Stepping Stones of the Roaring Fork Valley

Stepping Stones conceptualizes our impact through our theory of change:

If we provide intensive mentoring and supportive services for high-need youth in the Roaring Fork Valley, and serve as a community hub for families, schools, and community partners to improve youth connectedness and advocate for youth…

Then youth will be better equipped to build pro-social relationships with family and peers, engage in school, address trauma, and avoid risk behaviors…

Which will lead to improved life outcomes for youth (mental and physical health, educational attainment, employment, ​reduced substance use, reduced recidivism), an increased sense of community ownership and leadership, and a flourishing, unified Valley.

Our holistic program model incorporates the following key components:

Mentoring. Stepping Stones maintains a 10 to 1 youth to mentor ratio. 98% of our currently mentored youth have been involved for more than 1 year. Studies demonstrate the profound impact of mentoring, including improved educational achievement, reduced substance use, and the promotion of positive social attitudes.

Safe Space. Our drop-in centers are open year round, five days per week: Mon., Tues., Thurs. and Fri. from 3-6 pm, and 12 - 6 pm on Wed. We also run extended hours on holidays and when school is not in session.

Basic Needs Services. We provide daily home-cooked meals, transportation assistance, access to laundry and shower facilities, as well as clothing, shoes, school supplies, and hygiene items. We are the only organization providing these services to youth in our region.

Educational Support. We help at-risk youth remain engaged in school, and facilitate social-emotional learning that enables our youth to thrive. Our staff facilitates weekly programming within local schools, and communicates weekly with school counselors, ensuring our youth receive the support they need to succeed.

Skill Development. Our staff works closely with each participant to identify individualized goals, such as securing stable employment or overcoming substance use. All mentored youth maintain quarterly goals, which they pursue with mentor support. In 2021, our youth achieved 288 self-identified goals in the areas of housing, employment, education, social-emotional skills, resiliency, health/wellness, substance use, justice system, and family engagement. These goals help youth feel a sense of self-efficacy, and serve to develop consequential thinking.

Community Connections. We facilitate linkages with employment, therapy, athletics, and more to help youth thrive. In 2021 our staff facilitated 275 linkages for our participants.

Case Management & Crisis Response. In collaboration with our youth and families, we develop and implement multi-faceted and asset-based plans to ensure our participants' holistic needs are met. This includes considering each component of a youth’s wellbeing, from housing and food security, to mental health and academic supports. Through goal-oriented and measurable service provision, our case managers help empower youth to thrive. When our youth encounter crises like homelessness or suicidal ideations, our trained staff respond to ensure safety and comprehensive support.

Experiential Learning. We anticipate offering 100 experiential learning outings in 2023, including camping, yoga, trail maintenance, skiing, rock climbing, paddleboarding, arts activities, museum visits, service learning, and more. Our staff employs best practices in the field of positive youth development and experiential therapy to empower youth with challenging but supported experiences through which they build self-confidence, resilience, and pro-social skills.

Stepping Stones staff and volunteers have a broad background of interests, skills, and stories that enable us to meet the needs of the youth we serve. The majority of our staff are bilingual and bicultural, and mirror the breadth of the demographics of our youth. We provide extensive training for our staff in trauma-informed practices, restorative justice, and positive youth development to ensure they can effectively mentor our youth. Each staff utilizes our customized database to enter programmatic data on a daily basis, enabling ongoing analysis of metrics and outcomes. Through monthly case staffing and data meetings, we recognize patterns and identify gaps to improve the quality of our services. Annually, we monitor program growth and create strategic plans and goals. Our program develops collaboratively, with the diverse voices of youth, families, staff, and our Board of Directors driving strategic, long-term planning, as well as daily program activities.

We leverage strong community partnerships to offer comprehensive services that meet our participants’ needs. Our primary partnerships are with the families of the youth we serve. We act as a community hub, connecting families to resources, from immigration services to emergency housing to family therapy. We are asset-based in our approach to families; each family is welcomed to contribute their skills by cooking, volunteering, chaperoning outings, or bringing their individual skills and passions to the table by instructing groups on art, business, computers, or sports. By contributing to the wellbeing of families, we improve youth resilience and increase protective factors for our participants.

Many other partners contribute to the work we do, including schools, community organizations, service providers, and governmental entities. We rely on these strong partnerships to increase the success of wraparound services we provide to youth, as well as to bolster our financial sustainability.

Stepping Stones utilizes a number of goals, objectives, outputs, and outcomes to evaluate our impact. Envisioning these long-term goals and evaluating shorter-term progress on measurable outputs helps us to modify services as necessary to ensure we are on the right track to achieve our goals.

Within our logic model, the following are our indicators of success:

Goal: To increase protective factors, decrease risk factors, and improve life outcomes for youth (including educational attainment, employment, health, reduced substance use, reduced recidivism), and increase youth’s sense of community ownership and leadership to create a flourishing valley.

Objective: Strengthen youth relationships with caring adults through mentoring
2021 Outputs & Outcomes:
-Engaged 301 participants
-Provided 1,699 one-to-one mentoring sessions
-288 self-identified youth goals achieved
-95% of mentored youth were involved for more than 1 year
-98% of our participants reported having a trusted adult to whom they could go with a problem (Search Institute 2021)

Objective: Increase exposure to cultural and economic opportunities; develop skills and resilience; build prosocial relationships
2021 Outputs & Outcomes:
-6,453 drop-in visits
-275 linkages established with supportive services
-Provided 5 days per week of drop-in programming for 49 weeks
-136 experiential learning outings conducted
-100% of our mentored youth aged 15 and up are employed.
-98% of participants reported that Stepping Stones has a strong culturally-responsive environment (Search Institute 2021).