversity, but they can also include healing, resilience, transformation, and new beginnings. Monroe Behavioral Insight Consulting exists to remind people that their stories are still being written.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
The quality that has been most important to my success is perseverance. I have learned that success does not always belong to the person with the easiest path, the most resources, or the perfect plan. Often, it belongs to the person who is willing to keep moving forward when the process becomes difficult, uncertain, or slower than expected.
Perseverance does not mean that I never feel discouraged, overwhelmed, or disappointed. It means I allow myself to acknowledge those feelings without allowing them to make the final decision for me. When something does not work, I reflect, adjust my approach, and try again. I have had to do that throughout my education, licensure journey, career, motherhood, and the process of building my business.
My perseverance is also grounded in faith and purpose. I believe that the work I am doing is greater than any one obstacle, and that belief helps me continue during seasons when I cannot yet see the outcome. I may pause, regroup, or change direction, but I do not easily give up on something I genuinely believe I am called to accomplish.
Ultimately, perseverance has allowed me to turn difficult experiences into motivation rather than limitations. It is also the quality I hope others recognize within themselves: the ability to continue writing their story, even after a painful or unexpected chapter.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mbiconsultingco.com
- Instagram: mbiconsultingco
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daijamonroe
