Alumni Today
Baker offers good will and social services to families in need housing, employment, child care, and life skills By Danielle Norris Tucked away in the hills of Evansville’s north side is Bryan Baker’s office (’02, MSW ’11), a cinderblock room papered with photographs and children’s artwork that conjures up feelings of hope and security—something the director of Goodwill Family Center has worked hard to instill for families who would otherwise be homeless. “We’re a family shelter that will accept any type of family,” he said, “whether they are single-parent families, same-sex parent families, or families headed by non-parent guardians.”
Baker
28 august 2013 USI Magazine
“ If it hadn’t been for some of the advisors and professors at USI, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said. “My heart will always be with USI because they helped turn a country bumpkin into… whatever I am.”
Overseeing the Center’s staff, programming, and facilities, Baker ensures meals, temporary housing, and daycare services (for children up to two years of age) are provided for as many as 10 families in transition. In addition, the facility’s programs offer assistance in finding permanent housing and employment, as well as teaching financial responsibility and life skills. “We genuinely try, whatever the family’s needs, to get those needs met,” Baker said. Baker is personally involved with each of the families, sharing their achievements and encouraging them to remain hopeful when they experience setbacks. Fortunately, celebrations are more common, as the Goodwill Family Center enjoys an 80 percent success rate in transitioning families from homelessness to self-sufficiency. His work at the Goodwill Family Center has personal significance. Growing up, he remembers
experiencing financial struggles in his own family. His mother worked in a furniture factory until it shut down, and his father was a maintenance worker and later a farmer. A first-generation college student from Salem, Indiana, Baker was a resident assistant in USI’s campus housing while earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology. Since graduation, he has worked for Ireland Home Based Services, the Southwestern Indiana Regional Council on Aging (SWIRCA), and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department. In search of further career advancement, he returned to USI to complete a master’s degree in social work in 2011. “If it hadn’t been for some of the advisors and professors at USI, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he said. “My heart will always be with USI because they helped turn a country bumpkin into…whatever I am.”