What We Do
The ROCK Center offers arts-based community programming for youth and families that focuses on cultivating resilience and mental wellness through connection, coping skills, and competency.
Our Approach to Mental Wellness
We believe that the challenges our students and communities face regarding mental health, substance misuse, and violence cannot be solved by traditional models of individualized talk therapy alone. Through our work in community, we have observed how isolation and disconnection from community not only exacerbate these challenges but often lie at their core. We believe part of the solution must be in creating spaces of authentic connecting where students practice being in community as an act of healing. Finally, we believe that all transformation and change begins within. We practice mindfulness as a means of empowering a deeper awareness of self, and cultivating the strengths and gifts we each bring to community. This is a model of mental wellness that expands the capacity for transformation.
Adapted from Margaret Blaustein and Kristine Kinniburgh's Attachment, Regulation and Competency (ARC) Model, our Peace Warriors programming is grounded in the 3 C's that support all youth in building resilience and mental wellness:
Connection, Coping, and Competency.
Connection
Through shared creative experiences, youth build meaningful relationships, practice care and collaboration, and experience a sense of belonging. These connections create a supportive community where young people feel seen, valued, and a part of something bigger than themselves.
Coping
Youth explore and practice creative, mindful, and movement-based strategies for recognizing emotions, expressing themselves, and responding to challenges. Developing a range of coping tools supports emotional regulation and helps youth adapt through challenges and
difficult experiences.
Competency
Youth build skills through art, music, storytelling, mindfulness, leadership, and other opportunities to create and contribute. Recognizing their strengths and developing confidence in their abilities builds self-efficacy—an important foundation for resilience.
Mission
Transforming lives through mindfulness, arts, healing, and a sense of belonging
Vision
Creating a model of mental wellness that expands access and the capacity for transformation.
"Being a youth leader gives me hope for our future as a world."
— Youth Leader
"Peace Warriors is so fun. You never get bored and you always learn something new."
— Peace Warrior