Learn more about the Connecticut Opportunity Project and its grantee partner organizations through media coverage below.
Senior Portfolio Director, Adhlere Coffy, highlights the obstacles facing young people in Connecticut who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing disconnection, and how this data can be used to inform positive change.
COMPASS Youth Collaborative CEO, Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario, was named one of Connecticut’s Top 25 Women in Business for 2024 by the Hartford Business Journal. Read her interview about her career and accomplishments.
Connecticut has a moral and economic imperative to get 119,000 at-risk and disconnected young people back on track. This group of young people can help fill 94,000 job openings in our state and bring in additional tax revenue to Connecticut.
Joshua Brown reflects on the impact that Domus Kids had on his life trajectory, helping him to get on track and beat the odds. He now works with Domus to re-engage at-risk and disconnected young people by providing them with the skills and resources to be self-sufficient. Brown's life experience and commitment to young people in Stamford led to his recent appointment a co-chair of the CT Conference of Municipalities (CCM) 119,000 Commission to help the state reach the 1 in 5 young people at risk of dropping out of high school or those already out of school and out of work. Read to learn more about Joshua's story and what he is doing for young people in Stamford.
Adhlere Coffy and Amanda Olberg, senior portfolio directors at CTOP, discuss in this op-ed how capacity building and improving nonprofit organizations can address Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis and help get young people back on track.
In this op-ed, Jackie Santiago Nazario, CEO of COMPASS Youth Collaborative, discusses her organization's relentless support to re-engage off-track and disconnected young people in Hartford. COMPASS helps young people develop key skills to be ready and willing to work and transform their lives, bridging a critical gap identified in Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis.
Mike Duggan, Executive Director of CTOP Grantee Partner, Domus Kids, writes an op-ed that calls attention to the crisis young people in Connecticut are facing. With 119,000 young people off-track or disconnected, there is a moral and economic imperative to help get young people in the state back on track through organizations like Domus.
Co-CEO of Dalio Education, Andrew Ferguson, speaks on Connecticut Public Radio's show, "Disrupted," about Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis, the recent report showing that 1 in 5 young people in Connecticut are at-risk or disconnected from prosocial institutions. The second half of the broadcast includes interviews with young people in Connecticut who got back on track through partnerships with CTOP grantee partners, Domus and Our Piece of the Pie.
The "Love Hartford Benefit Dinner" raised money for the Hartford Youth Service Corps, a program that supports young people (ages 16-24) in Hartford who are disconnected from work and school. The initiative was started by Mayor Luke Bronin's office and administered by CTOP grantee, Our Piece of the Pie (OPP). The benefit's fundraising efforts will support OPP in supporting 500 youth next year in the Youth Service Corps.
CTOP grantee partner, Connecticut Violence Intervention and Prevention, was one of seven organizations awarded a three-year grant from the state Department of Public Health. With this new funding, CTVIP will begin serving teenage girls in New Haven through the MakeHerSpace program. Other CTOP Grantees were also awarded the same grant, including Compass Youth Collaborative and Roca in Hartford.
Byron Pitts from ABC News' Nightline reports on the growing truancy crisis in American schools. In the video piece, he travels to Hartford, CT and follows Peacebuilders from Compass Youth Collaborative on a ride along and interviews program participants to understand the impact the program has on Hartford youth.
Roca Young Mothers program recently expanded to Hartford, CT, seeking to address community violence by supporting women who get caught up in it. To mark its two-year anniversary, Roca issued a report summarizing its work and the women who have utilized its services, including a panel discussion of the organization's impact on the Hartford community. Read about Roca's impact on young women in the Capitol region.
Connecticut Conference of Municipalities gathered leaders in education, nonprofits, and business to discuss Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis, a quantitative research report, commissioned by Dalio Education, on disconnected youth in the state. Executive Directors, Ben Dubow and Marc Donald, from two CT Opportunity Project grantee partners, Forge City Works and RYASAP respectively, weighed in on the problem of disconnection and offered their perspectives on how to address it.
Connecticut Conference of Municipalities hosted a round table to discuss the findings of Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis, a quantitative research study commissioned by Dalio Education. Executive Directors of Forge City Works and Our Piece of the Pie (OPP) weigh in on their work with disconnected youth and how to improve their outcomes.
Watch the Connecticut Conference on Municipalities round tables discussing the findings of Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis, a quantitative research report on disconnected youth in the state, commissioned by Dalio Education. Representatives from Connecticut Opportunity Project grantee partners participated on the panels and highlighted their efforts to re-engage disconnected youth and offered their perspectives on what needs to be done to address this crisis.
A recent report by Boston Consulting Group, commissioned by Dalio Education, reveals that 63,000 young people in Connecticut are disconnected from work and/or school. Hear from a young person enrolled in Compass Youth Collaborative, a grantee partner of the CT Opportunity Project, explaining the impacts the program has had on his life trajectory after reconnecting him to the Hartford community.
Domus Youth Service Corps members learned life and landscaping skills by sprucing up High Ridge Road in Stamford.
In wake of teen’s shooting death, Hartford activists, educators say city needs to work together to end cycles of violence. Ayelet Chozick, director of organizational advancement at the Compass Youth Collaborative, agreed that teens and young adults in the city are overcoming lifetimes of fear and trauma caused by witnessing and hearing shootings and losing friends and family to gun violence.
This program works to connect youth in the Hartford region with paid summer jobs that help promote career readiness and skill development.
COMPASS Youth Collaborative, led by CEO Jackie Santiago Nazario ’00, builds relationships with young people in Hartford.
Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario, CEO of the nonprofit COMPASS Youth Collaborative in Hartford, which works to deter gun violence by providing mentorship and after-school activities for at-risk youth, said she also believed the community conversations would have a positive impact.
Investing public and private funding in programs supporting Opportunity Youth is essential for promoting economic growth and social equity and for preparing the next generation of workers for a rapidly changing job market.
News 8 is taking a closer look at disconnected youth and the school-to-prison pipeline. It’s a disturbing national trend where at-risk youth are funneled from schools to the criminal justice system, and it’s a crisis happening in Connecticut.
Gun violence is a pervasive crisis in Connecticut, destroying lives and impacting families, especially in inner cities. In Hartford, police say there have been seven homicides and 30 shootings with gunshot victims in 2023.
Mike Duggan is the Kevin Bacon of Connecticut nonprofits. No one is better at playing “Six Degrees of Mike Duggan” than Duggan. I learned this within minutes of meeting him nine years ago.
The innovative partnerships, Rivera says, helps Our Piece of the Pie better serve area young people with such risk factors as being under-credited and overaged, involved with child welfare or the justice system involved, or being low-income, unemployed or under-employed.
The nonprofit’s chief executive officer, Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario, explained that when 16 to 20-year-olds enter COMPASS Youth programs, they aren’t at-risk; they’re already “in-risk.” Of those young people, 89% have experienced the death of a close family member or friend due to a homicide.
“We want to change the culture around using a gun to settle the score. However, you know, people have to help us out, you know, there are just too many guns out there,” said Leonard Jahad, Connecticut Violence Intervention Program.
Four months after being appointed, Reuel Parks resigned from the violence prevention coordinator position.
“Engage them with relationships so that they can become ready, willing, and able to take advantage of education, workforce, and be better in life,” CEO of Compass Youth Collaborative Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario said.
Following one of the deadliest years on record for gun violence in Hartford, the city is looking to create a comprehensive crime prevention strategy to curb the bloodshed.
New Haven is working hard to catch up with the people that are committing violent acts before they become violent, through several community programs.
“The neighborhoods, the family, the school system, everyone. We have one singular incident and its just a ripple effect like a snowball throughout the community,” says Leonard Jahad, the executive director of the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program.
Compass Youth Collaborative CEO Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario, a Trinity graduate, also said it saddens her to think certain lawmakers are working against protecting children from gun violence.
Our Piece of the Pie President & CEO Hector Rivera said the new opportunity will allow them to be more responsive and more timely in the work they already engage in daily.
