Roca, the Chelsea nonprofit working to prevent violence, gets a royal visit

British royals Prince William and Princess Kate are in Boston this week for the Earthshot Prize, which gives million-dollar grants to people doing important work and environmentalism. During their trip, the Royals will visit Roca, which is based in Chelsea and works to fight poverty, racism and teen violence. Roca's founder and CEO Molly Baldwin joined GBH’s Morning Edition co-hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel to talk about the upcoming visit. This transcript has been lightly edited.

Paris Alston: We're going to get into the royal visit in just a little bit, but first off, for those who may not be familiar, tell us a little bit about Roca and the work that you do there.

Molly Baldwin: Roca's mission is to be a relentless force in disrupting incarceration, poverty and racism by engaging young adults, police and systems at the center of urban violence in relationships to address trauma, find hope and drive change. We work with 1,500 young men across Massachusetts, Baltimore, Maryland and Hartford, Conn., and young mothers. We work particularly with a group of young people who are engaged in violence and criminal behavior, who are not ready, or willing, or able at this point in their life to show up to another program, go to a job. You can't pay them to do things. But we know they can change, and we know they can build the skills to be the fabulous young people they want to be.

Our model is really based on identifying those young people, often with police and systems partners; going to find them, knocking on the doors many times as it takes to meet them, because they're really not ready to come to the program and say, 'hey, I'm here, let's go, let's get some help.' We build long-term relationships with them to build trust, and we teach them lifesaving skills, particularly around behavioral health. We've adapted cognitive behavioral therapy to a cognitive behavior theory approach, really teaching emotional regulation to young men and young women.

And what we're really looking at is teaching them that what they think and feel and do are three different things. And if they can learn to take an 8 to 12 second pause between what they think and feel, and what they do, then they can have agency and more choices. We've also come to understand that trauma affects the brain and keeps people in a reactive state. And we believe that if you heal the trauma, you free the person. And this process of safety, relationships, learning emotional regulation skills, and learning about work and education and parenting helps them heal their trauma and free them as people.

Jeremy Siegel: You are doing a lot of work with these young people. And as you mentioned, your organization has expanded too, it's not just here in Chelsea. At the point where you are now, what does it mean for you and for Roca to be having this royal visit today?

Baldwin: Well, first of all, it's extraordinary. It's a deep honor. We're really excited, obviously, to meet them just given who they are, but sort of diving deep into their work beyond climate change. They're very committed to addressing mental health issues, youth homelessness, addiction, early childhood, and also working with emergency service workers. I think there's a lot of synergy between the work they're doing to destigmatize mental health, to help people heal their trauma, and the work we're doing. We also have decided that the way to grow, rather than one center at a time and one city at a time, is to really teach others. And so we have a coaching institute that's national, the Roca Impact Institute. We're teaching other nonprofits. We're working with state departments of juvenile services, probation departments and police to help them work with young people at the center of urban violence and also to learn about our cognitive behavior theory approach that we call CBT Rewire.

Alston: So, Molly, what's going to happen during the visit today?

Baldwin: Well, we get to meet them for about an hour, which is great. We have the privilege of having sort of three small group discussions where we get to talk to them a little bit about the model and the brain science and hear about what they're doing. They will meet with one of our longstanding partners, Captain Dave Batchelor from the Chelsea Police Department. Then they'll meet with two young men and two staff who work with them, and hear about that work. We're sort of known for this relentless outreach because nobody really wants to come, and we just go drive people crazy. So they'll hear about what it's like on the receiving end, and how they use the emotional regulation skills. And then they'll get to meet two of the young mothers and two of the staff from there and hear about that work as well.

Siegel: How do you prepare for a royal visit? I was reading an article about some of the protocols that you might want to use when you're meeting someone of that status from British society. Do you like look those things up at all? Do you try to figure out what you're going to say and how you're going to act around them? What's that prep like?

Baldwin: Well, first of all, we're not totally sure how we got selected, but we think because there are some synergy here, and we're so excited — the team who works with the prince and the princess have been helping us — they very clearly want to learn about some specific things. So first of all, you're so excited, you've got to make sure you talk. And then you've got to make sure you don't say everything at once. So to parse that out a little bit is exciting. This singular visit will bring attention to the young people we work with who pretty much are left out of other discussions. There are awesome organizations working with young people at risk all over the country and the world. But really, for people who show up, singularly this will bring attention to this group and go, hey, they're here and they can change and they they deserve the support they need and it's possible it just takes a little bit longer. So that's pretty extraordinary.

Alston: So, Molly, Jeremy was talking about the protocols there and I was seeing a story where one of your youth workers was featured. I believe his name is Robert Foxworth, if I remember correctly. And he was talking about how he didn't look up any of the protocols. He was just going to greet the prince as he came. And there's all this fanfare, right? Because they are part of the royal family. They are very special people. But what's special about the people that they're going to be meeting at your organization today?

Baldwin: Oh, they're going to meet four extraordinary young people who've had the courage to look at the challenges in their life and to grow and to make changes. And for incredible staff members who go knock on doors and look for them and show up when it's hard. And then meeting with our captain from the police department. I believe, from everything I understand about them, you know, doing my own deeper homework on them and how they listen and what they're interested in — I think it'll be a really wonderful conversation between the staff and the young people and them. We understand that it's a responsibility to share those lessons.