When Barb Dorsey joined EDEN on December 30, 1996 as a bookkeeper, she brought 27 years of accounting and banking experience to the agency. Today, she is a fiscal coordinator for the property management division and has maintained a solid decade of EDEN employment.
Barb’s responsibilities include working with vendors, paying bills, determining budgets for each of the agency’s three maintenance teams and negotiating contracts for cell phone services, refuse services and more. Her duties also include calculating rents, arranging move-in dates, notarizing paperwork, and working with managers and case workers at the 11 EDEN-owned group homes that serve the mental health population.
Barb goes beyond her fiscal duties by listening to group home tenants when they need a caring employee to hear their concerns. When tenants are upset or worried about their living situations, Barb explains, they might call her to express their concerns.
“I talk to them and calm them down,” she says. “I just listen to what they have to say and I try not to judge them.”
Barb’s empathy and willingness to help the mental health population has developed and grown throughout her time at EDEN. “I never worked with the mental health population before,” she says of her professional experience prior to her EDEN employment. “So it was a challenge.”
She soon overcame her initial apprehension, however, and now finds great satisfaction in working with and helping tenants with mental health illnesses. “I love it,” she says.
Management chose Barb for the employee of the month award in part because they recognize the knowledge, compassion and empathy she shows when working with EDEN tenants. They also appreciate her negotiation and bargaining skills. Barb’s ability to save the agency money means more funding can be spent on programs and tenants.
For Barb, one of her favorite parts about EDEN is accepting the challenge of working in a fast-paced environment that presents numerous and unexpected daily challenges. She is grateful to have found her place within an agency working to help the mental health population.
