Mickey Barrett
Imagination Place Director

Though Mickey was raised in Virginia, her parents and Grandparents grew up in the Gadsden area.  Because of this Mickey spent most of her childhood summers and holidays here in Gadsden and realized then that she wanted to raise her own family here.  Before moving to California to pursue a degree in Child Development she attended Gadsden State as biology major and returned to live in Gadsden in late 2007 with her daughter Sarah.

Mickey Barrett is a former Elementary/Middle School Music and Art teacher and after school Science program advisor.  She worked in both public and private school programs serving at-risk inner city youth both in the Berkeley/Oakland area and in Los Angeles County as well as volunteering as tutor trainer for the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of California and as site supervisor, choreographer and costume designer for the California Children’s Choir.

She has been working as a professional development trainer in California, doing both educator convention workshops and in-service trainings, for the past seven years.  She is an endorsed trainer for the California School-Age Consortium, a former youth service trainer for the YMCA National office and served as a (NAYEC- SPAN Program) National Association for the Education of Young Children accreditation trainer for Crystal Stairs in Los Angeles.  Her most notable recent conference workshops were “Seeing into Science” a Society for Neuroscience workshop at the National Science Teachers Association’s 2007 National convention and as keynote speaker for the American Camp Associations 2006 West Coast convention.  As a professional development trainer and outreach coordinator she has worked with USC’s Biomedical Engineering department, the Mexican Cultural Institute, Long Beach Unified School District programs, Long Beach City College and LA’s Best among many others.  She has also guest lectured for the Child Development Department at both Los Angeles Community College and Long Beach City College.

Mickey is  a metal-smith and artist and was the recipient of the Marsha Lewis Scholarship for American Craft in 2002. Though most of her work is shown on the west coast a selection of her paintings and photographs are currently at William Colburn’s Iron Age Gallery in Fairhope.