Some are taking college classes, others are completing work to obtain their GEDs, and others are making strides in areas that have nothing to do with academics—like getting their kids back or securing an apartment. The women from Inspired Sober Living who have taken part in the Ivy Empowers Lead and Succeed program are discovering inner strength and purpose they never knew they had and bettering their lives as a result.
Robin Harrington hears that and tries not to cry. The Human Services Program Chair at Ivy Tech Community College in Sellersburg is the architect of the Ivy Empowers Lead and Succeed program, which was initially designed to help students be better prepared for internships in the human services sector. But it’s evolved into so much more—a program for students and community members alike, where participants unearth truths about themselves that can lead to confidence, purpose and success.
“People need these skills,” says Harrington, a social worker by trade. “Somewhere we lost the interpersonal aspect of things. Somewhere, people have just lost that little bit of oomph to get out there and just have that confidence. It can help that employee, that person, feel like that they do have quite a bit to contribute, and not only at the company they're working for; because they're confident. They know how to communicate. They know the natural skills and talents they're bringing in, and they know how to articulate them.”
Thanks to a grant from the Circle of Ivy philanthropic group and support from the Ivy+ Career Link workforce development service, Ivy Empowers is now able to exist outside the academic calendar, so students don’t have to focus on the program and studies at the same time.
Harrington reached out to her colleague, a fellow community college professor and youth advocate, Curtis M. Wells, Jr, to collaborate on the Ivy Empowers pilot program, which launched with 20 students in 2024. It expanded in 2025 to a seven-week program welcoming both students and people from the community. In 2026, the program will expand to an eight-week program and accommodate 25 participants—13 current Ivy Tech students, and 12 people from Southern Indiana.
Strengths, goals and values
What is your mission? What is your purpose? What is your why? All easy questions to ask, but very difficult to answer. And yet, finding those answers is at the core of the Ivy Empowers Lead and Succeed program, which helps participants discover truths about themselves that they perhaps never knew.
“A lot of people come into this, not just in human services, but in any profession or area of academic study, and they don't really know their why,” Harrington says. “I've been doing human services for over 20 years. I've always known my purpose, and my purpose guides me in everything that I do. I know my strengths, I know my values. I'm in tune with my community. These things have helped me over the years. I tell students that for you to be able to help lead a client to assistance, you have to know self first. And those are some of the fundamental things that we do in this program.”
Participants in the program use the book “The Self-Aware Leader” by John C. Maxwell as a guide. They learn their strengths, they identify their values and they take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to determine their personality. They learn about goals and how to set them, learn about real-world issues affecting their community, and take part in a service-learning component that helps them put skills into action in a group setting.
“I’m all about just throwing folks together,” Harrington says. “These are people who don’t really know each other. But here’s the issue: how do we get bread to this food pantry? How do we do it? It’s about project planning, networking, and collaboration. I’m watching this in real time and seeing how it increases their confidence. Students learn how to advocate for themselves, how to speak with confidence. The only way you fail is if you don’t show up.”
The program highlights self-awareness, accountability, and allowing natural gifts and talents to shine through. True to its original purpose, Ivy Empowers Lead and Succeed has produced more confident and better-prepared internship candidates. But in some cases, it’s also been able to help transform lives.
Unearthing leadership skills
After graduating from Ivy Tech and going on to earn a master’s degree, Janis Barnett co-founded Inspired Sober Living for Women. They started with one house, and now operate five, housing approximately 55 women. Last spring, Harrington came to one of the houses to talk about Ivy Empowers Lead and Succeed. Ten women, Barnett says, enrolled in the program.
The results speak for themselves. “We now have two who are currently enrolled at Ivy Tech. Two others now have careers in the in the area, working at good places, making anywhere from $15 to $20 an hour. One of the women is now our administration coordinator—she does all the application interviews, lets us know who might and might not be a good fit, and is also taking care of rent statements and helping us with the business that we have,” Barnett says.
“I can tell you it has changed a lot of lives. All the women who have participated in that class, whether they made it to the end or not, got something from it. Some are now working on getting their GED so that they can go to college. One just got her house yesterday, so she will be getting her kids back in three weeks under her own roof. Another young lady just secured her apartment and just got engaged. The women still in our program now see themselves empowered with their own talents. They've tapped into leadership skills that they didn't even know they had.”
Those types of transformations weren’t the original goal of Ivy Tech Lead and Succeed—at first, it was all about students and internships in human services roles. But clearly, it’s capable of so much more.
“For me, this just reinforces what you can do with your own natural gifts and talents,” Harrington says. “The vales in our field—respect, compassion, empathy, value—when you’re able to put those into something curated, this is what you get. I hope we can continue doing this, because there are so many great things in Southern Indiana, and I want to make people fall back in love with their community and back in love with themselves.”
Are you or a loved one interested in what the Ivy Empowers Lead and Succeed program has to offer?
Visit the IvyTech Sellersburg Human Services website or email rharrington12@ivytech.edu.
