HomePostTopic: Kristin Barker

Kristin Barker

Parental love helps children gain the emotional health, behavioral skills, and academic success that unlocks social mobility.

The Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) is pleased to welcome two new team members, Mariah Thomas and Angelique Valentine. They will be program specialists for our BETTER WORK initiative.

BETTER WORK empowers communities to be the first line of assistance for local residents experiencing poverty and unemployment. The initiative brings together employers, nonprofits, and local organizations, creating a community support system that prepares people for work and helps them connect with local job opportunities.

BETTER WORK goes far beyond helping people to provide for their families financially. It encourages individuals to recognize their full potential and reconnect with work as a key source of dignity, purpose, and belonging in their lives.

In their roles, Mariah and Angelique are the first point of contact for BETTER WORK clients—many of whom have experienced significant bias and struggle to trust others. Because of this, Mariah and Angelique prioritize clear communication; consistent follow-through; transparency; and a strong, supportive presence.

Mariah and Angelique guide new clients through the BETTER WORK program, lead interview training to boost confidence, and manage volunteer support. One of the most impactful parts of their roles is meeting with clients one-on-one for career assessments, resume help, and mock interviews. Through these responsibilities, Mariah and Angelique are helping people take meaningful steps toward a better future. 

“Together, Mariah’s and Angelique’s combined strengths will make them highly effective in supporting our clients with their job search needs. They draw on their unique life experiences to empathize deeply with clients and understand the challenges they face while seeking employment,” said Kristin Barker, Vice President of Workforce Solutions at GCO. “We can anticipate more successful interviews and new hires, as clients feel genuinely heard and receive training that aligns more closely with employers’ needs.”

Mariah and Angelique each bring personal experiences and professional passion that make their positions at GCO especially meaningful to them.  As a former human resources specialist for the city of Columbus, Georgia, Mariah has a firsthand understanding of people who aren’t typically given another chance after facing life’s twists and turns.

“Every person on this earth deserves a second chance, regardless of their background and circumstances,” said Mariah. “The GCO team strives to understand the needs of our community and works to find creative and practical solutions to correct the unfortunate realities that exist.”

Angelique has a unique perspective as a former participant in BETTER WORK’s Jobs for Life class, which helps students learn job skills, build positive mindsets around work, and form community relationships. During the class, Angelique discovered GCO’s commitment to the community and those who simply need a chance. In her new role, Angelique now has the opportunity to connect with people who feel misunderstood and yearn to make a difference.

“GCO is focused on the deeper issues. By addressing things like employment, education, and family support, they help create real, lasting change. It strengthens families, neighborhoods, and even future generations,” said Angelique.

Learn more about how we’re expanding opportunities for work in Georgia communities:

Circles in Columbus

A focus on the contributions of the African American family

BETTER WORK Columbus delivers Marketing Yourself training to clients of our non-profit partners upon request. This training gives students insight into the perspective of an employer and what matters to them during the hiring process. They leave this training more hopeful and with a new understanding of steps they can take to communicate well when they are looking for work. If you have clients who are preparing to look for better work opportunities in the Columbus area, they will benefit from this training. Send an email to kristin.barker@georgiaopportunity.org to schedule a training for your organization. 

Barbara Moushon, Circles Coordinator at Open Door Community House shares below why this program is helpful to Circles Leaders in training.

“We are very grateful for the Marketing Yourself training brought to our Circles Group here at Open Door Community House. Our group was very engaged with this presentation and they appreciated the information Kristin and Inez shared. They are still talking about this training. The topic of ‘What Employers Want’ explained to our group why it is so important to stop and really reflect when preparing for an interview. This information explained that the interviewee needs to analyze why an employer would want to select them.  The concept of knowing themselves and what they really want before going into an interview was a powerful message. Our clients understood that they need to spend a little time in self-reflection prior to seeking a job.” –Barbara Moushon

 

A belief in working together is key

 

BETTER WORK Columbus is connected with groups and organizations across the Chattahoochee Valley. These groups include both the Chattahoochee Valley Poverty Reduction Coalition (CVPRC) and the Mayor’s Commission on Reentry. A belief in working together in the local community as the key to eliminating poverty in our city is the common thread binding these groups together.  More specifically, the CVPRC holds a shared vision to reduce the poverty rate in the Chattahoochee Valley by 50% over the next 10 years.

BETTER WORK Program Manager, Kristin Barker, plays a leadership role in both of these groups. As forthcoming chair of the Reentry Commission, she works to identify key people in our community and bring them together to address the needs and concerns that impact individuals who are justice-involved. This is necessary to further the mission of preventing recidivism by strengthening cooperation and collaboration between law enforcement agencies, corrections and supervision entities, resource agencies, social service and non-profit organizations, faith-based non-profit organizations, community members, and other private and public stakeholders. Embedded in the group’s purpose is a focus on finding key people in the community and bringing them together to address the needs and concerns that impact individuals who are justice-involved.

 

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

Local Connections and National Partnerships

It is these local connections and national partnerships like Jobs for Life that will allow Columbus to discover the high-impact strategies needed to support families in poverty and connect them with resources that will move them toward self-sufficiency.

Find more information about the Chattahoochee Valley Poverty Reduction Coalition and the Mayor’s Commission on Reentry online.

A Network of Partners is Growing in Columbus

Columbus, Georgia has over 11,000 citizens identifying as unemployed, but the number of available jobs is over 6,000.  What’s the problem? Why are so many people not working?

Kristin Barker serves as the program manager for BETTER WORK Columbus, and provides insight as to why there’s limited job access in the area.

Through growing partnerships in Columbus, the BETTER WORK Network will meet the needs of people where it will have the most impact – in their neighborhoods. One of our partners, Jobs for Life, will utilize their sites to help address the underlying issues creating unemployment.

We know that satisfying work has the ability to restore dignity, build communities, and reduce crime.

We are excited to see so many people working together for the good of helping people.

 

The BETTER WORK Network will meet the needs of people where it will have the most impact – in their neighborhoods.

How to Take Away Something Positive from the COVID Crisis

By Kristin Barker

The year 2020 has been difficult for everyone. It has caused organizations and businesses to pivot from their planned strategies and shift quickly to identify new ones. It has forced individuals to find new career paths and create new support structures. It’s kept us from our families and isolated us from the communities we are used to counting on. In short, it has been one tough year.

It has been the most difficult year I have seen over my lifetime. But I will say it has also been inspiring. I have been inspired by the ability of our community and its leaders to come together. Leadership in Columbus has been able to connect in new and sometimes surprising ways to support and meet continually changing needs. 

Betsy Covington at the Community Foundation and Ben Moser at United Way acted very early in the year to coordinate COVID Response calls to keep Columbus connected, positive, and focused throughout much of this crisis year. Their efforts and the efforts of others to join hands and find out-of-the-box solutions in the moment has been very encouraging.

While seeing these efforts gives hope to myself and (I’m sure) to others, our Hiring Well, Doing Good (HWDG) partners also know there will be many additional challenges to address and emerging issues to tackle in the future. We began to talk about the shifts that were happening with our own efforts in Columbus. We heard about the new practices that our business and nonprofit partners were having to adopt and the heightened needs that continue to arise among the populations we serve. 

Our subcommittees began to ask, “What can we learn from our ability to pivot in 2020 that will allow us to react more effectively and responsively in 2021?” This question led us to develop a series of events focused on The Changing COVID Workforce. 

Our first event in this series will be held on January 21, 2021. This event will address Economic Forces During a Pandemic: How COVID is Shaping the Labor Market. During this event we examine the labor-supply gaps that exist and look at business policies and practices that impact workforce participation. This discussion will set the stage for later events and will consider the need for possible shifts in training and hiring practices. 

Our second event in the series will be on March 24 and will examine how we leverage our community assets to mitigate the impact of COVID. Betsy Covington and Ben Moser are going to speak during this event and help us think through what our community did really well in 2020. We will discuss how we can leverage what we have learned to navigate 2021 and to improve our community in the future. The final event on May 19 will focus on maintaining the strength of our workforce.

All three of these discussions will help us prepare to successfully repair our local economy in light of the COVID-related adjustments we have been forced to make along the way. We need to be sure that businesses (large and small) can prosper while keeping all people in our community safe and avoiding as much collateral damage from this virus as possible. 

There are also some existing issues that COVID has shined a light on. In comparison to other areas of the country, Columbus has very low average wages. This has created a situation locally where national stimulus efforts may harm our local economy disproportionately. In some cases, businesses have shared that their challenges in hiring additional labor have hamstrung their efforts to produce at scale or accept additional contracts. In other cases, employers have had to scale down production due to workforce restrictions. These situations open up an essential conversation about both average and living wages in Columbus, because it’s important for everyone to earn enough to support their families.

Ultimately, I see a heart at work in our community that is something I don’t believe you can find everywhere. There is a genuine and pervasive desire to work together for the common good. This is something special about Columbus, and I believe the Changing COVID Workforce event series will allow us to take greater advantage of our outstanding community spirit.

 

covid series

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