Education and Workforce Readiness Instructor – Young Women

Roca, Inc • Hartford, CT

3d • $60,000 - $62,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

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.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 1-3 years of teaching experience required
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Excellent group management and behavior modification skills
• Desire to work with street involved high risk young people
• Ability to outreach to, engage and motivate young people to increase attendance in educational programming
• Capacity to think and act intentionally and strategically to help young people change behaviors
• Creative and flexible problem-solving and thinking
• Excellent at organizing, managing and completing multiple complex projects and tasks simultaneously with thoroughness, accuracy, timeliness and good humor.
• Self-motivation, initiative, sound judgment, and commitment to ongoing learning are essential
• Ability to work as a part of a team.
• Travel around the service area
• Computer Literate
• Valid state issued Driver’s License and current Driving Record
• Willingness and ability to work outside of normal business hours, and Holidays and/or weekends as needed
• Ability to work with diverse cultures
• Strong attendance and high energy

Nice To Haves

• Post-collegiate experience teaching or working with a disenfranchised population is preferred
• Bilingual (English/Spanish) preferred
• Experience teaching ESL preferred but not required

Responsibilities

• Provide weekly attendance and participant target lists for educational classes to youth workers in team check-ins and meetings.
• Conduct general and targeted outreach to young people to increase participation in programming.
• Go on outreach with Youth Workers to meet and find participants who may require off site programming.
• Engage and build relationships with young people for the purpose of supporting change and skill development.
• Engage in intentional CBT based contacts with participants to help them identify and learn skills to shift negative behavioral cycles.
• Communicate with youth worker regarding participant barriers (substance abuse, street, domestic violence, etc.) and skills needed to be job ready.
• Follow-up daily with young people and youth workers regarding participation and progress in educational programming.
• Assess student level of engagement readiness (i.e. can they sit through a class, do they have substance abuse barriers, do they have street issues with other participants, etc.).
• Actively participate in the safety of the space for all participants through building coverage and communication across the organization.
• Administer educational assessments/tests for baseline and follow up intervals to determine educational levels and monitor educational gains.
• Design and deliver programming for young people at various levels of readiness to engage in learning (i.e. engagement, drop in, semi-structured; formal-structured).
• Implement high quality group and individual skill building programming including but not limited to: HiSET, ESL, Workforce Readiness, Digital Literacy, Financial Literacy, Driver’s Education, CBT, Healthy Habits, Parenting.
• Manage and oversee assessment testing and tracking for participants in educational programming.
• Support the development of appropriate individualized learning plans and coordinated educational supports for participants.
• Work with Assistant Director on weekly and monthly programming schedules including engagements and Family Night programming.
• Monitor program data to create target lists for programming completion.
• Maintain relationships with key partners as determined (i.e. testing centers, employment partners, etc.).
• Stay current and connected to networks or learning communities that inform best practices in educational programming.
• Maintain Efforts to Outcomes (ETO) data base through daily data entry of all work with participants, completion of assessments and all other tools as required for evaluation purposes.
• Utilize ETO reports and data to track participant progress and own performance in moving young people through change process and achieving expected performance indicator targets.
• Demonstrate mindfulness for resources and actively work to maintain their functioning.
• Participation in team meetings, participant reviews, program planning, trainings, etc.
• Participate in curriculum development and improvements as instructed.
• Understand, practice and promote the vision, mission, and values of the organization.
• Other tasks as assigned.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level