Re-Entry Coordinator na Roca

About Roca: 

Roca is a fast-paced, data-driven, and relentless organization that serves nearly 2,000 high-risk young people every year. Founded just outside of Boston in 1988, Roca operates a nationally acclaimed Intervention Model with five sites in Massachusetts and one in Baltimore, Maryland, and Hartford, CT.

Roca’s mission is to relentlessly disrupt violence by engaging young people, police, and systems to heal trauma, find hope, and drive change.

Over 37 years, Roca has learned that to impact urban violence, we must work directly with the young people and systems at the center of it. Roca’s Intervention Model engages young people at the center of urban violence in an intensive four-year program to address trauma, teach life-saving cognitive-behavioral skills, and break the cycle of incarceration and poverty that traditional youth programs alone can’t break. And, because it takes all of us, Roca also helps institutions like police and state agencies change the way they work with young people who are traumatized and living at the intersection of gangs, drugs, poverty, violence, immigration challenges, and involvement with multiple public systems.

Position Overview:

The Re-Entry Coordinator position at Roca is a full time position reporting to the Roca Director of Western MA. The primary duties will be to act as a liaison with the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department and Roca to oversee the Emerging Adult Re-Entry Initiative Grant.   This position will assist with the pre/post release outreach and programming support of incarcerated young people ages 18-24 years of age in Hampden County.

 General Responsibilities

• Ability to explain, apply, practice and demonstrate Roca’s Intervention Model, specifically Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT).
• Use Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT) informally, formally and virtually
• Ability to explain and role model the process of obtaining and sustaining employment through job search and overall workforce professionalism.
• Willingness to assist with other aspects of work, such as but not limited to, court engagement, work behind the wall, peacemaking circles, work with the community, productive and professional participation in meetings, etc.
• Continual learning, demonstration, practice and skills improvement of Roca’s intervention model
• Consistently enter accurate and timely case notes into ETO (Efforts to Outcome system) daily.
• Consistently enter accurate and timely case notes into the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department case management database TRAX.
• The ability to interpret ETO data as it relates to young people and understanding how data relates to a young person’s progress.
• The ability to adapt outreach efforts in accordance of data collected in ETO.

 Position Specific Responsibilities (Pre/Post Release):

• Maintain a caseload of young people and build transformation relationships in alignment with Roca’s intervention model.
• Demonstrate the ability to provide additional types of educational/vocational/life skills programming, in person and virtually, e.g. educational classes, ServSafe, upgraded workforce professional skills, parenting, healthy habits, driver’s education, and/or the ability to help with job placement.
• Strategically plan workweek schedules— including outreach lists for contact, programming needs, identifying if YP is in need of additional assistance and CBT coaching and constructive use of Track Books.
• Demonstrated expertise and ability to deliver specific aspects of education and/or pre-vocational training and programming.
• Ability to carry a caseload for participants that are in later stages of Roca’s Intervention Model, where applicable.
• Active engagement and collaboration with job placement team.
• The ability to educate and teach Roca participants in person, behind the wall, and virtually.
• Continuous improvement of curriculum quality and methodology for teaching in alignment with Roca’s Intervention Model.
• Responsible for the understanding, enrollment and administration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) process for released young people.
• Continually strengthen Engaged Institutions work with Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin & Berkshire County Sheriff’s Departments.  To include partnerships with probation, parole, police, corrections, courts, DCF and other agencies that the young people we work with may have interactions with.   
• Assist with EARI contract oversight.
• Assist with EACH Court and referrals.
• Organize and coordinate cross-site collaboration of Roca youth workers that will be engaging with young adults both pre and post release from jail or prison.  
• Request and organize offender release lists from HCSD and communicate names and contact information of released young people with Roca Springfield & Roca Holyoke sites.
• Ability to create circle templates and keep both circles and circle trainings, in prisons.
• In conjunction with the Impact Institute, this position will acquire an understanding of CBT delivery and training in prisons with Correctional Staff.
• Attend Jail Orientation and achieve Vendor credentials.
• Ability to work independently.
• Support teams and young fathers with ongoing DCF matters.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

Qualified candidate must be a highly detail oriented individual with and an understanding and drive to work with very high risk young men.  Specific skills required include:

• Bachelor’s Degree and/or equivalent work experience preferred.
• A minimum of 5 years of experience with the Massachusetts criminal justice system
• A minimum of one-year experience in administration of SNAP program.
• Must be able to qualify to work in a prison setting.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Highly skilled navigating within a prison setting.
• High Level of data management skills including the ability to track detailed program performance data and match performance outcomes to proposed payments.
• The ability to understand program outcome data and its impacts on program payment structures.
• High level of Emotional Intelligence and professionalism.
• Extensive knowledge of courts and both juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.
• Computer literate with proficiency in the use of Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook.
• Driver’s license and willingness to travel across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
• Bilingual in Spanish preferred but not required.