Strategy

For the past 21 years, Roca has worked with disengaged and disconnected young people to support them to change their behaviors over time and to shift the trajectories of their lives to live out of harm’s way and become economically independent.

These young people are: in gangs, on the streets and in and out of prison; some have dropped out of school or are close to it; they are young parents, some as young as 12 and others with several children; and many are immigrants, far from home, left with memories of unspeakable violence.

Everything that Roca does is based on what our young people need and what actually works to help them make changes that change their lives:

Roca’s theory of change is that when a young person is re-engaged through positive and intensive relationships they can gain competencies in life skills, education and employment.

How We Do It: Roca’s High-Risk Youth Intervention Model
Roca has developed a comprehensive and strategic Intervention Model designed to support sustainable behavior changes that enable high-risk young people and young parents to move toward the outcomes of economic independence and living out of harm’s way.

Roca’s Intervention Model is based on a framework for change used in medical and mental health fields and includes:

• relentless outreach through transformational relationships (our intensive case management model)
• stage-based programming toward economic independence (life skills, educational and pre-vocational, and employment programming) and,
• work with engaged institutional partners.

How We Developed Our Model: Foundational Theory
Roca has taken Prochaska’s Stages of Change and adapted them for a very high-risk youth development model. Roca uses the stages of change as: 1) an assessment where young people are in relation to their readiness and/or willingness to change; 2) a guide to inform youth workers’ use of self in their work with young people; and 3) a foundation for designing engagement and competency-building programming that meets young people where they are.

Organizational Development and Capacity Building
The rigor of this model necessitates a strong organizational culture where learning, personal experience, leading with values, and having deep faith are essential. Roca utilizes a performance-based management system that is directly linked to the theory of change and doing whatever it takes to get young people to the outcomes. Roca operates from a business plan, is fiscally conservative, and successfully navigates changing social and political environments to ensure sustainability.