What this is

The young people we serve are not lost

They have been abandoned, criminalized and overlooked. They have been defined by courts, case numbers, school records and statistics. Every one of those is a real document about a real event, and not one of them is a person.

So we built a place where a young person gets to write the other document. That is not a slogan, it is the actual mechanism: twenty three weeks of writing, in their own words, that nobody outside the room ever reads.

Nobody sat you down and told you who to be. You drifted. That means you can steer.

Who is in the room

The kid in detention. The one on probation. The one expelled in October who has been home since. The one a mother brought herself because she could see where it was going.

And the people who refuse to give up on them: mentors, probation officers, teachers, volunteers who show up on a Tuesday when they could be anywhere else.

What a week actually looks like

A lesson that opens with a question instead of a lecture. Teaching in plain language about something they are already living. Written work nobody outside the program reads, including several questions answered silently and never collected at all. Then one thing to do before the next week.

That last part is the difference between a program and a conversation. Every week ends with something small and specific that can be done in seven days.

Three doors, one curriculum

• Inside. In the facilities we partner with, printable for units with no open internet.
• Online. On a phone, at their pace, with a live session every week.
• In a room. Weekly, in person, with food and people who know their name.

A young person who completes six weeks in custody does not restart at week one when they are released. The record follows the person, not the building.

More than one program

The Youth Intervention Program is the core, and it is what most people come here for. Two others grew out of the same work: Legacy, for young fathers, and The Hunt, a manhood formation curriculum for men who came up without one.

What we do not claim

• This is not therapy, and nobody here diagnoses or treats anybody.
• It is evidence informed, not evidence based, and the difference is explained in full on the evidence page rather than buried.
• Finishing does not mean somebody is finished. It means they have tools, people who will still pick up, and something on paper with their name on it.

Who built it

We The Revolt, Inc., a Florida 501(c)(3), under a five year agreement with DJJ Circuit 11 and growing into other counties. The people who wrote this curriculum came out of the rooms it is written for. That is not a credential. It is the reason the room works, because nobody in there is being explained to.