She established the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, a pioneering rehabilitation center for African-American female "delinquents".

Hampton emphasized vocational education, and women were trained in morality and housekeeping in preparation for careers as wives or domestics.

Barrett gradually adapted to the system at the Institute, and she was especially influenced by a novel about a cultured and advantaged woman similar to herself who devoted her life to social service.

[1] Soon after she married, Barrett began holding an informal day care and sewing class at her home in Hampton.

[2] In 1902, the Barretts built a separate structure on their property to house the Settlement's numerous activities, which included clubs, recreation, and classes in domestic skills.

They received assistance from Hampton Institute students and faculty, who also found several philanthropists — who were mostly from the northern U.S.A. — to fund the settlement.

[1] In 1908 Barrett helped to organize, and was the first president of,[4] the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

[1] For several years after 1911, the Federation gradually raised money for the establishment of a residential industrial school for the large number of young African-American girls that were being sent to jail.

[1] With advice from many prominent social workers and especially from the Russell Sage Foundation, the school developed a program that stressed self-reliance and self-discipline.

The school had academic and vocational instruction, visible rewards, "big-sister" guidance, and close attention to individual needs.

She personally managed the parole system, by which girls who demonstrated sufficient responsibility were placed in carefully selected foster homes.

These girls also were given jobs and were supported by follow-up services such as ministerial guidance, a newsletter called The Booster and personal letters.

Her childhood had equipped her to deal with the socially important white women who controlled the trustee board and who were able to influence state legislators to appropriate funds for the school.

[2] The school became a model of its type, with many successful rehabilitations of young women who were able to find employment and get married after being released.

[4] Barrett's image was included in the 1945 painting Women Builders by William H. Johnson as part of his Fighters for Freedom series.