Alum’s Passion to Fight Injustice Leads to Role for Anti-Trafficking Program

Bryttani Barker

Bryttani Barker ’14 ’15M is the Anti-Human Trafficking Program Coordinator at the Salvation Army in Central Ohio, responsible for leadership, oversight and direction of the Anti-Human Trafficking Programs in Central Ohio, with emphasis on Franklin County and other counties in the southern portion of the Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition service area.

After graduating with her B.A. in Sociology-Criminology from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University, Barker earned her Masters in Public Administration from the Voinovich School.

Supervision, Networking, Partnerships

In her current role, her primary job is to develop and implement victim services programs to meet the needs of trafficked persons, including outreach, emergency response, case management, therapy and drop in center. Her responsibilities include supervising staff and interns, as well as overseeing the Street Outreach program, the Well (the center for women trafficked in the sex industry), and emergency response to calls placed to the Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition 24/7 trafficking hotline. She also facilitates meetings of the Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition and works to maintain and build community and state partnerships.

Coalition

The Salvation Army is responsible for providing adult case management services to survivors of labor and sex trafficking as well as coordinating the Central Ohio Rescue and Restore Coalition. The coalition includes over 100 organizations and 200 individuals that work collectively to eradicate human trafficking. Since 2008 The Salvation Army has served over 750 survivors providing case management services, emergency assistance and survivor advocacy.

Challenge

“The biggest challenge I had to overcome which shaped my future was accepting that not everyone is passionate about injustices that are happening in society,” Barker says.

Once she accepted that, she worked to find ways to educate the less educated on the injustices. Since one of her favorite quotes is “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Martin Luther King Jr., her goal is not a surprise: “I live passionately everyday finding for the marginalized population whose voice is not heard.”