Niesha Nelson

I've been in the education field for 19 years now, and it's always been my passion since I was a young child. Currently, I work directly with parents in a program called Strengthening Resilient Families, which I developed during COVID when my personal mission and work mission needed to align. What we do is survey parents to see what their needs are, and then we journey alongside them - sometimes referring them to other organizations, sometimes bringing in workshops to help them build skills. I've created social-emotional workshops where we do things like make heating pillows with essential oils and teach stitching, but what parents don't realize is that it's mental health work. I call it 'backdoor learning.' The work is still in development stages because when you're dealing with parents, their needs are seasonal and change with the climate of the world. What I love most is that I get to meet people where they are, sit with them as long as they need to sit, encourage them to move, and help them start again from where they are. Sometimes I get to have a person hear something again for the first time. I work through out-of-school time, which allows me not to have to meet anybody's benchmarks but to contribute and work with parents in soft skills.