GIFT Life Coach

Roxbury Youthworks, Inc. (RYI) is a community-based nonprofit organization. Our mission is to help youth caught in cycles of violence, exploitation and poverty become self-sufficient. Within our mission we have developed a unique program specially geared to provide services to youth that have been or are involved with commercial sexual exploitation. This program is designed to prevent and/or reduce a youth’s risk of exposure to, and exploitation by, members of the sex trade industry.

Life Coaches will provide prevention, intervention, support, stabilization, advocacy, and therapeutic services for DCF-involved young women between the ages of 11-22. These youth have been identified as 1) currently involved in commercial sexual exploitation, 2) at risk of becoming involved in commercial sexual exploitation, or 3) in recovery from commercial sexual exploitation. Life Coaches are individuals who can, based on their own personal life experiences and/or professional/educational experience, appropriately redirect youth to adapt a healthier and safer lifestyle. The relationships developed between the Life Coach and the youth they are matched with is essential to the success of this program. Life Coaches will employ a non-judgmental approach designed to accept youth wherever they are on the continuum of sexual exploitation while helping them to build connections and relationships that will help support and stabilize them while preparing for their future. Development of a strong relationship between a Life Coach and a youth is critical; Life Coaches are the glue that holds together an often-fragile connection between the child and the vital services they need to succeed.