IMPACT
Over 1,200 young people have gone through the Café Momentum paid internship program. We have seen firsthand that young people can achieve their full potential with the right support and care.
Preventing youth from re-entering the juvenile justice system is not our main focus. Unlocking their potential is.
Through research and experience, we understand that recidivism is not an adequate measure for telling whole stories about whole people and complex systems of inequity, and therefore acknowledge the limitations of recidivism as a measure of individual or programmatic success. We recognize that success is not solely dependent upon individual choices but instead happens in the context of racial and socioeconomic disparities, decisions of parties within the criminal legal system, and access or lack thereof to reentry services and supports outside of the scope of our organization.
Each year, every Café Momentum location serves at least 80 justice-involved youth. We begin to measure youth participation in our program when a young person completes orientation and obtains their ServSafe certification. Once this initial phase is complete, we measure the youth's engagement and progression in our program through Momentum's four Tiers of Success. These tiers build self-sufficiency, self-advocacy, accountability, responsibility and confidence.
Components of the tiers include high school enrollment and attendance, workforce development, participation in mental health services and case management external referrals for services such as food and housing. Upon program completion and for three years after, we check-in with each intern every six months to evaluate our program's overall impact.
Our model impacts the local community by:
Increasing educational attainment for justice-involved youth
Improving employment rates for interns
Stabilizing housing through robust partnerships
Increasing access to mental health support
Building awareness of alternatives to incarceration by making youth success proximate to the broader community
AFTER-CARE CASE MANAGEMENT
As Momentum Advisory continues to scale its core work to provide justice-involved youth with resources, opportunities, and trauma-informed support, we commit to ensuring that the youth we have worked with during our pre-launch programming and pop-up dinners have a dedicated line of follow-up support, connecting them to local resources and partners, thereby maintaining the trust and relationships built.