Transforming Lives: U‑Rock’s Restorative Pedagogy with Youth in Conflict with the Law

Community extension programs in higher education often remain limited to service or livelihood training, leaving their pedagogical potential underexplored. This study, conducted in Academic Year 2024–2025 at St. Michael’s College of Iligan, Inc., investigates U-Rock, a restorative community extension initiative designed in partnership with Bahay Pag-asa to reframe extension program as education. Anchored in Critical Pedagogy, Restorative Education, Psychosocial Wellness Theories, and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy, the program integrates literacy, catechism, and wellness activities into structured learning experiences for the youth in conflict with the Law. Addressing existing gaps, the study engages juvenile offenders within HEI extension program, develops an interdisciplinary model that combines literacy, catechism, and wellness support, and reframes extension from service into pedagogy. Using a multi-method qualitative approach that integrates case study, narrative inquiry, and ethnographic observation, the research involved thirty participants including students, faculty, Bahay Pag-asa personnel, parents, and youth residents. Findings reveal that U-Rock empowers youth through literacy, moral reflection, and psychosocial resilience while simultaneously transforming SMCII students through empathy, civic responsibility, and applied learning. Ten salient themes emerged, highlighting Extension as Pedagogy, Operationalizing CHED Mandates, Literacy as Empowerment, Values Formation and Moral Reflection, Psychosocial Resilience, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Student Transformation, Institutional Partnership and Mission Alignment, Distinction from Conventional Models, and Contribution to Global Curriculum Discourse. Collectively, these insights demonstrate that community extension program can function as restorative pedagogy, advancing community rehabilitation and institutional mission, while offering a replicable model for higher education institutions to innovate curriculum and respond to the needs of significant youth in the periphery.