Washington County native Leslie Drake has spent over a decade working as a positive force for good in the world of mental and behavioral health. These days, she uses all of her skills, strength and compassion to serve as a crisis clinician for the Behavioral Health Response group, where she helps her clients through their toughest trials and leads them to a better future.

Drake says that she has always had a passion for helping others and set out from a young age to find the correct path to do so.

After graduating from Plymouth High School in 2012, Drake attended Elizabeth City State University, where she majored in psychology.

Initially, she paired her interest in psychology with social work, believing that the two would synergize well with her aspirations.

“When I initially went to college, I actually was going to double major in psych and in social work,” she explains. “I always felt like the two could work hand-in-hand for what I thought I wanted to do with my life. But as time went on, I started to really lean more towards the psych and behavioral health aspect of things.”

As she worked her way through college, Drake decided to think outside of the box and look beyond the standard route that her fellow psych majors often fell into.

Instead, she decided to dip her toes into the realm of volunteer work and crisis counseling, something that would chart a course for her future endeavors.

“At that point, I was still very much exploring my options,” she says. “So I decided to think outside of the box a bit and do an internship at a domestic violence center in Greenville. That really ignited a fire in me and helped me decide that I wanted to get into the crisis world.”

After her stint working at the domestic violence shelter, Drake says she began looking for other avenues to be a voice and an advocate for those going through hardships. In short order she began volunteering for the Crisis Text Line, a precursor and a vital stepping-stone to her later work in the industry.

“My purpose really came together once I started volunteering with Crisis Text Line,” she recounts. “That was where I got a feel for what I’d be doing later and better prepared me for what was to come.”

For the last two years of her career, Drake has been serving as a crisis clinician for the Behavioral Health Response organization where she serves as one of the compassionate and calming voices on the other end of the phone line...