Kayetrenia Nichols’ oldest son, Joshua, was a high achiever. He graduated in the top 10 percent of his class at Middleton High School, earned two degrees in four years at Florida International University, and was working in his dream job as a field engineer for Microsoft when he died in 2019 at age 24.
“He passed away in a car accident on Mother’s Day,’’ his mother says. “He was in the process of transitioning to move back to Florida from Texas, but he came home that weekend for Mother’s Day.’’
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Joshua NicholsSo when Kayetrenia Nichols created a nonprofit agency to help children in Hillsborough County become high achievers, she named it in memory of her son.
The agency’s mission statement is to “reduce generational recidivism in economic poverty, health disparities, reduce recidivism in poverty, involvement in the criminal justice and child welfare systems through the coordination of programs, counseling, and training.’’
Joshua’s Way of Hope counselors work with 175 parents and more than 490 children and youths to prevent teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and dropping out of high school and help them achieve academic success. The counselors use an evidence-based, top-rated curriculum developed by an expert in prevention and health behaviors.
“It’s very expensive,’’ Nichols says of the training.
Empowering children, youth to achieve
The nonprofit operates six programs for youths, including three funded by the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County.
A key focus for most of the programs is helping children, youth, and young adults develop into high achievers in life. The programs include Little Achievers, for pre-K to second-grade children in underserved areas or at-risk households; Achievers, for third through eighth graders, provides academic support plus behavioral and social training; Life Skills 360 Training Institute, which works on character and social skills to get ahead; and “Building a Stronger Me,’’ which teaches at-risk youth how to develop positive character traits and acquire valuable life skills to avoid negative involvement with the criminal justice system.
Another program for ages 13 to 23 concentrates on employment skills and self-sufficiency, focusing on mental, emotional, cultural, and attitude preparation for the workforce.
“Bascially, what we do is that we provide them with knowledge and skills training to help give them the tools that they need to be successful,’’ Nichols says. “So we do a lot of social and emotional and behavioral training to modify their behavior.’’
Parents are trained to be early advocates for their children in school and children are trained to be advocates for themselves in a respectful way, she says.
Nichols notes that professionals get training to elevate their work performance and grow in their jobs.
“But what if you get some of those skills at an early age and you keep building those skills?” she says. “You just think about communication. We teach them communication skills and each phase they go through, it’s layered, just adding on to those skills to give them techniques to use.”
That way, when they get to college they know to speak up, to ask the professor for clarification if they don’t understand a lesson.
Wherever they need to be
Joshua’s Way counselors go wherever they need to reach children and parents.
“We may see the kid in the aftercare program,” Nichols says. “Parents may elect to bring them into our office. We have a lot of staff that actually go out to their homes to see the kids. We have staff to see the kids before they go to football practice, volleyball practice. We meet them wherever they are because the main thing is we want to make sure that our services are accessible to the families.’’
Parents who attend the meetings and go through the training, despite working two jobs in some cases, are rewarded with “mock Joshua’s Way dollars,’’ they can spend at the store Joshua’s Way sets up regularly at its offices. The “mini-Walmart,’’ as Nichols calls it, has household items like dishes, pots, pans, and furniture that parents can buy with those mock dollars.
She recalls how one parent who relocated after fleeing domestic violence was able to get everything she needed for her kitchen.
“She started crying, saying that she never had real dishes before,’’ Nichols says.
The woman had always used paper plates, Nichols explains. With her mock dollars she was able to get a set of dishes and pots and real silverware.
“She even got a blender,” Nichols says.
Children’s Board support
Nichols founded the nonprofit in 2021, and it opened in January of 2022. They were basically self-funded at first, she says. Nichols reached out to friends and families and by January 2022, they had raised $30,000. They used the money mainly for scholarships for students graduating from high school.
She was able to secure a technical grant from the Children’s Board, which enabled Joshua’s Way to buy the curriculum on which their methodology is based. Nichols and her colleagues took classes offered by the Children’s Board for small nonprofit agencies on how to write grants and properly manage them.
“They offered two, one in the evening and one in the afternoon. We went to both,’’ she says.
Joshua’s Way of Hope continues growing, working with more and more families to help kids become high achievers – just like Joshua was.
For more information, go to Joshua’s Way of Hope and Children’s Board of Hillsborough County
This story is produced through an underwriting agreement between 83 Degrees Media and the Children's Board of Hillsborough County to spotlight programs and people that make a positive difference in the lives of children and families in Hillsborough County.