Meet Cherie Taylor

We recently connected with Cherie Taylor and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cherie, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

My life story is one of resilience. My resilience comes from realizing that my life hasn’t killed me yet. I’m the youngest of three girls, born in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. The aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the viewpoint of people outside of New Orleans, about New Orleans is what made me realize I was poor growing up. I knew that my immediate family was not as affluent as my father’s siblings. We lived in the family home where my father, aunts, and uncles grew up, while everyone else moved out of the lower ninth ward to New Orleans East and the Lakefront. Still, my parents loved us the best they knew how to and did the best they could with what they had. I don’t remember wanting for anything that I needed. Life was still hard in other ways. My father fought my mother. When she’d had enough, she moved us out only to become terminally ill and have to move back in shortly thereafter. Once she passed away, a couple of weeks after my 11th birthday, things really seemed to go downhill. My sisters married and moved out. My grandmother passed away. Soon, it was just me and my father at home. He had different lady friends. I got close to one of them who stepped in as best she could as a step-mother to me, although they never married. When their relationship was rocky, she’d move out and that’s when my father seemed to drink more heavily and engage in drugs. There were times throughout my high school years when my dad would be horribly drunk. I’d have to put him to bed. He’d have random people coming in and out of the house all hours of the night. Sometimes, I’d be left at school very late, hours after dismissal, wondering if he was dead or just had forgotten about me. I didn’t feel safe at all. I felt orphaned sometimes. But to protect him, I didn’t tell anyone what was going on. Even in my college years, there would be times where he’d be gone for a couple of days at a time. Admittedly, the first chance I got to leave for graduate school, I did. And I never went back to live at home. When I graduated with my Master’s degree, I took a job in Houston, TX. A couple of years later, I got married. Sadly, within a year, my father also passed away. In my life, I survived a lot of abuse and neglect, physical and mental. I contemplated suicide more times that I can remember, but my fear of God and my faith in God sustained me. He sent me help when I needed it most. I survived all those rough years and although I know that I have trauma from it, I believe that God didn’t bring me out of it and this far to give up on the dreams that he has placed inside of me. I’m here for a reason. There is something that I’m meant to do and I believe it is to help people. Sure, sometimes I get down, especially when I face tough challenges, but I encourage myself through prayer, attending church, listening to inspirational music, writing, and reading books. My resilience therefore, comes from surviving, having faith, and believing that there’s more living and giving that I am meant to do.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I attended Xavier University in New Orleans and studied Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology with a minor in Spanish. I took several American Sign Language Classes and had a double major in Education for a time. I had to drop the Education major, however, because some of the classes were only offered one time per year and would conflict with my major classes for Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology. I graduated Magna Cum Laude and was accepted into Louisiana State University Medical Center and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Upon receiving some bad advice from a mentor, I declined my admission into LSU Medical. I sorely regret that decision. Acceptance into that program was an honor because it was highly competitive. I wish that I had gone. Still, I graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with honors and received a Master of Science degree in Communicative Disorders.

My goal leaving graduate school was to work as a bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist in Houston, TX, working specificially with over-represented/over-identified children in the special education system. I also wanted to obtain my Doctorate, become a college professor, and own a private practice. I have not achieved all of my goals to date, but I have had a successful career. I’ve worked in a variety of settings, including schools, nursing homes, home health, and private clinics. I’ve served as a supervising Speech-Language Pathologist, Clinical Educator, Director of Therapy, and a Lead SLP for a school district and a home health agency. In 2023, I opened my own private practice and started investigating doctoral programs. I am currently working as an independent contractor and I have a clinical office in Humble, TX. I have a new goal to expand my practice in the near future. I am currently developing speech therapy products on Teachers Pay Teachers and I’m writing a book.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back, I think that the three qualities or skills that were most impactful in my journey were perseverance, having faith, and believing in myself. The advice I’d give someone early in their journey would be to never give up on themselves. Seek help when needed, cry when needed, journal everything . . . ideas, feelings, fears, prayers, and keep moving forward, no matter what.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

The Dream Giver is one book that has played an important role in my development. What I gained from this book is that God has given all of us a big dream and that dream is not for us, it’s for everyone else. Our dream is not something for us to take hold of and keep to ourselves. Our big dream is ultimately for the good of others. We are all ordinary people, meant to do extraordinary things in this world. I want to help people. I want to impact lives of children and their families, and the community at large.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://abcspeechllc.com
• Facebook: @ABCspeechtherapyservicesllc