Connecticut Opportunity Project

10/31/2024

CT’s unspoken crisis: Elevating the voices of young people

In this op-ed, CTOP Portfolio Director, Samantha Miller, underscores the importance of the final installment of the Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis report series entitled Elevating the Voices of Young People. This final report is based on interview data from 74 young people in Connecticut experiencing disconnection so that we can better understand and learn from the circumstances that led to their disconnection and hear what they need to succeed.

10/10/2024

October — a month to focus on improving CT children’s lives

In this op-ed, Josh Brown, tri-chair of the CCM 119k Commission and employee of CT Grantee Partner, Domus Kids, calls for more partnerships between across sectors to provide more supports to young people facing more obstacles to getting on the path to success. With more communication, collaboration, and support, young people can build resiliency to overcome their challenges. Read more about instances where CT is already providing these supports and the impacts they have.

8/2/2024

CT youth facing obstacles need additional support

In this op-ed, CTOP Portfolio Director, Amanda Olberg, highlights the data in additional analysis done by Boston Consulting Group showing young people’s wages at 22 can be linked to various risk factors and their previous educational attainment. Young people who are disconnected need intensive supports provided by community-based organizations to help them reconnect to education and employment pathways.

4/28/2024

CT at risk: Uncovering what young people say is keeping them back

The final report of the Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis report series includes the voices of many of the 74 young people interviewed for the project. It will reveal their challenges, the obstacles they face and the ways they have overcome them. Read more about the systems that are causing challenges for Connecticut's at-risk young people.

4/22/2024

Opinion: Going deeper in the data on Connecticut’s 119,000

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.

3/18/2024

Opinion: CT’s disconnected youth crisis has an enormous human, economic cost

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.

2/13/2024

Adhlere Coffy and Amanda Olberg: How to address Connecticut’s unspoken crisis

Adhlere Coffy and Amanda Olberg, senior portfolio directors at CTOP, discuss how capacity building and improving nonprofit organizations can address Connecticut's Unspoken Crisis and help get young people back on track. Read more from their op-ed.

10/13/2023

Dalio report counts 63,000 'disconnected' CT youth in every city and town. Now what?

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.

5/19/2023

Connecticut's Pathways to the Future: Investing in Opportunity Youth to Invigorate our Workforce

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.

4/30/2023

De facto institutions: In Connecticut 95.5% of prison inmates have mental illness history, report finds

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.

7/7/2021

A Better Way to Keep People From Going Back to Prison

Most programs that try to help formerly imprisoned people re-enter society and avoid reincarceration have been far from successful. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may help turn the tide.

4/14/2021

‘Tell Us What You Need to Succeed’

Barbara Dalio vividly remembers the meeting when she realized she had to pivot the Connecticut Opportunity Project (CTOP) to generate positive outcomes.