Siblings Together USA Umoja House In partnership with other community agencies and families, this balanced approach to care and services promotes the best rehabilitation of juvenile offenders toward reforming their behavior in the context of increased accountability, expanded personal competencies, positive youth development and enhanced community restoration. The use of residential facilities in the community will allow youth offenders to live in a home-like environment with structured and supervised care in the District of Columbia. The Siblings Together USA, Inc. will utilize the best practice model for the delivery of an array of enriched culturally sensitive services, including recreational, rehabilitative, educational, mental health, medical, recreational, aftercare supervision, residential placements, and mentoring/monitoring support in a nurturing and structured environment, while ensuring a continuum of care that builds on the strengths of youth and their families and the needs of the youth, family, agency, the courts and the community in the least restrictive setting consistent with the protection of the public.
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Our Core Values Include

• To provide a safe, secure, and clean environment where the care and control of our youth is our top priority.
• To respect each youth and recognize that they have the potential to live as law-abiding productive citizens in our communities.
• Providing programs to assist youth in meeting their individual needs, while promoting a reduction in maladaptive behaviors and increasing overall physical, emotional, and cognitive development.
• At STU, our strength and major resources is our staff, and our relationships must be based on openness, trust, and mutual respect for our residents.
• We will acknowledge our core values with recognition of the need to demonstrate accountability.
• Maturity, good judgment, effective communication, and teamwork will be the backbone to all our decisions.

STU 10-BLOCK MODEL OF YOUTH DEVELOPMEN:
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STU strongly believed that in response to this growing concern over the future of youth, Siblings Together USA, Inc. (STU) has implemented a 10-Block Radius Model where young people are provided opportunities for Positive Youth Development, Education, Training, and Leadership Development, while also reconnecting them with the community that will support them through their transition into adulthood and beyond. The model focuses on rebuilding the familial and communal infrastructure that is so imperative to the development of our youth. The model requires redefining responsibilities, as it relates to youth development, and increasing the quantity of role models who can assist in the teaching of youth, strengthening the communities surrounding the youth, so that they in turn can empower and support the youth that are left in their care, once they have emancipated from the foster care system.
           
The model will create:
 

1. Lifelong connections to family which can be supplemented by a strong social network of support, as well as,

 

1. Teach youth how to achieve competence in building relationship needed to participate successfully in family and community life as well as in the workplace.

The Program Expectations 
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The following are the basic requirements each resident must comply with in order to enter and remain part of the group home.

• Each resident must be involved in an educational/ vocational program
• Each resident must participate in all scheduled therapy services.
• All residents must be involved in social, recreational, and cultural activities as planned.
• All residents must attend group meetings and all scheduled medical appointments, to include dental and mental health appointments.
• All residents must participate in age-appropriate vocational and/or job training.
• Each resident must maintain appropriate personal grooming and hygiene standards.
• Each resident shall be encouraged to maintain contact with their biological family as required and approved by the Probation Officer. Assigned staff shall provide family support services to each resident.