Katie Rosario sat on the gray couch in her family’s living room, aglow with Christmas lights on a November afternoon just before Thanksgiving. The 17-year-old playfully shoved her mother, Robin Barquest, as she described her Christmas plans. She was going to get up at 4 a.m. to beat her mother to the Christmas tree and get a jump on presents. “I am going to annoy the hell out of my mom with my stocking,” she said, laughing. Over an hour-long meeting with a caseworker, the daughter and mother shared jokes at one another’s expense and spoke with an undercurrent of affection that parents of teenagers often wish for. That’s new, they said. One year ago, Rosario, then a junior in high school, regularly refused to get out of bed. After earning mostly As and Bs as a freshman and sophomore, she was failing most of her classes at Roberts High School, said school counselor Coleen Van Dreal. Conversations with her mom often devolved into screaming fights. In desperation last spring, Barquest called the school asking if there was anything that might help them chart a better course. There was, she was told – a program called Intercept. Katie Rosario and her mother Robin Barquest share a moment of affection in their North Lancaster home on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) The program helps families work toward stability through intensive in-home visits – at least three per week. Workers teach skills like communication and coping, and help families get resources they need.  They’re available around the clock in case of a crisis so that families have an option besides police or the hospital. Many of the young people in the program have severe behavioral problems, sometimes including aggression. Some may be suicidal or self-harming. The goal is to keep kids out of overtaxed and more intensive programs like residential mental health treatment, foster care or juvenile detention. Intercept is run by Youth Villages, a national child services nonprofit that has a Portland office. The decade-old program has helped almost 300 children and their families in Salem. About 25 Salem families are currently participating, and the program has a waitlist of about 30. “We really believe that kids do well when they can. And in order for them to do well, they need to develop skills, learn how to access resources, learn how to solve problems, learn how to deal with frustration,” said Andrew Grover, executive director of Youth Villages Oregon. Grover said programs like Intercept can help at a time when Salem is grappling with multiple challenges facing young people, including a rise in violence and an increase in mental health problems. The organization is working to create a new team so they can serve about 20 more Salem families. “There’s not a silver bullet. There’s no one thing that any of us do that (will) be the effective solution,” he said. But schools, law enforcement and programs like theirs can work together “in a moment of crisis, or to prevent a moment of crisis.” A challenging start Rosario is the youngest of three sisters and grew up in a home that was often turbulent. Her mother was in an abusive and sometimes violent relationship for years when Rosario was young. Barquest lives with post-traumatic stress disorder and can’t work.  Rosario’s older sisters didn’t graduate high school. Van Dreal said Rosario was often very anxious in school. When she arrived at Roberts in the fall of 2021, she wore a hoodie with the hood ties cinched tight, leaving only a small piece of her face visible. As months passed and Rosario got more comfortable, the ties would loosen. When she finally stopped wearing the hood, there was a small celebration. But she continued to struggle with finishing full days of school, often becoming overwhelmed and leaving class. “A lot of times Katie would get very distracted on things that are happening at home,” Van Dreal said. By her junior year, Rosario said she preferred sleeping to dealing with school. She sometimes had conflicts with classmates who made fun of their peers in group chats or on social media. She didn’t know how to share with her mom about what was bothering her. Barquest said she didn’t know how to get Rosario to open up. Short of physically dragging her daughter out of bed, she felt without options to help. “I wasn’t really thinking about how it would make my mom feel,” Rosario said of her skipping school. They began working with Intercept in April. Rogelio Larios in July took over from another Intercept worker. The strain in the North Lancaster home was evident from the start. Larios said the mother and daughter couldn’t have a conversation without fighting. “They would just start screaming at each other,” he said.  Rogelio Larios, a worker with Youth Villages’ Intercept program, meets with Katie Rosario and her mother Robin Barquest in their North Lancaster home on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Larios, a former school counselor, worked with them so they would listen to each other’s perspectives and communicate when something was bothering them. Both had to learn how to have conflict without fighting. “I still slip up too,” Barquest said. “I’m not perfect but I try.” Larios began helping them advocate for Rosario at school, attending a meeting about her education plan, which allows her to leave class when she’s getting overwhelmed. At the start of her senior year, Rosario said she had a teacher who told her she couldn’t get up and go. “I ended up going off on a student and I just walked out,” she said. After Larios and her mother met with school officials, she said her plan has been followed, which has reduced her anxiety. She spends one class period working in the student cafe, on her feet making drinks. The movement helps, she said. She recently finished her signature drink, which combines peppermint, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice and white mocha. She calls it the “Sweetie Pie.” A transformation Van Dreal, the school counselor, said she wasn’t aware of Intercept before Rosario began working with them last spring. As a counselor at Salem’s alternative high school, she interacts with many social programs. She said some struggle to follow through despite good intentions because of employee turnover or limited resources. Intercept, she said, stood out to her because workers stayed in touch with the school and did what they said they would do over several months. Van Dreal said the effects are apparent. Rosario doesn’t leave class as often, she’s less angry and she’s better able to calm down when she’s upset. “We really see a different young person than we saw when Katie was a freshman,” she said. Katie Rosario, 17, holds a recently-adopted stray kitten North Lancaster home on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Intercept is intended to give families some of the benefits that might come from therapy, but is more comprehensive than weekly visits to a therapist could cover. “We’re not the ones to kind of come in and just work with the young person and think that if we can help them gain insight that …  things are going to be changed for the better,” Grover said.  “We think of it as a family systems intervention where we work with the whole family in the context of their home.” Their services are mostly paid for through the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. Youth Villages workers follow up with families six and 12 months after they graduate. Of young people who have graduated from Intercept in Oregon over the past two years, 89% didn’t have any trouble with the law, 85% were living safely with their family or independently, and 99% were in school, graduated or employed. As she neared graduation from Intercept in late November, Larios sat across from Barquest in the family’s living room, talking through any issue that was on their minds. He was setting up Rosario with a regular therapist. “I’m your training wheels and I’m going to be off,” he told them. Despite her challenges as a junior, Rosario was on track to earn her diploma at the end of the year. Lately, she’d been struggling with plans for her upcoming high school graduation. Her oldest sister lives on the streets and uses drugs. Rosario wanted her support at graduation, but was worrying about how to talk to her about showering before the ceremony. “If I hear anybody talking bad about my sister, I do not trust myself at all,” she said, balling her fists.  Her mom and her sisters were all the family she had, she said. As the first to graduate, it was important to her that everybody be there. Larios and her mother walked through possible ways to convey the message, including practicing beforehand or writing it down. “You still have some time to tell her, but the sooner the better in my opinion,” Larios said. “I know that’s going to be difficult but I really want you to challenge yourself.”  Barquest said she’s much more confident relating to her youngest daughter with the skills they’ve learned through Intercept. “It’s the best thing I ever did because it’s helped heal my relationship,” she said. “She won’t get angry and just shut me out.” Rosario, too, said she’s happier with her mom. “We communicate a lot better with one another,” Rosario said. The conversation veered into what Rosario might do after high school. She’s been thinking about becoming a therapist. “I’ve been through a lot,” she said. “I want to make sure the people I’m helping know they’re not alone.” Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241. 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