Evaluation of Roca’s High Risk Youth Intervention Model

Roca's High Risk Youth Intervention Model - Implementation Evaluation

CJI is conducting a multi-year implementation study of Roca, Inc.’s Intervention Model for High Risk Youth. The evaluation is being conducted in Roca’s two Massachusetts locations: (1) Chelsea and its surrounding communities, where Roca has been operating for over 20 years and (2) Springfield, a new site that opened in July 2010. The implementation evaluation is documenting Roca’s model and assessing its efficacy in moving high risk young people toward the organization’s stated outcomes. Roca serves disengaged, disenfranchised young people who are involved with courts and correctional systems, have dropped out of school, are unemployed or cannot retain employment, and often are young parents, and aims to help them to change their behavior to shift the trajectories of their lives. The Intervention Model is based on a unique mix of numerous theories, such as the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change, Object Relations and Social Bond Theory and has four main components:

• Relentless outreach and follow up
• Transformational relationships (an intensive case management model)
• Stage-based programming such as life skills, educational and pre-vocational, and employment programs, and
• Work with engaged institutional partners.

Reports

• From Good Intentions to Strategic Interventions, November 2011
• Why Evaluate Roca’s Intervention Model, January 2011
• An Overview of What Works in Correctional Interventions, January 2011
• Initial Implementation Evaluation Report on Roca's High Risk Youth Intervention Model, December 2009
• Interventions for High-Risk Youth: Applying Evidence-Based Theory and Practice to the Work of Roca, January 2006