SPRINGFIELD — About four years ago, Breasia Mitchell was living at a women’s shelter in Holyoke. She had been in an abusive relationship for years, and shelter staff there referred her to a violence intervention program for young women and mothers at Roca.

The nonprofit agency addresses urban violence by working with victims and perpetrators across locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Baltimore, Maryland.

Mitchell, now 24, didn’t go at first.

“Honestly, I didn’t think anyone could help me,” Mitchell said on Wednesday. She didn’t trust many people.

But staff at the Roca program kept reaching out to Mitchell, and so she got involved, although tepidly at first.

Then in 2023, the father of her oldest child broke her jaw, she said. Roca staff visited her in the hospital, helped her

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