Nonprofit Pathways to Success received a $160 thousand grant from the WSFS Cares Foundation.
The grant will be paid out over a two-year period.
Pathways to Success will use the grant to meet the needs of underserved young people in southern Delaware and their families, from efforts to improve mental health to restarting the adverse childhood experience survey.
Pathways used to conduct the survey every couple years, but hasn’t had the funding to do so recently, according to founder and executive director Faye Blake.
“We are planning on doing that so we can baseline the 400 or so students that we work with to understand what areas are most prevalent, so that we utilize our risk to scholars in the very best way we possibly can by making sure that we are wrapping our arms around the most prevalent problems that our kids are having,” Blake said.
Some of the traumas Pathways aims to assist with stem from the COVID pandemic. The program aims to teach coping mechanisms and help students access a wide range of resources in and out of school. That includes offering young people supportive faces, from tutors to therapists.
“But if I'm having a mental crisis, am I really getting what I need? If I'm hungry, do I really get what I need? If I'm afraid to go home?” Blake said. “It is incredibly important to support them because they don't otherwise get support.”
Pathways has several projects and additional resources in the works, including asking retired therapists in the area to volunteer and lead group counseling sessions.
Parental approval is required for the services and opportunities they offer students.
Pathways aims to teach children about love, navigating the world and the importance of getting an education.
