Who We Are

Need & Opportunity

The most pressing problems facing civil society today are the consequences of unattended youth: their anger, hopelessness, lack of positive options that lead to gang participation, unwanted pregnancies, and criminal behavior. 

The disenfranchised and disconnected young people exist on the fringes of society without the skills necessary to lead to self-sufficient and productive lives. They are separated and detached from school, their families and their communities and are more likely to become teen parents, involved with the criminal justice system, dependent on welfare, suffer from mental health and substance abuse problems, engage in violent behavior and/or be unemployed.

An estimated minimum of 10-15% of the total U.S. youth population will reach the age of 25 completely disconnected from education and employment, and face a lifetime of hardship*.  There are an estimated 8,000 young people not in school and unemployed in Boston and 70,000 statewide: numbers that continue to increase.  Nationally, this population has increased by 12% since 2000**.  If left alone, they will become a threat to public safety and/or live lives of desperate poverty, potentially incurring up to a $2 million in costs to society from incarceration***.

A multitude of excellent programs meet the needs of “at-risk youth.” But in reality, this broad category includes young people along a vast continuum of preparedness for education, career, and safety. At the top of the spectrum are programs which reach high school graduates who need help in their efforts to enter college and find career-track employment opportunities. A second tier of programs help young people stay in school and complete their high school degree. A third tier help high school drop-outs earn their GED and find employment. Finally, a fourth tier of programs focuses on keeping the most at-risk kids out of lock-up, safe from street violence, and into programs for substance abuse and basic literacy.  Young people in this fourth tier of need are most accurately described as youth in crisis or very high-risk youth. Many of these young people are drops-outs or truants, substance abusers, gang members, have extensive criminal records, are young parents themselves and/or come from broken homes without the income to support basic living requirements. More often than not, these youth are the ones who fall between the cracks of the very systems that were designed to help and protect them.  Few programs attempt to serve them and even fewer have demonstrated success in altering their life outcomes. This is Roca's work.

Roca shows up in the lives of socially isolated young people either rejected by other youth serving organizations or not ready to succeed in traditional educational and vocational programming, who need adults relentless in their lives committed for positive and sustained change, a place to belong, and opportunities to learn at developmentally appropriate phases

This target population represents the front end of the continuum of the 70,000 disconnected and disengaged youth and young people in Massachusetts, with other states presenting similar numbers of disengaged youth.  These young people represent those who are most often unable to participate in programs and work.  At the same time, they represent youth for whom there are only a few organizations that offer viable services, the majority of which have only recently emerged with potentially successful models.  These groups of young people also pose the greatest impact on public safety in the Commonwealth and across the nation. 

* Connected by 25: Improving the Life Chances of the Country’s Most Vulnerable 14-24 year olds. Michael Wald and Tia Martinez, Stanford University 2003

** Center for Labor Market Studies

*** Journal of Quantitative Criminology