Connecticut advocates and lawmakers were at the state Capitol on Thursday to talk about how to better support tens of thousands of at-risk youth ahead of the 2025 legislative session.
The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), United Way of Connecticut and the members of the legislative Education Committee hosted the event.
Earlier this year, CCM launched the 119K commission, a group looking to better support the tens of thousands of young people in Connecticut who are disconnected from education and the workforce and those in danger of becoming so.
The 119K Commission released its report in October, which included 22 suggestions for the state to improve the lives of at-risk young people.
Joe DeLong, who leads CCM, said one of the first things on that list is coordinating the state’s existing services.
“We would close the areas where people fall through the cracks,” DeLong said. “Too many times, we actually get services to a young person, and they move from one town to the next, and they're lost. The services completely drop off because they're not being tracked appropriately.”
Other early steps in the plan include better data tracking and creating a centralized app where young people can access resources. Read the whole report here.
According to DeLong, insight from Erica Soares, one of the young people who said she benefited from support programs, helped draft the plan. She advocated for its adaptation on Thursday.
“In 10 years, I hope we’ve built a system where access to opportunities is no longer based on zip code or status,” Soares said. “Universal access to mental health services, career exploration and skill-building programs must become the standard.”
Enacting the plan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But advocates say that without better support for its young people, the state would lose that money anyway—from missed tax revenue and the cost of social services, like unemployment.
And, DeLong said, the state may not have to cover the whole cost.
“What I will say to state policymakers, if you will make the appropriate investment to create aligned actions one and two, which is building out the right collection of the data and creating the infrastructure to build out that network of services,” DeLong said, “In the conversations that I've had with philanthropic groups all over the state and nation, I believe we can get aligned action three [the app] funded privately.”
