The City of New Haven s Youth Stat COMPASS Peacebuilders .

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Frederica Hart
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1 July 2017 Through the Connecticut Opportunity Project, educators, non-profit leaders, youth counselors and mentors, mayors, and young people have joined together to develop innovative solutions to improve the life opportunities of youth in Connecticut. In July 2017, the Dalio Foundation committed nearly $11,000,000 for the Opportunity Project s twoyear pilot phase to support the work of nine founding partners. These partners were selected, in part, due to their ability to collaborate statewide with local stakeholders. Over the next two years, the partners aim to collectively empower 9,500 young people by engaging dozens of non-profit leaders, public schools, and youth counselors, and more than 100 mentors, 200 youth, and 800 educators in communities across Connecticut. Here are the founding partners and their exciting ideas to engage young people:

The City of New Haven s Youth Stat program is a data-driven collaboration to reach young people in the community who are disengaged and may become disconnected from high school.

As part of the Opportunity Project, Youth Stat will launch the Freshmen Project to engage and support 400 overage, under-credited freshmen attending select high schools and alternative programs in

2 The City of New Haven s Youth Stat program is a data-driven collaboration to reach young people in the community who are disengaged and may become disconnected from high school. The collaboration includes the City of New Haven Youth Department, New Haven Public Schools, social service agencies, mental health professionals, community partners, and parents. As part of the Opportunity Project, Youth Stat will launch the Freshmen Project to engage and support 400 overage, under-credited freshmen attending select high schools and alternative programs in New Haven over the next two years. Youth Stat aims to support youth in achieving on-time promotion to the 10th grade by improving school attendance, engagement, and academic performance. Youth Stat will connect youth to a network of services that are specifically tailored to their individual needs, ensuring young people experience caring relationships and are provided with opportunities to succeed. Programmatic services include, among others, mentoring and tutoring provided by Reach One and Veterans Empowering Teens Through Therapeutic Support. To learn more, visit: COMPASS Peacebuilders build trusting relationships with Hartford s youth who are disengaged or disconnected. The program s Youth Development Advisors are from the community and have overcome many of the challenges faced by youth today. Regardless of the time of day or the issue at hand, the Youth Development Advisors are available for Hartford s youth. They serve as mentors and connect youth to school, support services, and opportunities for positive development. As part of the Opportunity Project, COMPASS will expand its program to reach 50 young people per year between the ages of 13 and 18. The program seeks to ensure youth are safe, healthy, and engaged in high school. Youth Development Advisors form meaningful relationships with young people, support them in developing positive self-identity and purpose, and help connect youth to role models, resources, and services. Also, a licensed clinical social worker provides supports, including cognitive behavioral therapies through group and individual sessions. To learn more, visit: 2

The Connecticut RISE Network empowers educators to achieve breakthrough results, helping all students realize and achieve their full potential.

facilitate networked improvement communities, bringing together educators working in different contexts to advance shared goals.

3 The Connecticut RISE Network empowers educators to achieve breakthrough results, helping all students realize and achieve their full potential. In collaboration with East Hartford Public Schools, Hartford Public Schools, Meriden Public Schools, and New Haven Public Schools, RISE provides programmatic supports, tools, and resources to facilitate networked improvement communities, bringing together educators working in different contexts to advance shared goals. The partnership includes East Hartford High School, Hartford Public School High School, Francis Maloney High School, Orville Platt High School, and Hill Regional Career High School, and 600 educators working incredibly hard to ensure every student graduates college and career ready. As part of the Opportunity Project, every RISE high school team will implement systems to support on-track success during freshman year and progress toward graduation;; this includes On-Track Coordinators to support at-risk or disengaged freshmen during the transition to high school. On-Track Coordinators will serve as an advocate and coach for students who may otherwise fall off-track by collaborating with teachers, administrators, students, and families. Schools will identify students demonstrating attendance, academic, social, and/or behavioral risk factors, and On-Track Coordinators support educators in providing personalized and immediate supports. Programmatic supports include, among other things, a summer bridge program for rising grade 9 students to build high school connections, engagement, and readiness. To learn more, visit: Domus works to create the conditions necessary for young people to get on a path toward health and opportunity so they can succeed in school and ultimately lead satisfying and productive lives. As part of the Opportunity Project, Domus Family Advocates will collaborate with Stamford High School educators to build strong relationships with 9 th grade students who are disengaged, providing personalized supports for 48 young people in and 96 in The goal is to form loving relationships, develop critical social and emotional skills, and forge positive connections with educators and community resources to help youth re-engage in school. The collaboration will build community among disengaged youth who rather than feeling marginalized will gain an important sense of belonging. Each Family Advocate will have a caseload of 20 to 24 youth, and they will be available to those youth and their families 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Family Advocates will use evidence-based service models, including the Sanctuary Model for trauma-responsive care, and ensure every young person receives services aligned to their needs. Programmatic supports include mentoring services, restorative practices, workplace readiness programs, and social and emotional supports to advance youth development. Also, the Stamford Public Education Foundation will provide mentors based on individual youth needs, and Stamford s Cradle to Career network will help connect youth with community partners for additional resources. To learn more, visit: 3

As part of the Opportunity Project, DonorsChoose.

4 DonorsChoose.org empowers public school teachers to request much-needed materials and experiences for their students. Teachers are uniquely poised to cultivate students passions and potential because of their expertise and frontline perspective regarding what students need to succeed. As part of the Opportunity Project, DonorsChoose.org will facilitate a statewide design challenge by inviting any public school teacher of middle or high school students in Connecticut to create and launch a project to address student disengagement in their classroom or school. The campaign will promote teacher awareness of student disengagement, empower teachers and youth to develop ideas to reengage students, create opportunities to share best practices, and celebrate teachers for their inspiring efforts and creativity. DonorsChoose.org will offer teacher surveys, webinars, and trainings, and expects to positively impact 1,800 students by engaging more than 400 teachers through the design challenge in To achieve maximum benefit for disengaged youth, the design challenge will incentivize projects that are student-led, informed by student voice, involve creative solutions by a collaboration of teachers, focus on helping students who have recently transferred between schools, and/or request additional resources for disengaged youth who are struggling with homelessness or health issues. To learn more, visit: GripTape gives young people the support they need to seize control of their own learning and achieve their full potential. GripTape believes that learner agency the ability to make intentional choices about and take an active role in the course of one s own learning is the key to a self-reinforcing cycle of learning and development. When youth have opportunities to drive their own learning and growth it leads to deeper learning and positive youth development. As part of the Opportunity Project, GripTape will directly engage at least 225 disengaged youth in Connecticut over the next two years. GripTape intends to partner with local youth-serving organizations across the state to propel innovative and effective models for disengaged youth to pursue their passions and foster youth-to-youth engagement. Through facilitated learning challenges, GripTape will give young people full control of what they learn and how they want to pursue it. Young people will receive micro-grants to design, execute, and reach their learning goals. GripTape will connect them with peer supports and adult champions to support them along the way. Challenges will lead youth to develop skills such as forethought, goal-setting, self-regulation, and self-reflection skills that will directly impact their present and future success. After successfully completing a learning challenge, youth will also have the opportunity to engage in a peer-to-peer network called the Youth Squad, which will provide ongoing opportunities for young people to engage each other in learning and peer support. To learn more, visit: 4

The Hartford Youth Service Corps (HYSC), a collaboration between the City of Hartford and Our Piece of the Pie (OPP), engages youth in their futures, education, and employment through a year of paid

HYSC gives youth their first opportunity to earn a paycheck, their first employment experience, and the chance to join a community larger than their city block or neighborhood.

5 The Hartford Youth Service Corps (HYSC), a collaboration between the City of Hartford and Our Piece of the Pie (OPP), engages youth in their futures, education, and employment through a year of paid service learning projects integrated with OPP s relationship-centered youth development, academic, and workforce development services. HYSC gives youth their first opportunity to earn a paycheck, their first employment experience, and the chance to join a community larger than their city block or neighborhood. As part of the Opportunity Project, HYSC will deepen and extend its program for 75 youth ages 18 to 24 who are exposed to crime and violence, live in gang-involved neighborhoods, and/or are involved in the justice system. HYSC s goal is to engage severely disengaged youth before they become disconnected, and if they become disconnected, to re-engage them through positive supports, love, and opportunities. Youth Development Specialists will support every young person, ensuring they are connected to an integrated set of services, including a paid employment experience through service learning projects connecting them to their community, combined with a meaningful relationship with a caring adult, a personalized plan based on youth needs and identified goals, and academic programming. Specific supports include community re-acclimation, diversion services, restorative justice, and hands-on learning opportunities. To learn more, visit: dfcyr.hartford.gov. Nutmeg Big Brothers-Big Sisters (NBBBS) provides young people facing adversity with strong and enduring one-to-one relationships that promote positive youth development. It has a 51-year proven track record as Connecticut s premier mentoring agency, having served more than 66,000 youth in high-quality, professionally-supported mentoring relationships. As part of the Opportunity Project, NBBBS will partner with imentor to launch the Connecticut Mentor 2.0 Project, offering a one-to-one mentoring program to support 9 th grade students enrolled in a public high school in Greater Hartford. Leveraging a secure e-platform and curriculum developed by imentor, NBBBS Mentor 2.0 Project will foster mentoring relationships between caring, supportive, college-educated working professionals and approximately 100 freshmen in Students participating in the program will improve attendance, strengthen both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, and develop plans to graduate high school, and enroll in and ultimately graduate from college. During the planning year, NBBS will form a partnership with a local public high school, recruit, enroll, and engage college-educated adults as mentors, and pair them with incoming 9 th grade students to serve as positive role models. To learn more, visit: 5

6 The Future Project collaborates with public high schools to unlock the limitless potential of every young person. Since 2011, Dream Directors have worked with New Haven educators to inspire youth to live lives of passion and purpose and learn how to change the world. Dream Directors are transformational coaches, leaders, organizers, and entrepreneurs trained to provide students with opportunities, skill development, and personalized coaching to challenge them to translate their passions into Future Projects, enroll their peers, and develop their belief in themselves. Dream Directors build possibility-oriented relationships across the school, enabling them to advocate broadly for student voice and agency. As part of the Opportunity Project, the Future Project will expand to Naugatuck and Norwalk to advance student engagement as well as a broader culture of possibility in Brien McMahon High School and Naugatuck High School. The Future Project aims to reach approximately 1,300 students in and 1,600 students in , across Naugatuck, New Haven, and Norwalk. Dream Directors will form meaningful relationships with youth, build communities of belonging, and provide individualized coaching, opportunities for student-led group projects, and skill-building workshops and events. As a result, young people will discover their passions, sense of purpose, and Future Ready mindsets and skillsets to thrive in school and life. The Future Project will also work to distill its methodology into scalable tools, training, and coaching that enables any educator to engage students and unlock the tremendous potential within their school. To learn more, visit: 6

Social Emotional Learning in High School: How Three Urban High Schools Engage, Educate, and Empower Youth

SCOPE ~ Executive Summary Social Emotional Learning in High School: How Three Urban High Schools Engage, Educate, and Empower Youth By MarYam G. Hamedani and Linda Darling-Hammond About This Series Findings