Leader Solutions is a capacity-building and leadership development program for those with particular challenges to being gainfully employed.
Leader Solutions was born out of our ProLead program in Haiti. Currently operating in Coastal Georgia, we partner with existing workforce development programs in the area to address systemic and individual mindsets that undermine successful employment.
Currently, unemployment in our region is seldom caused by a lack of opportunity but rather the result of past trauma, attitudes towards work, authority, responsibility, and negative self-perceptions. Leader Solutions addresses subliminal attitudes that sabotage employment opportunities and advancement. These attitudes can be cultural in nature or be connected to adverse childhood experiences.
The problem is not that workforce development programs and opportunities for employment don’t exist, it is that for many reasons, people lack the motivation to take full advantage of them. Leader Solutions guides participants through a journey of liberation from destructive mindsets and negative patterns of responding. It will empower participants to embrace personal agency in order to take advantage of employment readiness programs and job opportunities.
The History
In the spring of 2017 we sat down to create a leadership training curriculum in Haiti. We knew that in order for authentic and lasting change to be realized, it had to be motivated by an internal value system.
Now, in 2023, ProLead, (a Haitian acronym for “employee leadership”) has a coaching staff of nine that carry the culture and over 1000 ProLead certified employee leaders, that have completed the training and are ready to be “solutions” for business owners.
Bringing it to the US
With our programs in Haiti being fully locally run, we relocated and reconnected to our roots in Coastal Georgia in 2021. As we reintegrated into the community, we learned of the challenges to gainful employment that exist for those who are marginalized. We began to research and explore the possibilities of bringing a new iteration of ProLead to the US.
In 2023, Leader Solutions was born. In the fall, we completed two pilot projects with Job Corps Brunswick and Morningstar Family Services. We are currently evaluating the effectiveness and impact, with plans to take the insights and improve the program to be as impactful as possible. We plan to continue to partner with local workforce development programs in 2024 as well as offer Leader Solutions in public housing communities.