Chelsea Police Department 2012 Annual Report | Page 13

Safe and Successful Youth Initiative
The partnership funded by what’s known as Gov. Deval Patrick’s Safe and Successful Youth Initiative. The Department continued its partnership with ROCA and Neighborhood Developers to an effort to target the reduction of youth violence, through the facilitation of goals of the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative. ROCA is an organization serving the most high risk young people, which are primarily young men from the ages of 18-24, of which are previous offenders. Chelsea Police Officers were provided a training session hosted at the ROCA facility in Chelsea. The training was a comprehensive overview of the ROCA High Risk Youth evidence based intervention model which included all of the phases the ROCA officials utilize to transform offenders. As a part of the Pilot Program, a survey was developed to collect data and measure the experiences of sworn police officers as they relate to proven risk young people. The survey was meant to collect and report broad data concerning future program development. The participation was strictly voluntarily on the condition of anonymity with no identifying information revealed. The process began of identifying and evaluating proven risk males currently living in Chelsea and risk males who are currently incarcerated awaiting release. The progress of all engaged proven risk males were monitored and evaluated based upon Roca’s Intervention Model Participant Timeline. The Department launched the Violence Intervention Team which is comprised of a group of Chelsea Police Officers who completed the training with community based organizations within the city.
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As a part of the ROCA program, officials with ROCA drive around the streets of Chelsea at night reaching out to at-risk young people and trying to engage them in Roca programs.